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Andy Booth launches Imperial.com for high-end domain brokerage

by — Services 6 Comments

Second brand aimed at high-end buyers.

Screenshot of Imperial.com

Imperial.com, Andy Booth’s latest domain brokerage brand.

If you’re going to sell premium domains, it’s helpful to use premium domains yourself. Or two premium domains.

That’s the strategy domain investor Andy Booth is taking.

He started using Evolve.com for his brokerage last year. Now he’s adding Imperial.com as a high-end brokerage. The idea is to segment customers and attract buyers with six-figure budgets to the Imperial brand. It certainly comes across as a luxury brand (with a luxury logo, too).

The two brokerages are distinct from Andy’s brother James’ service at DomainBooth.com.

Perhaps Andy will experience the same “problem” that James did. James changed his brokerage name to Phenom, only to have to change it again when he sold Phenom.com.

Then again, changing brands isn’t a big deal when the price is right.

Spase.io tries reverse domain name hijacking

by — Policy & Law 0 Comments

A new company goes after domain registered in 2005.

Picture of masked man with the words reverse domain name hijacking

The owner of a business called Spase has been found to have tried reverse domain name hijacking the domain name Spase.com.

Spase is a service that converts photographs into 3D models. The business was just launched last year at Spase.io. The owner of Spase.com registered it in 2005.

In other words, this was a dead-on-arrival UDRP filing. The Complainant could not show that the domain registrant acquired the domain in 2005 to target a business that launched in 2019.

It’s another example of a case that could have been avoided if UDRP providers would ask a simple question on their intake form:

Do you claim trademark rights that predate the current registrant’s registration of the domain name?

If the answer is no, the UDRP provider can explain to the Complainant that they don’t understand the policy and are wasting their time and money.

In this case, the Complainant wasted money filing the UDRP and paying for a three-member panel as requested by the Respondent. The Respondent had to pay for the panel and hire an attorney. It was a waste of both parties’ time.

The Complainant, Sahil Gupta, was internally represented. Greenberg & Lieberman represented the domain owner Mrs. Jello, LLC. William Towns, Knud Wallberg, and Neil Brown decided the case for World Intellectual Property Organization.

 

GoDaddy fixes domain listing glitch

by — Domain Registrars 1 Comment

Two-factor users should no longer get errors when submitting domains through Domain Listing Service.

A screenshot from Office Space movie "We fixed the glitch"

They fixed the glitch.

GoDaddy has fixed an annoying issue with its Domain Listing Service.

Domain Listing Service allows GoDaddy customers to list domain names on the Afternic network from within their GoDaddy accounts. Customers can also have the system add a GoDaddy-branded for sale lander to their domains.

The glitch was related to two-factor authentication. A user can still be logged in to GoDaddy, but their two-factor authentication for certain services is expired. In these cases, users got an error message when submitting domains through Domain Listing Service.

The only way to fix this was to log out and log in again. Now, when this expiration issue occurs, the system re-engages the login process. Customers can re-enter their credentials and two-factor authentication and the submission process continues as intended.

Bytedance files cybersquatting dispute against TikToks.com

by — Policy & Law 7 Comments

Owners told a newspaper they turned down a $145,000 offer for the domain name.

Screenshot of TikToks.com

TikToks.com, soon to be owned by Bytedance.

In June, the Herald Sun published an article about two Melbourne teens who have had success with online businesses. The article stated:

And about six months ago, the pair purchased the domain name TikToks.com for $2000 after predicting TikTok would become the next big social media platform.

They’ve recently been offered $US145,000 ($A209,947) to buy it, but they plan to hold it and launch the world’s first TikTok growth service.

I mentioned on twitter that the two guys gave TikTok Exhibit A for a future UDRP.

Fast forward three months, and TikTok’s parent company Bytedance has filed a cybersquatting complaint under UDRP against the domain. It seems like a slam dunk; the business at TikToks.com is selling followers and likes for the service.

They should have taken the $145,000.

(Thanks Elliot)

Does the truth matter?

by — Domain Registrars 16 Comments

False information does significant damage.

Picture of a newspaper with the headline "Fake News"

False allegations and stories seem to travel around the internet much faster than the truth. And I’m not just talking about politics.

Last week, a Hacker News story made waves when someone suggested that GoDaddy engaged in frontrunning searches; i.e., it saw what a user was searching for and then registered the domain for itself.

The story was easily proven false. The Whois for the domain in question showed that the registrant was in New York. GoDaddy then explained the search history for the term leading up to its registration.

So a false story that was easily proven wrong. But the damage was done. People now recall seeing a story about GoDaddy frontrunning, and they’ll continue to spread that story or at least keep it in mind next time they register a domain.

Don’t believe me? In a follow 0n Hacker News post that links to GoDaddy’s explanation, people still remember bad things about GoDaddy from many years ago. The problem is they are actually thinking of a competitor. One user wrote:

At least at some time in the past, registrars (and IIRC, Godaddy specifically) definitely did do this. To the point you could enter any string of random characters in their search box and it would show up in whois shortly thereafter. Apparently things have changed, but the initial accusation was not far fetched.

If I recall correctly (IIRC)? How about looking this up before saying something false about a company?

What this person is likely recalling is that a competitor did this. Network Solutions briefly engaged in frontrunning in 2008. It was a bad idea with a specific intention. Network Solutions didn’t keep the domain for themselves but reserved it so the person could only register it at Network Solutions. The company said there was frontrunning going on somewhere and did this to counter it. But it had nothing to do with GoDaddy.

Someone else wrote, “Godaddy always did this like for over a decade.”

As someone who has covered the domain name industry since 2005, I can say that this is categorically false.

Another user wrote:

I used to own [myfullname].com. I inadvertently let it expire, and godaddy immediately bought it up and listed it for purchase at multiple thousands of dollars…

When someone questioned how this user knew that GoDaddy bought it, another “helpful” commenter stated:

GoDaddy nameservers will show up in a WHOIS for the domain and GoDaddy uses a branded parking page. Attempting to register the domain would offer it for whatever sum. They don’t really hide it at all.

Anyone who regularly reads Domain Name Wire knows what really happened here. The domain expired, someone else registered it and listed it for sale.

Some helpful people in the Hacker News thread tried to point this out. And at least one person recognizes the absurdity of the whole situation:

The fact that a completely unsubstantiated accusation [1] from a throwaway HN account got an astounding 1,615 upvotes yesterday…

…really saddens me.

Like they say, “a lie gets halfway around the world before the truth puts on it boots.”

I really wish people had higher standards for actual evidence before jumping to conclusions…

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