Domain Name Wire | Domain Name News

Domain Name Industry News

Featured Domains

A mysterious domain name sale

by — Domain Sales 13 Comments

Even after researching it, this domain sale doesn’t make sense.

A question mark on a chalkboard

It all started when I read that XPJ44.COM sold for $4,105 last month according to Namebio. Even though I look at a lot of domains everyday, I must confess that I don’t understand this domain.

First, I went to Wayback Machine but found not much activity on XPJ44.COM during the last few years. That means the domain does not carry any traffic or backlinks which may be worth something.

However, Wayback Machine did point me to 0567.net where XPJ44.COM is still listed for sale. It also has many domains beginning with XPJ or ending with 44. Entering ‘xpj’ into Baidu search showed many sites related to entertainment or gambling but I did not notice any domain beginning with XPJ followed by a number in the first 10 pages of the search results.

One search result that caught my attention is GrandLisboaHotels.com, which is owned by Grand Lisboa, a Macau-based hotel that has a casino and an entertainment venue. Its name in Chinese is Xin Pu Jing (新葡京)=new Portugal capital. Macau was a colony of Portugal). So, it seems to me that the acronym XJP is associated with gambling.

Then I did a search on eName’s domain marketplace to find hundreds of domains based on the letter+number pattern ending with ’44’. This shows there are investors trading this kind of domain.

Yes, XPJ can be an acronym for many Pinyin phrases such as Xian Pi Jiu (鲜啤酒=draft beer), Xin Ping Jing (心平静=a tranquil mind), and Xiao Pei Jian (销配件=sell parts). 44 also rhymes with many Pinyin phrases such as Shi Shi (世世=generations), Shi Shi (市市=markets), and Si Shi (思世=think of the world). However, creating a meaningful and easy to remember Chinese brand from XPJ44.com is not easy. Actually, I have not come across any large Chinese company with domains similar to such a pattern.

Overall, my impression is that XJP44.com is associated with gambling and similar domains containing 44 may be limited to being traded among investors only. I fail to see how it can be used by a corporate buyer.

Acubit tries reverse domain name hijacking

by — Policy & Law 0 Comments

Startup makes misguided arguments in attempt to get domain name registered in 2009

Reverse domain name hijacking graphic

A technology company based in Denmark has been found to have engaged in reverse domain name hijacking over the domain name acubit.com. Based on the arguments it made, it seems that its law firm did not have a firm understanding of how UDRP works.

Among Acubit’s arguments that it should receive the domain name were that:

…under Danish trademark rules, the registration or maintenance of a domain name which conflicts with a trademark is contrary to good practice. It also contends that it is “standard practice” for a domain name to be assigned to the relevant trademark owner. The Complainant states that: “the right to use Acubit.com is much more interesting and valuable to Acubit A/S than to the Defendant” and adds that the Complainant has invested considerable resource into its trademark.

The Respondent registered the domain in 2009, well before the Complainant claims any trademark rights in the term acubit.

The panel found that Acubit should have known that it had no reasonable chance of prevailing in the proceeding and found that the case was brought in bad faith.

Acubit was represented by Hjulmand & Kaptain. The Respondent represented himself.

Namecheap posts $149 million revenue in 2019

by — Domain Registrars 8 Comments

Topline grew 18.7% in 2019.

Picture of stock ticker board with words "earnings announcement" below it

Domain name registrar Namecheap generated $149 million in revenue in 2019, up 18.7% from its 2018 total.

The company focused on higher-quality domain names in 2019, eschewing the sub-dollar domains it pushed in prior years. As a result, its domains under management remained fairly steady at 10.5 million. It added 1.24 million registrations during the year.

In September, the company hit 5 million .com domains under management.

In a statement, the company said:

During the year, Namecheap welcomed over 675,000 new customers onto our platform, and continued to see our product mix expand with the addition of our Logo Maker, Business Card Maker, Validation and CDN products launching into market. Our other product verticals, such as Hosting and Private Email continue to outpace our strong domain business trajectory, contributing more and more to our overall financial performance.

Namecheap is privately held.

When did ICANN stop being a price regulator?

by — Policy & Law 28 Comments

Just because you say it, doesn’t mean it’s true.

Picture of a price tag and the words "Price Regulation"

These days, it seems that you can make something a truth by just repeating it over and over.

