Domain News

This Sunday the NY Daily News wrote a feature called Get Rich With A Click , focusing on several New York geo domainers including Leon Hardy, Larry Fischer and Kevin Cahill.  The three featured own NewYork.com, Queens.com and StatenIsland.com respectively.  The article is a nice positive piece on the geo domainers.  Nice work guys.

(c) 2009 DomainNameNews.com

Advertisement
Upcoming Domain Industry Events, Conferences & Auctions

Original post by Adam Strong

DNN’s crack team of roving reporters sent us a tip that Comedy Central’s Colbert Report just gave DomainTools.com some prime placement.  In a report on SurvivalSeedBank.com, host Stephen Colbert mocks the website copy which states “If you don’t have the ability to grow your own food next year your life may be in danger” . . .  “Next Year?  This site was registered almost 2 years!”, states Colbert who then flashes over to a whois screen shot of SurvivalSeedBank.com from DomainTools .  . . “So next year was last year and we’ve been dead almost 2 1/2 months”  quips Colbert.

Nice research work Colbert and nice screen time DomainTools.com !   Survival Seed Bank seemed to  get a little boost recently according to this Google trend chart.

(c) 2009 DomainNameNews.com

Advertisement
Upcoming Domain Industry Events, Conferences & Auctions

Original post by Adam Strong

A good friend of DNN’s and domainer (and winner of DomainFest pitchfest) is participating in the GM Road Trip Challenge.   They’re competing against other teams to win money for charity.  If you want to help their team, you can do so by checking out their site and contributing a comment in their blog posts or just tweeting about it and encouraging their team on Twitter. All you have to do to help is send out a tweet.  We suggest “GO CHAD ! domainers representing #sxswsf “   :)    Good luck South Florida team and Chad.

Oh yea and if you blog about it throw in the #sxswsf hashtag in your title as it might help get distributed further on twitter.

Original post by Adam Strong

I found an interesting  product today while searching for some domain news articles.  It’s Domain, the men’s fragrance by Mary Kay.

Mary Kay describes the fragrance :  “Wrap him in the scent of hearth and home with Domain® Cologne Spray. He’s a breath of fresh air and so is this blend of lavender and oak moss.”

Nothing says “Domain” like lavender and oak moss, eh?

Maybe we can offer a rewrite and remix with DNN’s version : “Wrap him in the scent of the sea breeze of a beach side bungalow and the musky air of a grotto with Domain Cologne Spray. He’s a breath of fresh .com registrations and so is this blend of whiskey and Cuban cigar aromas.”

Could this be the perfect gift for your domainer husband/boyfriend ? Unfortunately, Domain cologne is not available at the domain Cologne.com    : )

(c) 2009 DomainNameNews.com

Advertisement
Upcoming Domain Industry Events, Conferences & Auctions

Original post by Adam Strong

In the ongoing drama that is Sex.com another major twist in the story has occurred. Sex.com has now been listed as an asset to be sold at a foreclosure auction.  Elliot Silver obtained the legal documents listing  the domain name as an asset to be sold at auction by order of the court.

The domain name was sold in January 2006 for a rumored $14 million to a group of previously private investors. It was rumored at the time that Internet RealEstate and former BuyDomains owner Michael Mann were involved.  The rumors obviously can be confirmed by this filing.

Sex.com is already a popular domain by nature of the subject matter. The 2006 sale gave it the highest domain sale bragging rights.  It’s the one domain that has been the focus of two books, one by Kieren McCarthy and one by lawyer Charles Carreon.  It’s been stolen and returned and then sold and now it’s gone in to foreclosure.  If it’s popular subject matter didn’t make this name interesting, surely the history and ongoing story behind Sex.com makes it one of the most popular domain names ever.

(c) 2009 DomainNameNews.com

Advertisement
Upcoming Domain Industry Events, Conferences & Auctions

Original post by Adam Strong

As reported earlier on TechCrunch , National A1 has sold the domain Poker.org for $1 million to poker company PokerCompany.com . The transaction is cited as the highest recorded .org sale price.  PokerCompany.com runs a portfolio of other non-.com domains including Craps.net, BlackJack.org and RakeBack.org .

