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End user research helps me decide whether to acquire a domain

by — Expired Domains 12 Comments

Kassey Lee explains the process he went through when evaluating an expired domain for purchase.

A picture of a magnifying glass with the words "end user research"

I was watching Godaddy Auctions today and found the expiring domain YogaYoung.com. Since “yoga” is a popular keyword, I decided to look into this domain.

First, I checked LinkedIn but found no company using the name “Yoga Young”. Google search gave no hope either.

However, dotDB, a site that shows registered domains containing a word/second level domain, reported 12 matches. dotDB has a nice feature I like — the matches have links. By installing the Snap Links extension to my Firefox browser, I can open the links and check their websites all at once.

The result was the discovery of two operating websites: YogaYoungistan.com and YogaYoung.cn.

Since YogaYoungistan.com already matches its brand Yoga Youngistan, there is no motivation for the company to change its domain to YogaYoung.com which is not brand-matching after all.

Nevertheless, YogaYoung.cn looked promising at first because Chinese companies like to upgrade from .cn to .com.

The home page design paints a solid company and the photos show a professional team and active yoga classes. However, even if you don’t read Chinese, you can see the name “Maya Yoga” prominently displayed at several locations. Thus, we can conclude that Maya Yoga is their brand and therefore upgrade from YogaYoung.cn to YogaYoung.com is unlikely because they are not brand-matching.

Based on this research, I decided not to acquire YogaYoung.com because I could not find any potential end users for it.

Loco UDRP ends in reverse domain name hijacking

by — Policy & Law 2 Comments

Tech company tries to hijack domain name registered in 1999.

Reverse domain name hijacking graphic

 

A Brazilian technology company has been found guilty of reverse domain name hijacking in its effort to get the domain name InLoco.com. The Complainant, In Loco Tecnologia da Informação S.A., uses InLoco.com.br for its website.

The phrase “in loco” is a common Latin phrase meaning “in the place” or “in the right or proper spot”. (Loco also means “crazy” in Spanish, and loco is an apt description of this case.)

The owner of the domain name registered it in 1999, well before the Complainant was established in 2014. In Loco Tecnologia attempted to acquire the domain name from the registrant before filing the UDRP complaint.

After filing the complaint, In Loco Tenologia tried to withdraw it. But the domain name owner said he’d only consent to this if it was with prejudice, meaning that it couldn’t be filed again at a later date. He also wanted the panel to rule on reverse domain name hijacking.

The three-person World Intellectual Property Organization panel agreed with the domain name owner:

To allow a complainant to simply withdraw a complaint without prejudice after a response has been filed would allow for the possibility of a complainant refiling a complaint against the same respondent at a later point. Such “eleventh hour withdrawals” of complaints without prejudice invites the filing of potentially abusive complaints for strategic reasons.

It found that the Complainant had no chance of winning the case and attempted reverse domain name hijacking.

Flatten.ca: a great domain and great idea

by — Uncategorized 1 Comment

College students registered Flatten.ca to help flatten the curve in Canada.

Screenshot of Flatten.ca

Canadian college students started Flatten.ca to monitor COVID-19 cases.

We’ve all heard of “flattening the curve” by now. Some Canadian college students have created a website to contribute to the effort, and they chose a great domain for it.

The students, who are home from college due to the COVID-19 crisis, hand-registered Flatten.ca on March 19. They’ve turned it into a site where people can self-report COVID-19 symptoms. The site turns this into a heat map of potential cases and hotspots, which augments official data on verified cases.

I like this story for a couple of reasons. First, it’s great that these college students have found something helpful to do while not at college. Second, I like how they chose this simple (and available) domain to launch their website. The domain name states the objective and is easy to remember.

(Thanks Bill Sweetman for bringing this to my attention.)

Adjusting to the downturn and going virtual – DNW Podcast #279

by — Podcasts 0 Comments

Here’s how one investor is thinking about his domain portfolio in light of the economic downturn.

Domain name investor Page Howe returns to the program this week. Page talks about how he’s managing his portfolio in light of the coronavirus bust, and how the shift to web-based work could change things. He also discusses an upcoming virtual domain name conference he’s organizing.

Also: Verisign gets its price hike, coronavirus domain names, and it’s not all doom and gloom on the domain sale front.

Sponsor: Name.com

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 41:18 — 33.1MB) | Embed

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Opera to support alt-root .Crypto domain names

by — Uncategorized 1 Comment

Opera users can now visit alt-root .crypto domain names from their browser.

Logo for Opera Browser

Unstoppable Domains, a blockchain-based domain name system alternative, announced today that the Opera browser for Android will support its .crypto domain name.

.Crypto is an alternate-root domain name, meaning it’s not part of the domain name system that most people use. Users need to use a supported browser or browser plugin in order for the domains to resolve to a website.

Opera’s Android app is the first browser to support the domain names. The app already has a built-in crypto wallet, so it’s a natural fit for the domain. The app has been downloaded over 3 million times from the Google Play store.

Unstoppable Domains’ top level domains can also be accessed in Chrome if the user installs an extension.

Like most alt-root domain names, the biggest struggle to adoption is that the domains don’t work universally. While Unstoppable Domains faces this challenge, it has a unique advantage selling point compared to the alt-root challengers of decades ago: blockchain. Its domain names work with some cryptocurrency wallets in addition to functioning as website addresses, and it pitches its domains as immune from censorship.

Eventually, we should see a .crypto domain name on the “real” DNS. I suspect multiple parties will apply for the domain name in the next round of top level domain expansion. This will create a conflict with Unstoppable Domains’ .crypto domain.

Unstoppable Domains has 200,000 paid domain registrations across its top level domains, which include .zil and .crypto.

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