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Former France.com domain owner asks Supreme Court to consider case

by — Policy & Law 1 Comment

Jean-Noël Frydman, who owned France.com from 1994 until 2018, wants the U.S. Supreme Court to weigh in.

Image of a Surpreme Court filing with the words In the Supreme Court of the United States FRANCE.COM, INC., A CALIFORNIA CORPORATION, Petitioner, v. THE FRENCH REPUBLIC; ATOUT FRANCE; THE MINISTRY FOR EUROPE AND FOREIGN AFFAIRS; FRANCE.COM, A DOMAIN NAME, Respondents.

Jean-Noël Frydman hasn’t given up yet.

The businessman who registered France.com in 1994 has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to consider a dispute over the France.com domain name.

In 2014, Frydman’s company France.com, Inc. filed a lawsuit in Paris against a Dutch company alleging trademark infringement of France.com. The French Republic and its tourism agency, Atout France, intervened in the matter.

The French government convinced successive courts that the government — not someone in the U.S. — should own France.com. The government asserted the exclusive right to use the term “France” commercially, contending that under French law, the name “France” cannot be appropriated or used commercially by a private enterprise because doing so violates the French Republic’s exclusive right to its name and infringes on its sovereignty.

In 2018, the French government presented a copy of the Paris Court of Appeals decision over France.com to Web.com, and Web.com transferred the domain to it.

Frydman sued in U.S. court in 2018. The French government convinced the Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit that the French government has sovereign immunity under the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act.

Frydman petitioned the appeals court for en banc rehearing but was rejected.

Not deterred, Frydman has petitioned for a writ of certiorari with the U.S. Supreme Court.

It’s been a long fight for Frydman, but it’s not surprising given the incredible value of this domain name and the business he operated.

A useful website to learn more about the China domain market

by — Uncategorized 0 Comments

Want to dig into China’s domain opportunities? Start here.

Magnifying glass over Chinese flag

The China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC) website provides useful data to help you decide how to invest for the China domain market.

Of particular interest to domain investors is the Internet Statistics section. Here, you can find English reports of surveys CNNIC has conducted on domains and internet usage since 1997. The earliest English report was released in 2012.

I’ll use the latest report (No. 47) released this year to show you some of the useful information you can get.

The Summary page at the beginning of the report is a good place to start. It highlights, for example, the following information as of December 2020.

  • 989 million users accessed the internet, with a penetration rate of 70.4%.
  • 782 million consumers bought goods online.

As you can see, China has great potential as a domain market. Next, study the “Domain Name” section because it gives you details about domains registered in China.

Extension Registrations %
.cn 18,970,054 45.2%
.com 12,630,968 30.1%
.中国 1,703,082 4.1%
.net 938,792 2.2%
.org 145,656 0.3%
.info 31,445 0.1%
.biz 21,583 0.1%
NEW gTLD 7,446,046 17.7%
Others 89,985 0.2%
Total 41,977,611 100.0%

According to the table, .cn and .com are the two major extensions to focus on. If you decide to invest in .cn domains, the next table is also important.

Breakdown Registrations %
.cn 16,274,907 85.8%
.com.cn 2,136,939 11.3%
.net.cn 285,579 1.5%
.org.cn 150,474 0.8%
.adm.cn 85,281 0.4%
.gov.cn 17,930 0.1%
.ac.cn 12,341 0.1%
.edu.cn 6,422 0.0%
Others 181 0.0%
Total 18,970,054 100.0%

It indicates that .cn has a much wider audience than .com.cn. This was not the case in the early days when direct registration of .cn was not allowed. .Com.cn was the only choice for corporate China but now .cn has taken the lead.

So far, I have touched on only a small part of the report. There is still a lot of information to digest.

If you are serious about the China domain market, I suggest downloading all the reports, inputting the data into Excel, and making charts. By doing so, you will be able to see changes in the market over the years.

Percent upgrades from MyPercent.com to Percent.com

by — Domain Sales, Uncategorized 0 Comments

This company’s domain upgrade shows the challenges of naming a company with a popular brand name.

Logo for Percent.com has the word percent in an off white color

Percent is a platform that claims to offer greater transparency and liquidity to anyone looking to make alternative investments.

