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U.S. Gov gives Neustar 10-year extension on .Us domain

by — Services 0 Comments

Neustar wins contract to continue operating .Us through 2029.

Image of flag of United States of America in background with words ".US Contract Extension"

The U.S. government has extended its contract with Neustar to operate the .Us domain name extension for the next ten years, until 2029.

National Telecommunications and Information Administration announced today that the contract was awarded on June 28. The government does not pay Neustar to run .Us but Neustar collects registration fees from .us registrants.

Neustar has operated the namespace since 2001. As a country code domain with numerous third-level registrations by local government entities, it has added complexities compared to most top level domains.

There are over 2 million .us domains under management.

.Us hasn’t established the foothold that some country code domains, such as .de (Germany) have. That’s because of the U.S.’s early role in the internet. Many people think of .com as the de facto country code of the United States.

Republicans nuke .GOP domain to take down fundraising rival

by — Policy & Law 0 Comments

The top level domain operator of your domain name can play God.

Error page at Give.GOP, which has been taken down

You can no longer access Give.GOP thanks to a dispute between .GOP operators and the site owner.

He who controls the top level domain can control all of its registrants.

That’s the lesson for users of .GOP domains.

The .GOP registry, which is operated by Republican State Leadership Committee, has forced the owner of Give.GOP to take down his site because it was worried that it was taking away focus from a Donald Trump-endorsed competitor, Politico reports.

According to .GOP’s acceptable use policy, its philosophy that “The Registry supports the sharing of diverse ideas over the Internet and intends for the online community to fully reflect the varying viewpoints and debates taking place in our community.”

Well, as long as those viewpoints don’t conflict with Republican State Leadership Committee’s viewpoints.

I don’t see any way that Give.GOP violated the use policy. But, like most acceptal use policies, it states that the registry can do whatever it wants. In fact, it could divert Give.GOP traffic to another domain, if it wishes.

Give.GOP probably should have gone with a .com domain. Or .Republican,which is run by a more neutral operator, Donuts.

GiveGOP.com forwards to Give.GOP. It’s hard to tell who owns it because of blocked Whois records.

18 end user domain sales up to $55,000

by — Domain Sales 0 Comments

.Co has a strong week and an end-user buys a three-letter .com domain.

Picture of a robot at a tradeshow with a virtual remote operator

Attend a real tradeshow virtually? That’s ExpoBot’s pitch. It bought ExpoBot.com at Sedo. Picture from ExpoBot.com.

Imagine attending a trade expo virtually through a robot. That’s the idea behind ExpoBot. I guarantee you its $5,000 domain purchase is small potatoes compared to its R&D budget.

ExpoBot.com is just one of many excellent end user sales at Sedo that closed this past week.

Here’s a look at sales to end users that recently closed at Sedo. See prior end user lists here.

IKG.com $55,000 – An end-user, three-letter domain purchase. Harsco Industrial IKG bought the domain and forwards it to HarscoIKG.com.

Simplist.com $30,000 – This is a product development company. Its brands include Custom SLR performance camera gear, Think Ergo ergonomic wear and FLYT minimalist accessories.

Buck.co $19.888 – I’m going to count this as an end user even though we don’t know who bought it yet. The price is an end user price for .co. The Whois currently shows hosting service Media Temple.

MyAlternatives.com $11,250 – Alternatives Funeral & Cremation services, which uses the domain MyAlternatives.ca.

Property.co $10,000 – The buyer is setting up a real estate search site on the domain.

Voltix.com €10,000 – Voltix Inc provides commercial and residential electrical services.

Bike2Go.de €7,485 – Bulls is a bicycle brand. The domain currently forwards to bulls.de.

9mile.com $5,500 – Forwards to 9mile-vodka.com, a new vodka brand launching soon. The site is still in development with a release time listed as July 2019.

ExpoBot.com $5,000 – I thought this was a joke at first but it’s real. This company has a robot that can attend your tradeshow. Picture a robot moving through an expo floor, and on the other end a “visitor” is interacting with the robot via a webcam.

BeyondBlack.com $4,000 & BBlack.com $3,500 – These two keyword domains were purchased by web development shop Sevenval Technologies GmbH. They are likely for a client.

LaunchOne.com $2,900 – Forwards to LaunchOne.net, a company focused on pharmaceutical launch services.

BuildingInnovation.org $2,788 – This will be the website for National Institute of Building Sciences’ Building Innovation conference.

LoveMeHair.com $2,662 – Forwards to LuvMeHair.com, an artificial hair and wig products company. Luv fails the radio test so this was a smart buy.

TheLearningHub.com $2,488 – Forwards to AACSB.edu. AACSB International (AACSB) is a global nonprofit education association focused on leadership training.

DrProperty.com €2,400 – A marketing website for properties in Dubai.

EasyMediaKit.com $2,000 – An online tool for companies to make media kits. It generates the template based on a website. It’s clever.

DropBoy.com €2,000 – DropBoy is a dispatch system between a distributor and delivery drivers.

Australian Broadcasting Corporation loses attempt to get ABC.net

by — Policy & Law 0 Comments

Australian public broadcaster loses attempt to get 24-year-old ABC.net domain name.

Screenshot of ABC.net.au for Australian Broadcasting Corporation

Australian Broadcasting Corporation lost its attempt to get ABC.net

Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC), Australia’s national broadcaster, has lost a cybersquatting complaint it brought against the domain name ABC.net.

The broadcaster failed to convince a World Intellectual Property Organization panelist that the domain name was registered in bad faith. After all, it’s a very common term.

The domain owner registered it in 1995 while working at an ISP, and later put the domain name to use.

ABC didn’t seem to mind much about the domain until the domain owner contacted it in 2017 advising that he was receiving misdirected emails.

This is the second UDRP decision in as many days in which misdirected email was discussed. In both cases, the owner of a ccTLD was losing email to another domain. ABC’s website is ABC.net.au. In a recent case for Farrer.com, the Complainant used farrer.co.uk and was losing email to the .com.

Panelist Rober Badgley did not find that ABC filed the complaint as attempted reverse domain name hijacking. He noted that, while its complaint was slanted to its preferred narrative, it did not make false statements or glaring omissions. Badgley wrote, “this may be more a case of lacking appreciation of the nuances of this case than a calculated attempt to wrest a domain name from an innocent and smaller party.”

Afilias to offer Registry Lock service

by — Services 3 Comments

28 more top level domains can be locked at the registry level.

Picture of lock on bars with the words "Registry Lock" above it in black letters on yellow background

Afilias is the latest domain name registry to offer a Registry Lock service for websites that need added protection against hijacking and nameserver changes.

Registry Lock is very different from locking a domain name at a registrar. A typical domain lock means a domain can’t be transferred to another registrar until it is unlocked in the registrar interface.

Registry Lock requires manual authentication with both the registrar and registry before changes can be made to a domain.

Different registries have different procedures, but Registry Lock usually requires a domain owner to request a change with the registrar and then the registrar completes a manual process with the registry to allow the change. Domain registrar Blacknight explains the process on its website.

It’s a necessary service for big websites, and would have saved the New York Times from having its nameservers hijacked in 2013.

As of 2013, .com registry Verisign charged $10 a month for its Registry Lock service. Registrars typically charge $300-$600 per year because of the manual work involved. I suspect registrars will charge a similar price for Afilas’ service, although brand protection registrars often bundle it with other services.

The Afilias service will be available for 28 top level domains.