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CentralNic buys Team Internet for $48 million

by — Domain Parking 1 Comment

Consolidation continues as CentralNic buys major domain traffic company.

CentralNic logoFrom speculation to reality in 24 hours.

Domain name industry rollup CentralNic (London AIM: CNIC) is acquiring online advertising company Team Internet AG for $48 million.

$45 million of the purchase price will be in cash (with $3 million deferred), funded with a bond offering. This will bring its net debt to $76 million. CentralNic already raised €50 in a bond issue earlier this year.

Team Internet operates two businesses: domain parking company Parking Crew and direct traffic business Tonic, which deals in a lot of zero click traffic. The company grossed $66.7 million of revenue and $10.6 million of adjusted EBITDA in the 12 months ending June 2019.

Team Internet montizes over 20 million domains. CentralNic believes that domain parking could be bundled with 30% of domain registrations, and notes that the group has 18.6 million domains under management.

It would seem that the advertising revenue Team Internet generates is more susceptible to swings than CentralNic’s core subscription revenue businesses. Indeed, CentralNic notes that Team Internet’s revenue has dropped due to “an industry-wide policy revision for the long-term health of the online advertising ecosystem in summer 2018.” However, “As a result of a series of innovations and continuous improvements, Team Internet has returned to growth in Q3 2019 and is expected to do so going forward.”

The domain parking business has to reinvent itself every couple of years as a result of policy changes, browser changes, and other influences on the market.

The acquisition gives CentralNic exposure to the zero click market, which has a lot of bad actors and malfeasance. Keeping control of zero click will be critical to its long term success. It could also include exposure to arbitrage, which is somewhat fickle.

It will be interesting to see how this plays out.

 

 

ICA asks ICANN to block .Org private equity deal in damning letter

by — Policy & Law 27 Comments

Group calls out ICANN’s “terrible blunder”.

Logo for .org domain, featuring a blue circle with white letters spelling ORG

Internet Commerce Association is asking domain overseer ICANN to block the sale of the .Org registry to Ethos Capital.

It sent a damning letter (pdf) to ICANN today that states what many observers are thinking. In part:

Surely you can now appreciate the terrible blunder that you have made. Crucial policy decisions that have billion-dollar ramifications and which affect the stability of the Internet must be the subject of robust Board involvement and not left to ICANN staff.

If you were led to believe that removing price caps on .Org domain names was a sound approach because the registry would remain in the hands of a nonprofit foundation, you have clearly been misled. If you were led to believe that despite being the effective owner of the .org registry, you were somehow forced to let your service providers tell you how much they can charge, instead of the other way around, you have been led astray. If you have been told that .Org does not have market power within the nonprofit sector, you have been led astray. If you have been told that competition from other gTLDs will constrain .org prices, you have been led astray.

Section 7.5 of the registry agreement between Public Interest Registry and ICANN states:

Except as set forth in this Section 7.5, neither party may assign any of its rights and obligations under this Agreement without the prior written approval of the other party, which approval will not be unreasonably withheld.

The question now is: would it be reasonable for ICANN to withold approval of the transfer of the .org registry agreement?

ICANN has a history of wimping out in fights. But given the blowback it is getting and will get for many years from this deal, it might be one of those times it steps up.

The letter concludes:

If your miscalculation of awarding a perpetual, no-bid agreement – lacking any price caps whatsoever – was premised on the registry remaining in the hands of an organization serving the public interest, the pending sale to a private equity firm should cause you to reconsider your approach. Fortunately the purported sale of the .Org registry affords you an opportunity to withhold approval, terminate the Registry Agreement in respect of any consummated transaction, and put the contract out for competitive bid.

Where is the ICANN Board when it comes to safeguarding the interests of nonprofit registrants?

Mailchimp launches website builder

by — Services 1 Comment

Company that started as an email marketing platform is entering a crowded field.

Screenshots of websites built with Mailchimp's new website builder

These websites were build with Mailchimp’s new website builder, currently in beta.

Mailchimp is the latest company to get into the website builder game, taking on companies such as GoDaddy (NYSE: GDDY), Wix (NASDAQ: WIX), Squarespace and Weebly.

The company started as an email marketing platform but is expanding to become an all-in-one online marketing platform. It offers landing pages and online marketing as well.