Since forming in 2018, Percent has been through at least two other domain names before settling on the formidable Percent.com. Starting out, Percent was known as Cadence and operated on the domain WithCadence.io.

Cadence seems to be a popular brand name, with Crunchbase listing 63 companies using Cadence as their brand name, while LinkedIn displays 918 company results for the term Cadence. From a domain perspective, Cadence is a competitive term.

DotDB shows that Cadence is registered in 159 extensions, and the keyword is present in a further 5,000 or so domains. Cadence.com is also very much off the market and in the hands of Cadence Design Systems, Inc., which also operates the @Cadence Twitter handle.

Could the popularity of Cadence as a brand name, along with the unavailability of key digital assets such as Cadence.com or the @Cadence Twitter handle, be part of the reason why Candence rebranded to Percent?

Percent, in comparison, seems to be less frequently used as a brand name, with Crunchbase displaying three companies using Percent as a brand name, with a further 30 occurrences where a company’s name contains Percent as part of its brand name.

The rebrand took place in April 2021, with Percent simultaneously announcing its new brand name and its receipt of $12.5 million in Series A funding. While Percent relaunched using MyPercent.com, a name it likely purchased from BuyDomains, it ultimately upgraded to Percent.com.

Fortunately for Percent, the domain was for sale. According to Archive.org, Percent.com was listed for sale with Buckley Media, a brokerage company led by Kate Buckley. By June 2021, the domain name was being used by Percent, with MyPercent.com forwarding to Percent.com.

Domain researcher Jamie Zoch shared details of the Percent.com upgrade via Twitter, noting that Percent included a small announcement on its home page acknowledging the company’s switch from MyPercent.com to Percent.com.

Unfortunately, neither Kate Buckley nor the buyer, Percent, could share details of Percent’s acquisition of Percent.com.

For a company offering investment opportunities online, a premium domain name is a key part of the company’s foundation. Aside from Percent, investment companies such as Public, Titan, and Forge have all made important domain upgrades.

 

Namecheap begins selling blockchain-based domain names

by — Domain Registrars 1 Comment

Namecheap is now offering 11 alt-root domains based on blockchain technology.

Logo for Handshake domains includes a stylized H and the word handshake

Namecheap has become the largest domain name registrar to begin offering blockchain-based domain names.

The company is offering a selection of 11 alt-root Handshake domain names: .p, .pgp, .sox, .elite, .ill, .saas, .creator, .oh, .oo, .oot, .orb. It says it plans to add more extensions in the future.

Handshake domain options show in regular Namecheap search results, and people can select a button on the search to see only Handshake domain names. The domains are labeled and include a tooltip to explain what they are:

Picture of Namecheap domain search results with Handshake domains

In a press release, Namecheap states:

Decentralizing the web creates a more egalitarian online space where technologies power the Internet community rather than a few stakeholders. Handshake represents a shift toward decentralization, with progressive steps that help to grant users less oversight, more freedom, and enhanced security.

While it’s true that Handshake is decentralized at the top level, the implementation looks an awful lot like a typical, ICANN-based TLD to customers. They are paying annual fees for Handshake domains purchased at Namecheap. The only difference is that web users can’t visit the domains unless they make technical changes to their browsers.

It’s a risky move for Namecheap. These domains don’t resolve like traditional domains. While Namecheap makes this clear, I can’t help but think that some customers will be confused. It also sets them up for future name collisions if any of these names are added to the main root.

Companies have offered alt-root domain names in the past. The domains eventually failed.

If you’re interested in Handshake, there’s an entire Handshake track every day during NamesCon this week.

 

Join me at NamesCon today

by — Services 0 Comments

I’m taking part in two sessions today.

NamesCon.online starts today, and I’m taking part in two sessions this morning.

First, at 7:55 am PDT, I’ll join Soeren von Varchmin for the opening session, where I’ll talk a bit about the current domain name market.

Then at 10:05 am PDT, I’m leading a discussion with Logan Flatt and Mark Levine. This is your opportunity to hear from two domain investors who will divulge their full profit and loss statements. Not just tweets about making big money from individual domain sales — you’ll learn how much they’ve invested, their full costs, and how it nets out. We’ll also discuss which types of domains they are making money from (not just .com!), how they are pricing them and more.

Tickets are still available for $99.

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