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Prince’s estate now owns Prince.com domain name

by — Domain Sales 33 Comments

Prince.com changes hands as part of legal settlement.

Whois record for Prince.com showing Paisley Park Enterprises, Inc. as the owner

The estate of late musician Prince (or whatever he was finally called) now owns the domain name Prince.com.

Domain Capital, which owned the domain name, and the estate got into a legal tussle in which the estate claimed the domain was cybersquatting and Domain Capital counter sued for reverse domain name hijacking.

The parties settled in January and there was an escrow agreement involved. This suggests that Domain Capital agreed to transfer the domain name in return for a cash payment.

As of yesterday, the domain name is at brand protection registrar Com Laude and shows that Paisley Park Enterprises, Inc. is the owner. The domain name does not resolve to a website.

22 end user sales up to $50,000

by — Domain Sales 10 Comments

A new NYC tourist attraction, a bank and a soccer score business bought domain names.

Photo of Edge New York viewing balcony

The Edge at Hudson Yards will soon be a big tourist attraction in New York City. The group behind Hudson Yards bought the domain name EdgeNY.com. Photo from HudsonYardsNewYork.com.

It was a big week for end user domain name sales, led by a bank name for $50,000. Also notable (because it’s cool, not the price) is that the developer of Hudson Yards in New York City bought EdgeNY.com for its viewing balcony. The balcony opens this month. Someone registered the domain back in 2005. NYEdge.com is registered by a music band.

Let’s get to this week’s long list of end user domain sales. You can view previous lists like this here. Click here to see the list…

Chocolate.com domain name sells for 7 figures

by — Domain Sales 3 Comments

Buyer of valuable domain name has not been identified yet.

Domain name broker Kate Buckley announced yesterday that she has brokered the sale of Chocolate.com:

She said the exact price is under a non-disclosure agreement but she confirmed it was for seven figures–meaning somewhere between $1-$10 million.

The domain name has been brokered by other entities since at least as far back as 2013 when Sedo marketed it.

Deal Jam LLC acquired Chocolate.com in 2005. The most recent public Whois record I can find for the domain dates to 2016. It shows Andrew Miller, who was with Deal Jam, as the contact. Miller was part of Internet Real Estate Group LLC (not to be confused with iREIT). Internet Real Estate Group was behind a lot of big domain sales last decade.

L vs. I in domain names

by — Domain Sales 8 Comments

It’s easily confused.

There was a bit of a ruckus yesterday over a typo. NameJet promoted Investor.com for sale, but it turns out the domain was actually Lnvestor.com with an L. As you can see, the font NameJet uses makes a lowercase L look a lot like an uppercase I.

Typo of Investor.com

Before I throw stones, I should note that I made the same mistake a few years ago. I backordered Lnternational.com thinking it was International.com.

And that fake domain broker that was trying to sell domains at too-good-to-be-true prices? They used the same L vs. I trick

If you think this is confusing, imagine people who aren’t aware of internationalized domain names who buy something that appears to be a valuable domain, only to find out some of the characters in it aren’t from the Roman alphabet.

NameJet has an option to ‘view upper case’ next to the domains. I realize this is an edge case, but perhaps they should put both cases next to each other by default.

Oh, and be on the lookout. I don’t think I ever renewed Lnternational.com but it has remained in my Enom count anyway. It expires later this month and will make its way through the drops.

Cover.com buys Cover.ca and 15 other end user domain sales

by — Domain Sales 3 Comments

The company that paid $825,000 for Cover.com just bought Cover.ca for $10,000.

graphic of briefcase full of money related to end user domain name sales

This week’s top public sale at Sedo was a new top level domain: buy.game for $29,999. I can’t figure out the buyer but it’s worth noting that buy.gameS was also purchased recently, suggesting that someone is getting ready to start a games website on one of these domains and thought it wise to get both versions.

I can’t be sure this is an end user at this price so I didn’t add it to the list below, but keep an eye on these domains!

Lads.com leads Sedo’s end user list this week, and check out what insurance company Cover paid for the .ca version of its Cover.com domain name.

Here are the end user sales from Sedo last week I was able to uncover. You can view previous lists like this here. Click here to see the end user sales list…