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.Inc domain tops 500 registrations

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Expensive domain finds buyers.

.Inc top level domain logo

The .Inc top level domain name has crossed 500 registrations after getting 237 registrations in the first hour of general availability today.

While this wouldn’t be noteworthy for most top level domain launches, .Inc domains have a wholesale price of $2,000.

Over 270 domains were registered during the trademark sunrise and five additional names were picked up at a higher price during Early Access.

Among the dictionary word registrations so far are sex.inc, marijuana.inc, bitcoin.inc, offshore.inc alarm.inc, pets.inc and b.inc.

Some trademark holders appear to have waited until general availability to get their names.

To learn more about .Inc’s unique model, listen to DNW Podcast #232 with Shayan Rostam.

.Inc domains will be about $60,000 at Early Access

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Start a purchase order if you want to buy a .Inc domain in April.

Yesterday was day one of early access for .Dev domain names. I watched with amusement as Google’s Ben McIlwain (podcast) responded to complaints on twitter about the $10,000+ price tag. He explained that it was a Dutch auction and they should just wait a few days to buy the domains at lower prices.

If people were startled by .Dev’s early access prices, wait until they hear about .Inc.

Early access for .inc starts on April 30, but you’ll need to raise your credit card limit to participate. Expect to pay about $60,000 (not a typo) to get a .inc domain on day one. That drops a few thousand dollars on the second day. Wait until day 3 to pay about $30,000. The final day is still in the $6,000 neighborhood.

.Inc will always have a premium price tag, even in general availability. Retail prices will be about $2,000 per year.

I assume the value in these domains is for companies with common names that could be registered by someone else. I doubt cybersquatting will be a big problem; I don’t know many cybersquatters who will risk $2,000 on these names.

.LLC and .INC domain names are on their way

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With .Inc acquisition, we’ll finally see two of the better corporate identifier domains this year.

It’s been a long wait, but two of the best “corporate identifier” top level domain names are coming to the market.

Afilias’ .LLC domain name is in the trademark sunrise period until July 5. A landrush will run from July 9-20, followed by general availability on July 23. Regular retail pricing is in the $30 range.

Another company, Intercap Holdings Inc, has acquired rights to run the .INC top level domain name. It plans to run a sunrise in October, a 7-day early access period in November and also enter general availability in November. .INC domain names will come with a hefty $2,000 suggested retail price.

Neither domain has registrant restrictions, but the price of .INC domains will limit the buyer pool.

A couple of lesser-known corporate identifier domain names have already come to market. .GMBH has about 20,000 names in the zone file and .LTDA has fewer than 1,000.

Valuable IMI.com domain name lost in UDRP

by — Policy & Law 23 Comments

Bad decision in a three-letter .com UDRP.

I just wrote about PCO.com being saved in a UDRP despite the domain name owner not responding. This was before I saw a similar case in which a three-letter domain name was lost in a UDRP.

National Arbitration Forum panelist Neil Anthony Brown QC has ordered the domain name IMI.com transferred to Irving Materials, Inc.

Brown generally provides a nuanced and well-reasoned opinion in UDRPs, and I’m surprised by the result here.

To be fair, the domain owner didn’t respond. Still, a quick look at the facts of the case strongly suggest this was not cybersquatting and the domain was not registered in bad faith.

It appears the current owner is the original registrant from 1994. Its business was originally called Internet Marketing, Inc., hence the domain name choice IMI.com. It subsequently moved its business to PartnerVision.org.

IMI.com resolves to a page headlined “Internet Marketing Inc a PartnerVision venture”. It says the company has changed domain names and then says “Searching for other IMI Companies, try these:” followed by a list of other companies that use the IMI acronym. These links are clearly not paid links, despite the complainant arguing that they are pay-per-click links leading to companies that compete with the complainant.

The complainant latches on to a page on the site that says the domain names are for sale. It states: Click here to continue reading…

Final new TLD objection tally: Donuts 55, Amazon 24, Google 22

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Three of the largest applicants for new TLDs are facing a mountain of objections.

DonutsDonuts, Amazon, and Google have the dubious honor of having the most objected-to applications for new top level domains.

There were 263 formal objections to new top level domains, and that doesn’t include GAC advice.

Donuts received 55 objections covering 45 unique objections, which means about one out of seven of its 307 applications are facing an objection.

24 of Donuts’ objections are community objections. Groups purporting to represent the gold, band, and ski, among other “communities”, decided to fight the company.

Amazon received 24 objections on 18 unique applications. Half of the 24 objections are community objections, thanks in part of the company’s plans to keep its TLDs closed.

Google, which applied for more domains than Amazon, was hit with 22 objections on 18 unique objections. 9 are community objections and 7 are legal rights objections.

The “our competitors ganged up on us” winner is Fidelity, which applied for only four top level domains but managed to receive 11 objections. Only its .Fidelity application wasn’t objected to. Its .IRA, .MutualFunds, and .Retirement applications received multiple objections from a combination of TIAA-CREF, Charles Schwab, TD Ameritrade, and Prudential.

The spreadsheet below lists each objection and “decodes” subsidiaries to show applicants such as Donuts. It is sorted by applicant.