Now it is introducing its own website builder in beta. It’s free to use, and paid Mailchimp customers can connect a custom domain name to their website. Mailchimp is also reselling domains through Tucows to allow customers to register domains through their Mailchimp account.

Here’s my question: when does Mailchimp rebrand as Chimp and buy Chimp.com?

18 end user domain name sales up to $35,000

by — Domain Sales 5 Comments

A real estate technology company, shuttle transportation provider and hotelier bought domains.

Picture of bundles of 500 euro notes with the words "End User Domain Sales" and the logo for Sedo

Sedo had a lot of solid end user sales this past week, led by a three character domain name with a mysterious ‘coming soon’ page.

Here’s a look at some of the domains end users bought. See prior end user lists here.

DYO.com $35,000 – A splash page says “Coming Soon, Phoenix!”

Searchability.com $12,820 – A coming soon page has a logo for Searchability.

CommercialSearch.com $30,000 – Yardi creates software for real estate firms. This one will obviously be for finding commercial properties.

PrizePicks.com $19,000 – Forwards to MyPrizePicks.com, a fantasy sports website.

ProduktVergleich.de €17,000 – Product Vergleich means ‘product comparison’ in German. This site aggregates consumer reviews and data.

TurboDial.com $7,500 – TurboDial is an autodialer that works with InfusionSoft. The domain forwards TurboDial.biz, so this is a .com upgrade.

Oyo.com.br $7,000 – Forwards to OyoRooms.com, a hotel chain in India.

HotelTransfers.com $4,700 – Forwards to ShuttleDirect.com, a European shuttle search website and airport transportation provider.

CitrusFiber.com $4,300 – This domain was purchased by CP Kelco, a U.S. company specializing in natural ingredient production. It just launched a new product line of citrus fiber.

VDN.ch €2,999 – VDN is a German acronym for “Vernetzt durch netzer” which means “networked with Netzer”. This company offers services and support to those producing their own electricity. They also provide interfaces between various companies in the telecommunication and electricity sector.

RechnungsVordrucke.de €2,500 – Forwards to RechnungsVorlagen.de which translates to “invoice templates”. This site offers various invoice templates for Excel, Word – for free.

MyBits.de €2,500 – Forwards to Telum.de, a German digital project management and software consulting firm. Maybe its for a client project.

Gulf.fr €2,390 – Ovensia, a custom web design shop, bought the domain. It currently forwards to a website about cars that it created.

Bolig.net €2,195 – Forwards to DBare.com, a Norwegian online education portal offering Master’s degree programs in Building Construction and more. Bolig translates to ‘housing’ in Danish.

Idana.com $2,000 – A medical patient information and data protection company.

Kaarisma.com €2,000 – Forwards to MXMDesign.de, which is an advertising agency offering Marketing, SEO, Social media, etc. This domain may have been purchased for a client or a new campaign.

SuedWest24.de €2,000 – Forwards to Mannheim24.de. Mannheim is a city in Germany and this website features local Mannheim news.

Qatar tourism council wins VisitQatar.com in cybersquatting dispute

by — Policy & Law 23 Comments

It was a very complicated case.

Picture of Doha, Qatar skyline

Qatar National Tourism Council has won a UDRP it filed against the domain name VisitQatar.com.

It’s a mind-numbing case. The discussion of the first prong of UDRP, whether or not the domain is identical or confusingly similar to a mark in which the Complainant has rights, clocks in at a whopping 4,842 words!

The owner of the domain is in Azerbaijan. He created a simple travel booking website on VisitQatar.com. He also obtained a U.S. trademark for “Visit Qatar”.

Despite this, the three-person panel determined that the Respondent registered the domain to target the Complainant and all of his activities were just a ruse. It questioned his credibility and wrote:

Taking all of this as a whole, the Panel reaches the conclusion the Respondent registered the Disputed Domain Name with a view to selling it at a substantial profit to the body responsible for promoting tourism in Qatar and which was already active under the “visitqatar” term on social media. He then proceeded cautiously and set about putting in place measures to legitimize the Disputed Domain Name and defend any UDRP proceeding. These included linking the Disputed Domain Name to a working (but rudimentary) travel related website and seeking a US trademark registration…

The three-person panel found in favor of the tourism agency.

If the UDRP was designed to handle clear cases of cybersquatting, this case was anything but.

It’s a rare loss for domain attorney John Berryhill, who represented the Respondent.