I was reminded of this last week when ICANN CEO Göran Marby published a blog post about .com prices. In the post titled “.COM Public Comments and Facts,” Marby repeats a mantra that ICANN has started using over the past year:

“ICANN is not a price regulator.”

ICANN seems to believe that if it just says it’s not a price regulator, then it’s not a price regulator. But this begs the question, when did it stop being a price regulator?

ICANN has been a price regulator for as long as I’ve covered it. It has regulated prices on may legacy top level domains and still governs the price of at least one of them.

The first inkling of not wanting to be a price regulator popped up in the new top level domain name round. ICANN didn’t impose any price caps on new top level domain operators. But it still had price caps in place on legacy domains.

Then, last year, it abandoned price regulation on .org, .biz and .info. Why? Because, apparently, it’s “not a price regulator.”

Which brings us to now. ICANN says it’s not a price regulator and defers to the U.S. government on .com pricing. Yet it still regulates the price for .net domain names.

That will undoubtedly change soon.

So if ICANN isn’t a price regulator, it needs to explain why it was a price regulator. A trickier question might be, “Why do you still regulate the price of .net if you aren’t a price regulator?”

ICANN could have avoided needing to artificially set price caps if it would have periodically put contracts to run legacy top level domains out to bid. Presumably, registry contracts that are in the best interests of the internet community would have factored price and stability/quality into the picture. Rival registries would certainly charge a lot less than ICANN’s current and recent price caps.

For importantly, who decided that ICANN shouldn’t regulate registry prices? The registries? ICANN staff? It certainly wasn’t a bottom-up decision-making process.

Potential Chinese buyers of two letter domains

by — Uncategorized 1 Comment

Chinese companies with 2-pin names sometimes opt for two-letter domains as brands.

Two Ls on a background that is yellow on the top and blue on the bottom

This morning I was thinking about several two-letter domains used by Chinese companies: JD.com, BL.com, and XC.com. They have one common feature which has implications for investors owning acronym domains.

The three domains are all acronyms for Pinyin names. JD.com is owned by Jing Dong, BL.com by Bai Lian, and XC.com by Xue Cheng. Notice that Jing Dong owns the exact match 2-pin JingDong.com yet has chosen to focus on the shorter 2-letter JD.com. In a way, you can see acronym domains as upgrades.

2-pin is the most popular type of Pinyin names in corporate China. So, as an exercise, I picked 20 2-pin names from the 2019 Top 100 Chinese Internet Companies Report and worked out their matching acronym domains. The result is listed below.

Company Current Domain Possible Upgrade
Teng Xun (腾讯) Tencent.com TX.com
Bai Du (百度) Baidu.com BD.com
Wang Yi (网易) Netease.com WY.com
Mei Tuan (美团) Meituan.com MT.com
Xin Lang (新浪) Sina.com XL.com
Sou Hu (搜狐) Sohu.com SH.com
Su Ning (苏宁) Suning.com SN.com
Xiao Mi (小米) Mi.com XM.com
Xie Cheng (携程) Ctrip.com XC.com
Yong You (用友) Yonyou.com YY.com
Lang Chao (浪潮) Inspur.com LC.com
Wang Su (网宿) Wangsu.com WS.com
Long Cai (龙采) Longcai.com LC.com
Xun Lei (迅雷) Xunlei.com XL.com
Yi Che (易车) Yiche.com YC.com
Mei Tu (美图) Meitu.com MT.com
Hui Liang (汇量) Mobvista.com HL.com
Duo Yi (多益) Duoyi.com DY.com
You Zu (游族) Youzu.com YZ.com
Zhen Dao (珍岛) 71360.com ZD.com

If you are the owner of one of the above two-letter domains, don’t get too excited yet. Some of the companies listed may not have the desire to acquire two-letter domains. For example, Baidu.com is so well known that changing to BD.com will require a lot of marketing efforts to promote the new brand. Also, Xie Cheng once owned XC.com so it is also unlikely they want to repurchase it again. Therefore, each individual company must be studied to ascertain their need to acquire a 2L domain.

What is the implication for investors owning acronym domains? As far as China is concerned, acronym domains up to four-letter .coms can serve as an upgrade. If your domain happens to fall into the upgrade path of a well-funded Chinese company, then your domain may be very valuable.