This is a great sale and shows the value of a category killer keyword domain may be in it’s ability to rank well in a category, not just in it’s extension. DNN that there’ll be a resurgence in speculation in alternate extensions like .net and .org  and that the domain blogs and forums will be buzzing on this story for awhile.

(c) 2009 DomainNameNews.com

Advertisement
WE BUY DOMAINS. We are interested in acquiring your premium domains – find out more.

Original post by Adam Strong

Here is a ranking of our most popular articles this January:

1. Targeted TRAFFIC Las Vegas 2010 Live Auction Results
2. DomainFest Global’s Premium Live Domain Auction Results
3. Foreclosure.com Parent Seeks Bankruptcy Protection
4. AshleyMadison.com to Go Public, to Purchase Moxy Media
5. Adam Dicker leaves GoDaddy

At this point we would also like to thank our current Advertisers for their support.

Two domain conferences with big live auctions, one with huge technical difficulties were the top stories traffic-wise on DNN. Another important story for us was that we were able to help a charity receive a $100,000 donation from a bank.

What was the biggest story for you this month? Let us know in the comments.

(c) 2009 DomainNameNews.com

Advertisement
Upcoming Domain Industry Events, Conferences & Auctions

Original post by Frank Michlick

A few months back I wrote about the charitable work many domain name companies and individual domain investors are involved in supporting.   Now I’m going to ask YOU to consider stepping up to the plate and help a charity.  The beauty of it . . . it costs you NOTHING except a few minutes of your time.  You can support them today by simply going to Facebook and voting. That’s it. Simple !

VOTE NOW -  Chase Bank is giving $1 million to the charity with the most votes and $100,000 each to the charities that come in #2-6 in votes. Currently The Gwendolyn Strong Foundation is in 7th place.  They need your help.    All you have to do is go to http://VoteForSMA.com and vote for this charity.

What’s this charity about ?
The Gwendolyn Strong Foundation . . . The foundation was created by Bill and Victoria Strong to help provide resources and support for research organizations and the scientific community to help end Spinal Muscular Atrophy (SMA) , support efforts to raise awareness and educate the community about SMA and to support the programs focused on helping families impacted by SMA.

What is Spinal Muscular Atrophy?
It is a degenerative neuro-muscular disease. It’s also the #1 genetic killer of small children and the #1 killer of infants.   1 in 40 people carry this gene.

There is currently no treatment and no cure, but the National Institutes of Health (NIH) selected SMA as the disease closest to treatment of more than 600 neurological disorders.

YES ! Closest to treatment. According to reasearchers, the treatment of this disease could lead to further scientific breakthroughs.  “We know that Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s disease, cystic fibrosis, multiple sclerosis and cancer all come from genes that are aberrantly spliced,” he said. “If this is a model disease, meaning we succeed in treating Spinal Muscular Atrophy, we will know how to correct splicing of other genes in other diseases,” according to Professor Ravindra Singh.

$1 million can go a long way to helping get closer to finding a treatment  !

Other ways you can help today :

* Tweet about it (check out mine here and here).  Ask your followers to please vote.
* Update your facebook status.  This is a great way to get more votes from your friends and family.
* Blog about it. There’s more than enough blogs in the domain space to get a thousand votes easily.
* Link to this article, the Gwendolyn Strong Foundation, or VoteForSMA.com
* Banner ads. . . .we’ll have some up soon.  Snag the banners and link to VoteForSMA.com

$1m can go a long way in helping this effort.  Please consider helping this charity !

Vote now !  Voting ends on Friday, January 22nd.

(c) 2009 DomainNameNews.com

Advertisement

European Domain Registration

Original post by Adam Strong

DomainFest is less than 2 weeks away and there will be plenty of networking and big name speakers at the event. If you can’t get your fill at Domainfest though, there’s even more going on in LA that might be of interest to you as well.  Wednesday and Thursday Los Angeles will also be host to another internet/tech event with big names and venture capitalists galore.

