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Sedo syndicates brokerage service through domain name registrars

by — Domain Sales 0 Comments

SedoMLS Brokerage enables registrars to offer Sedo’s brokerage services when a domain isn’t listed for sale.

SedoMLS brokerage service lander allows a Sav.com customer to hire Sedo's brokers

Sedo is now offering a brokerage service option through its SedoMLS service.

SedoMLS syndicates much of Sedo’s inventory through domain name registrars, allowing end users to buy domains directly at their registrar. SedoMLS Brokerage allows end users to hire Sedo to buy domain names they search for that are not listed for sale at Sedo.

Some registrars offer buy-side domain brokerage but many don’t have the capability in-house. SedoMLS brokerage lets them outsource this.

Sedo names four registrars that are using the brokerage service, but only one appears to have already implemented the feature. (Update: Fabulous and DirectNic rotate with other brokerage services. United-Domains has activated it on its .de site but not .com). When you search for an already-registered domain at Sav.com that is not listed for sale, Sav.com offers Sedo’s service. See the picture above for the user experience.

Customers apply for the brokerage service so that Sedo can qualify them. Then they pay a $69 fee and a 15% commission if the purchase is successful.

A product page for SedoMLS notes that SedoMLS partners earn 25% of Sedo’s commission. This is the first time I’ve seen this number made public, and I assumed they received 50% of the commission. However, SedoMLS partners can mark up MLS domains to increase their effective commissions.

15 end user domain sales led by .co

by — Domain Sales 0 Comments

Here are domain names purchased by end users over the past week.

Sedo’s top sale over the past week was a .co domain name for $28,000. The top .com was Olema.com for $15,000. It’s not every week that a .co bests .com, but such is the randomness of domain sales sometimes!

Here’s a list of some of the end user domain name sales from the past week. You can review previous end user sales lists here.

Circa.co $28,000 – It’s not apparent who bought this domain yet, but it’s clearly an end user sale at this price.

Olema.com $15,000 – Olema Pharmaceuticals is a preclinical biotechnology company that has raised over $6 million in funding. This was the top reported .com sale on Sedo over the past week.

ILFA.com €9,700 – International Legal Finance Association, which bills itself as “The global voice of commercial legal finance.”

Velocity.ai $5,700 – Velocity by Alex is an “AI-infused data analytics” tool. The company forwards it to the product page at AlexInc.com/Velocity.

AirSchool.com $5,500 – The domain name forwards to Plutwo.com, which is a platform for teaching online courses. I’m a bit confused as to if Plutwo bought the domain because Whois for the two domains shows two different countries.

Marathon.ie €5,000 – Marathon, an investment management firm based in London that is focused on institutional clients, bought the domain. It forwards it to Marathon.co.uk.

TechDog.com $4,999 – Tech Dog is an electronic handheld training device for dogs.

SureLocal.com $3,835 – A new service out of Scottsdale, Arizona, that enables businesses to offer curbside pickup services. This service is useful in our current era of “contactless” interactions.

CloudSphere.com $3,500 – CloudSphere is a software company that offers a “Cloud Governance Platform” that enables enterprises and cloud service providers to simplify and optimize cloud migration, management, and governance.

Comserv.com €3,400 – Comserv Wireless is a communications and safety equipment supplier based in Memphis, Tennessee. It specializes in sales, service, and rentals of two-way radios.

FineWinesDirect.co.uk £3,100 – Forwards to FineWineDirect.co.uk, an online ordering and subscription service for wine and champagne products in the UK. This domain appears to be a defensive registration for the plural spelling of its main website.

Enjoy.ly $2,750 – Enjoy.ly is a Norwegian travel site. It’s choice of domain name is perplexing, but at least it brands as its full domain name.

DigitalDetox.de €2,000 – Forwards to DanielaOtto.com, a website for a German scholar who wrote a book on digital detoxing. This book is the first German-language work on the subject.

AbGroup.de €2,000 – A Berlin real estate group that called AB Group is developing this domain.

