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CentralNic acquires Latin American domain name registrar

by — Domain Registrars 0 Comments

Small acquisition will serve as a base for expansion in Latin America.

CentralNic logo

CentralNic (AIM: CNIC) has acquired the assets of NameAction Inc., a small domain name registrar based in Chile.

The deal was for approximately $1 million. NameAction will contribute about $2 million in recurring revenue and $0.2 million in adjusted EBITDA starting next year.

CentralNic says that, although the deal is small, it will serve as a launchpad for the company in Latin America. Ben Crawford, CEO of CentralNic, said:

While this acquisition is relatively small, it will be immediately earnings accretive and of strategic importance. NameAction is one of the best-known brands in the Latin American domain name industry, and their experienced staff represent an ideal team of experts to form a base for CentralNic’s expansion in the region, across our many products and channels.

Top .com domain name registrars (ranked)

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These are the fastest growing and biggest domain name registrars for .com domains.

Picture of a column chart and a magnifying glass with the words ".com leaderboard"

ICANN has published the latest official data from Verisign (NASDAQ: VRSN) about the .com namespace. This registrar-by-registrar report covers August 2021.

There was a lot of movement in the chart for new registrations, including NameSilo popping up with a stronger-than-normal month.

Here’s how registrars did in terms of new .com registrations in August:

1. GoDaddy.com* (NYSE: GDDY) 821,826 (800,025 in July)
2. Namecheap Inc. 271,419 (281,678)
3. Newfold Digital+ 170,808 (169,899)
4. Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOGL) 159,908 (150,950)
5. Alibaba (HiChina) 147,692 (251,367)
6. NameSilo 141,711 (96,498)
7. Tucows** (NASDAQ:TCX) 140,535 (141,155)
8. Dynadot 135,231 (146,099)
9. GMO 127,510
10. Registrar.eu 117,518

Here’s the leaderboard of the top registrars in terms of total .com registrations under management as of the end of August.

1. GoDaddy* 56,282,077 (56,392,325 in July)
2. Newfold Digital+ 14,191,351 (14,323,837)
3. Tucows** 12,572,011 (12,674,762)
4. Namecheap 8,000,384 (7,931,446)
5. Alibaba 6,396,336 (6,473,878)
6. IONOS^ 5,899,235 (5,911,071)
7. TurnCommerce++ 5,311,937 (5,076,114)
8. Google 4,743,534 (4,666,584)
9. CentralNic^^ 3,599,952 (3,598,295)
10. NameSilo 2,470,304 (2,378,593)

Many domain companies have multiple accreditations and I’ve tried to capture the largest ones. See the notes below.

* Includes GoDaddy, Wild West Domains, Uniregistry, GoDaddy Corporate Domains and 123 Reg
** Includes Tucows, Enom, Ascio and EPAG
+ Includes PDR, Domain.com, FastDomain, Bigrock, Network Solutions, Register.com, SnapNames registrars, and Crazy Domains/Dreamscape. There are other Newfold registrars, but these are the biggest.
++ Includes NameBright and DropCatch registrars
^ Includes 1&1, PSI, Cronon, United-Domains, Arsys and world4you
^^ Includes Key-Systems, 1API, Internet.bs, TLD Registrar Solutions, RegistryGate, Moniker, Instra

Glenn Beck’s non-profit defends domain in cybersquatting dispute

by — Policy & Law 0 Comments

Non-profit said it acquired HonestHistory.com for an online archive of historical artifacts.

Image of Honest History Magazine's 14th issue with images of Russia and the words "A Russian Winter"

The publisher of Honest History magazine lost a cybersquatting challenge against HonestHistory.com.

Mercury One, a non-profit founded by conservative media personality Glenn Beck, has successfully defended the domain name HonestHistory.com in a UDRP.

Honest History Co filed the case. The company publishes a kids history magazine called Honest History and uses the domain name HonestHistoryMag.com.

Mercury One acquired HonestHistory.com from HugeDomains for $2,595 in May 2019. The Complainant had published a few quarterly issues by then, but it appears the Mercury One wasn’t aware of that. Mercury One hired consultants to help name an online archival database of thousands of historical artifacts and documents, and the consultants suggested the name Honest History.

World Intellectual Property Organization panelist Scott Blackmer found that Honest History Co did not show that Mercury One lacked rights or legitimate interests in the domain:

…there is no convincing evidence that in May 2019 the Respondent chose the Domain Name as a pretext to attack the Complainant’s unregistered or anticipated trademark. There is, on the other hand, evidence of the Respondent’s demonstrable preparations to use the Domain Name in connection with a bona fide service offering.

It’s surprising that Honest History Co didn’t buy HonestHistory.com when it could have, given the low cost.

This isn’t the first time Glenn Beck has been connected to a UDRP. In 2009, he lost a UDRP against the domain glennbeckrapedandmurderedayounggirlin1990.com.

November’s top domain name stories

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What happened in November in the domain business.

The words "Top 5" written on a purple background

These were the top stories on Domain Name Wire last month, ranked by views.

1. Here are the metaverse-related domains Meta (Facebook) has registered – It turns out it registered a lot more with privacy through its registrar. It also bought one at Sedo.

2. ICANN warns about alt-root blockchain domain names – As regular registrars start selling the domains, ICANN is worried that consumers won’t understand what they’re buying.

3. Bird.com domain name sells – A domain that sold (but didn’t) in an auction this year has now really sold.

4.Company that paid $3.5 million for IT.com is selling subdomains – Where have we seen this business model before? And how did it turn out?

5. NFT projects are leasing valuable .com domains – Two NFT projects are on perpetual leases from Venture.com for their domains.

Miss a podcast last month? Listen now:

Expired domains with Bill Sweetman – listen to part one and part two

Ron da Silva, former ICANN board member – listen

Startups and domains with Ben Katz – listen

How Namecheap tackles abuse – listen

Verse upends Meta in new TLDs

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Meta wasn’t the most popular keyword in Donuts’ domains last month.

Picture of a stack of donuts in various colors including yellow, pink, and green.

I can’t wait to eat Donuts in the metaverse.

Donuts has published its monthly domain trends report for November, and it shows that meta has been unseated as the hottest keyword in the company’s domains. It has been replaced by verse, which would be the second part of metaverse. So it’s still all about the metaverse.

Coin was the third most-registered keyword in Donuts’ top level domains.

In the entire namespace, meta still seems to be outpacing verse by about a 2-to-1 margin, according to Estibot data.

Donuts also published its top 20 premium domain sales of the month.  Rd.group and ae.group led the charts. These domains have a wholesale price of about $2,500 per year. Another interesting sale was btc.market. While the wholesale price was around $800, the buyer paid an additional $6,605 to win this domain in a Sav.com expired domain auction.

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