Internet start-up gurus like Paul Graham, Robert Scoble, Om Malik, and even Demand Media’s own Richard Rosenblatt, will be speaking at  Twiistup.  The 2 day event features an agenda geared toward start-ups and features some of these start-ups in the “show-off” session.  Twiistup calls themselves the event “where venture capitalists and entrepreneurs come to find the next big thing”.  If you are an investor or launching a start-up idea Los Angeles is definitely the place to be the week of January 25-29th.

(c) 2009 DomainNameNews.com

Advertisement
Upcoming Domain Industry Events, Conferences & Auctions

Original post by Adam Strong

The premium Domain Name ComputerSpeakers.com is currently in an auction at Sedo and has met it’s reserve at the current bid of $10,100 USD. Google Adwords estimates approximately 673,000 ‘Broad’ search queries each month for “Computer Speakers”. Google Adwords estimates approximately 246,000 ‘Exact’ search queries each month for “Computer Speakers”. The domain name was registered on March 5th, 1999.

This domain name is very well suited towards an ecommerce site, or maybe even just an affiliate link – Amazon.com returns 1,049 products and eBay has 3,083 results if you search for “computer speakers”.

The Sedo auction is set to ends on December 9th Dec/09/09 at 07:19 PM EST 21 at 10:00am PDT. Click here to visit the auction page and bid today! You can also go to ComputerSpeakers.com directly, which redirects to the auction page.

Disclaimer: This post has been paid for by the owner of ComputerSpeakers.com

(c) 2009 DomainNameNews.com

Advertisement
WE BUY DOMAINS. We are interested in acquiring your premium domains – find out more.

Original post by Frank Michlick

This morning DomainAdvertising.com, the company that has launched their new services at the Targeted TRAFFIC show in New York, announced that they have appointed Dan Warner as their CEO. Dan Warner was last COO of Dark Blue Sea (ASX:DBS), parent company of Fabulous.com and left that position in April of this year.

“Dan Warner was the Board’s first choice for this position. He is the perfect leader for DomainAdvertising.com”, said Anoop Polavaram from the Ashmore Group, “His extensive experience and recognized leadership within the domain industry will be invaluable to the business. He is undoubtedly one of the most influential people in the industry.”

“I was looking for a challenge where I could manage growth and innovation in the Internet industry.  This was difficult to find in a market which has recently focused on reducing head counts, research and infrastructure.  Both Directi and Ashmore have a great reputation and substantial resources. When I was approached by them, I realized the potential of this business. I am thrilled about the opportunity,”  said Dan Warner. “We will be doing the exact opposite of most domain companies. Significant capital, human resources and infrastructure will be used to accelerate internet advertising innovation and design. We expect that many of the other players in the industry will look like they are standing still or going backwards in comparison to our scheduled advancements.”

(c) 2009 DomainNameNews.com

Advertisement
Upcoming Domain Industry Events, Conferences & Auctions

Original post by Frank Michlick

It didn’t take long for the sharks to begin circling. It’s come to our attention that class action attorneys already smelling blood in the water have begun investigating the possibility of a class-action case against SnapNames.  Blim & Edelson, Chicago based class-action attorneys, have put up a website to gather up possible plaintiff names and investigate the case.

To be clear the site states :
The listing of a company is not meant to state or imply that it committed any illegal or improper act; rather only that an investigation is or was being conducted by private attorneys to determine whether legal rights have been violated.

Edelson has recently taken on Facebook, Match.com, Lycos, and a number of other internet companies.

The site further reads :

If you purchased a domain name through SnapNames since 2005, you may be entitled to recover money. Contact an attorney today!

Also, typical of the domainer crowd, both SnapNamesClassAction.com and OverseeClassAction.com have been registered.  Too bad Edelson doesn’t have an affiliate program.

(c) 2009 DomainNameNews.com

Advertisement
WE BUY DOMAINS. We are interested in acquiring your premium domains – find out more.

Original post by Adam Strong

A ruling by the US Court of Appeals 9th Circuit in the case of U.S. v Kilbride has determined that using whois privacy on domains can be considered “material falsification”.  The case involved an appeal on criminal charges of spamming. The ruling in this case provides an the courts opinion on provisions of  the CAN SPAM Act that specifically relate to the use of domains and were argued by the defense as “vague”.