Minora.com $2,000 – This domain was bought by Cilor GBR, a German jewelry retailer specializing in engagement rings and wedding bands. I’m not sure what it will use the domain for.

June’s top domain name news stories

by — Uncategorized 0 Comments

Top stories from the domain name business in June 2020.

The words "Top 5" written on a purple background

Here’s a look back at what happened in the domain name business last month. These were five of the top stories on Domain Name Wire:

1. Intel and Metlife terminate their top level domains – Two more big companies have bowed out of the new top level domain program.

2. Registrars: remove phone numbers from Whois – A plea to domain name registrars to save their customers from annoying phone calls, texts and spam emails…

3. Big news: GoDaddy starts redacting Whois information – …speaking of which, GoDaddy has begun masking most information in Whois. It’s now trying to sell customers on protecting their domains from theft instead of buying Whois privacy, which is no longer needed. In case you’re wondering, here’s how spammers find domains to mine.

4. GoDaddy plans layoffs and is closing Austin offices – The pandemic hasn’t been as bad as expected for GoDaddy. However, it’s still laying off a lot of employees and reorganizing outbound sales. Its do-it-for-me social media product has been hit especially hard.

5. Why this odd domain received 227 bids at auction – Usage of these seemingly-random characters might hint at the bidding activity.

Are these domains unstoppable? – I interview Brad Kam, co-founder of Unstoppable Domains, about the pros and cons of its alt-root domains and if there are downsides to “uncensorable” domains.

Security report names domain registrar – Eric Poyton, a security researcher with Awake, discusses his company’s findings of a malware network in which offending domains were all registered through one ICANN-accredited registrar.

Stealing the keys to the internet – Ryan Estrada discusses his crime-caper podcast about ICANN as well as an expired domain story.

The Great Domain Theft – The owner of Tobacco.com talks about how he got the stolen domain back.

The Handshake alternative – Mike Carson explains the registry service he’s creating for Handshake.

OneWord.Domains adds more top level domains and features

by — Services 1 Comment

Domain discovery site adds more TLDs and monetization features.

Screenshot of oneword.domains website

I’m having fun watching OneWord.Domains develop.

Steven Tey developed the site to help people find available one word domain names. You can listen to an interview with him in DNW Podcast #287.

Tey, a student, has incorporated feedback from users and is testing various monetization strategies.

For example, recently-added top level domain names are behind a paywall. It’s a modest fee and some people are signing up. But the model I like more is that domain registries can pay an annual fee to whitelist their domain. For $500, they can move it in front of the paywall. .To has been whitelisted.

Registries can choose where registration links go. For example, Donuts could whitelist a domain (or a bunch of them) and send buyers to Name.com, a registrar it owns.

OneWord.Domains also lets people feature their own one word domains for sale starting at just $10.

Verisign has taken action against COVID-related domains

by — Policy & Law 4 Comments

Domain name registry has taken action against domain names based on law enforcement requests.

Photo of globe with a surgical mask held up with latex gloves and the words "covid-19"

Verisign (NASDAQ: VRSN), the registry for .com and .net domain names, has taken action against some domain names related to COVID-19.

In a blog post yesterday, Verisign noted that its pilot program with the U.S. government to crack down on online opioid sales is not unprecedented:

The protocols and experiences of this opioid-specific pilot program can also translate to other fronts in our efforts against DNS abuse. For example, Verisign is already working with law enforcement to apply a similar framework to combat domain name abuse related to scams that seek to exploit the COVID-19 crisis.

I reached out to Verisign to see if it has taken action against any domains related to COVID-19. A company spokesperson wrote:

Without getting into specifics or disclosing confidential information, yes, we have received requests from law enforcement agencies to take action against Covid-19 related domains, and yes, we have taken action.

The question of which party — the host, the domain registrar, or the domain registry — should “remove” a site from the web is an unsettled debate. Verisign takes action based on valid court orders, but “trusted notifier” programs such as the opioid pilot program have led to consternation with free speech groups such as EFF.



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