In Title 18 § 1037 Section (d) (2). “Fraud and related activity in connection with electronic mail”  it states that :

For purposes of paragraphs (3) and (4) of subsection (a), header information or registration information is materially falsified if it is altered or concealed in a manner that would impair the ability of a recipient of the message, an Internet access service processing the message on behalf of a recipient, a person alleging a violation of this section, or a law enforcement agency to identify, locate, or respond to a person who initiated the electronic mail message or to investigate the alleged violation.

The defendants in this case were convicted under 18 U.S.C. § 1037(a)(3) and (a)(4) and argued that the terms “impair”, “materially falsify” and “conceal” in that code are vague.  The court however pointed out that ““When Congress does not define a term in a statute, we construe that term according to its ordinary, contemporary, common meaning.”  The court made it clear in their ruling that the defendants use of private whois information was “materially falsified”.

“. . . private registration for the purpose of concealing the actual registrant’s identity would constitute “material falsification.

Defendants assert that many innocent people who privately register without the requisite intent may be subject to investigation for violation of § 1037 until their intent can be determined, allowing for abuse by enforcement authorities. This may be so, but it does not make the statute unconstitutionally vague.”

“It should have been clear to Defendants that intentionally falsifying the identity of the contact person and phone number for the actual registrant constitutes intentionally decreasing the ability of a recipient to locate and contact the actual registrant, regardless of whether a recipient may still be left some avenue to do so. We therefore conclude Defendants had notice that their conduct violated § 1037.”

The ruling doesn’t make use of whois privacy illegal. However coupling the use of privacy services with an allegation of intentional spamming and you’ve got the cards stacked against you.

[Source : TechLaw blog]

(c) 2009 DomainNameNews.com

Upcoming Domain Industry Events, Conferences & Auctions

Original post by Adam Strong

DNN.com and DNW.com are combining forces to host  a live chat and video broadcast at 3:50 EST today.  Andrew Alleman and Adam Strong will be chatting live during the “pre-game” video chat and will be in the chat room throughout the auction.   Barring any technical issues, we’re also hoping to be joined by at least one other person, Chef Patrick, live from the auction floor.

DNN hosted a trial run of a chat yesterday during the Rick Latona TRAFFIC Auction that was fairly well received.  We hope to see you there. If you are at TRAFFIC and have a webcam, drop DNN an email at editor @ domainnamenews.com.  You can also watch the live auction at SnapNames.com

To login to the chat you will need the password : domains123 . Then create a username or sign-in with Twitter or Facebook. See you there.

(c) 2009 DomainNameNews.com

Upcoming Domain Industry Events, Conferences & Auctions

Original post by Adam Strong

In a bizarre ruling in California federal court, NBA star Chris Bosh was awarded the domain name ChrisBosh.com and nearly 800 of these domain names from alleged cybersquatter, Luis Zavala of Hoopology.com.  The ruling gives Bosh the authority to take over the domain names of hundreds of basketball stars, a pro wrestler, pro golfers, and some other random domains.

Bosh is offering the domains back to the celebrity or person that the domain represents. In a statement on the published list it states the domains will be given to the celebrity “free of charge as a courtesy to the celebrity named herein, provided that such person promptly requests the return of such domain name in writing”.

Clearly Zavala was speculating by the looks of this list . He registered many college and highschool basketball player domains, but what is very unclear is how the court made the determination that nearly 800 of these domains should be awarded to Bosh. We have yet to find the filing, but we will post that soon.  Names that have no relation to a celebrity or other trademark were also awarded to Bosh such as Hoopology.com, October24.com, Mixedmartianarts.com.

The fact that unrelated/unsquatted domains could be given up to a claimant is truly a scary ruling for domain name owners in DNN’s opinion.

UPDATE : Attornies for Bosh, Winston & Strawn,  have a press release about the case up now where they proclaim Bosh a “cyber hero”.

[first seen on ESPN]

(c) 2009 DomainNameNews.com

Advertisement
WE BUY DOMAINS. We are interested in acquiring your premium domains – find out more.

Original post by Adam Strong