Every Friday, DomainSherpa.com provides you with a hand-selected, editorially-based review of the weekly news. In this summary, you will find the latest articles and videos produced by DomainSherpa staff and contributors. You will also find links to the best news articles in the domain name industry – so you don’t have to spend your time searching for news or reading something that was not worth your time.
This Week’s Articles in Review
Next Week’s Sneak Peek
This Week’s News in Review
ICANN Renews Contract With VeriSign – 08-Jul-11
Internet infrastructure services provider VeriSign, Inc. (NASDAQ:VRSN) recently announced that the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) has renewed the formerís contract to serve as the authoritative registry operator for the .net registry for another six years till 2017.
Domain Market / Domain Asset Holdings Changes Landing Pages: No More PPC Links – 08-Jul-11
I happened to come across a domain name owned by Mike Mann’s Domain Asset Holdings, and I noticed the company recently changed its landing pages.
Livingsocial Gets Irish – 07-Jul-11
Daily deals site gets LivingSocial.ie domain name. LivingSocial has a new home on the web in Ireland: LivingSocial.ie. .Ie is the country code domain name for Ireland. Last month the daily deals site filed for arbitration to get the domain name. Until now it has been offering deals in Ireland on its main LivingSocial.com web address.
Will New Top Level Domains End The Rent-Seeking of Domain Name Speculators? – 07-Jul-11
Thousands of people all over the world have spent the past 15 years making millions by scalping web domains that people who might put them to legitimate would otherwise be able to register for less than $10 at their favorite domain registrar. Now ICANN, the Internet’s ruling body, is going to allow anyone to create a new Top Level Domain, potentially exploding the amount of internet real estate available to us all.
Namecheap Uses Facebook Likes to Activate $1.99 Domain Deal – 07-Jul-11
Namecheap, a leading domain name registrar, recently ran a successful promotion on Facebook that generated over 5,000 new fans to unlock a $1.99 coupon code for a new com/org/net domain name. Domains purchased with $1.99 coupon code include free WhoisGuard, Namecheap’s proprietary domain name privacy option, and a free Comodo PositiveSSL certificate. The total value of this opportunity retails for more than $53.
Domain Registrar Whois.com.au Offers Social Login to Registrar Account – 07-Jul-11
Australian domain register lets you login with your Facebook account. Domain name registrar Whois.com.au has enabled social login functions to access your registrar account. In other words, instead of logging in with your registrar credentials you can login with Facebook, Twitter, etc. I’m not aware of any other registrars that offer this, …
South Sudan: a New Nation With a Domain Name Dilemma – 06-Jul-11
In case you missed it, July 9th 2011 is the date a new country is welcomed into the world and they’ll need a TLD. South Sudan will be in a bit of a predicament if .ss is turned down. Even if we get a little creative with the countryís name, and use .rs as in Republic of South Sudan, this is already taken by Serbia. And .sn is taken by Senegal. In fact, all feasible letter configurations from the countryís name are already taken.
Verisign Releases Domain Traffic Treasure Trove to The Public – 06-Jul-11
VeriSign has released VERISIGN DomainScore to the public. The beta tool allows anyone to enter an unregistered domain name and get an idea of how much traffic the domain gets. DomainScore uses NDX data — basically visit requests to non existent domain names — to calculate a score ranging from 1-10. The higher the score the higher the …
Google Search Police Strike Again, Send co.cc Domains Into Oblivion – 06-Jul-11
According to The Register, Google has buried some 11 million URLs that end with co.cc. Apparently, the domain is tightly associated with spam sites and phishing attacks. In this case, Google may have a point: Co.cc is independently owned by a Korean company and is not officially authorized second-level domain name, and in 2010 nearly 5,000 phishing attacks could be traced back to co.cc URLs. The company offers two domains for free, and also allows buyers to register 15,000 domains for $1,000. It doesnít take a genius to see this is a hotbed for spammers.
New Web Names Spark Virtual Gold Rush – 06-Jul-11
Niche domain names such as healthy.food, nyc.bars or even pepsi.soda may soon enter the digital realm, but may put some companies on the defensive.
New Domain Auction Site KetMo.com Launches – 05-Jul-11
Domain Name Buyers and Sellers that visit the newest domain name sales auction site KetMo.com both win thanks to free membership free domain name search and listing tools, and a secure system for connecting with each other and negotiating a great deal on domain names.
Law Professors Want to Kick PROTECT-IP to The Curb – 05-Jul-11
More than 90 Internet law professors have come together to ask Congress to reject PROTECT-IP as it fails the test to be constitutional and if enacted would censor freedom of speech as if the U.S. were a …
More TLD Trademarks: .law, .kom, .tom, .construction, .hub – 05-Jul-11
The ticking time bomb in new TLDs continues with no work from ICANN. New top level domain name trademark frontrunning continues as 9 more trademarks have been filed related to new TLDs. USM CHINA/HONG KONG LTD filed applications for .Hub, .Tom, Kom, and .Kom. The Kom trademark applications are troubling given …
Leisure Canada Announces Acquisition of the Domain Name Visitcuba.com – 04-Jul-11
Leisure Canada Inc. (TSX VENTURE:LCN – News) today announced that it has acquired the domain name, website and assets related to “visitcuba.com” for total purchase consideration of $100,000 USD in cash and 84,746 Class A common shares of the Company.
Hungary Makes Changes to Domain Name Regulations – 04-Jul-11
The Hungarian government has made changes to domain name regulations in a bid to reduce registration time for .hu applications.
Go Daddy Sells for $2.25bn – 03-Jul-11
A consortium of investors has bought web hosting and domain name service Go Daddy for a reported $2.25bn, only three months after the company faced public revulsion when its CEO shared a video of him killing an elephant. The buyers included investment firms KKR, Silver Lake and Technology Crossover Ventures, which clearly saw potential in the 9.3 million customer base and 48 million domain names that Go Daddy claims it has.
Silicon Valley Firms in $2.25b Go Daddy Buyout – 03-Jul-11
A trio of Silicon Valley investment firms agreed on Friday to buy control of Go Daddy Group Inc. for about $2.25 billion. Technology Crossover Ventures of Palo Alto, along with Menlo Park firms Silver Lake and Kohlberg Kravis & Roberts will have the majority of the stock in Go Daddy. But Go Daddy founder and CEO Bob Parsons will be the single largest individual investor in the company.
Xxx Marks The Spot Where The Dot Con Boom Begins – 02-Jul-11
Establishing the domain .xxx as cyberspace’s red-light district was just an overture to the cynical advances of big business, says John Naughton
Bob Parsons Explains Go Daddy – KKR Deal to Domain Name Wire – 01-Jul-11
Investment makes 36 millionaires, will help company expand overseas and acquire complementary businesses. I just got off the phone with GoDaddy.com founder Bob Parsons, who explained the deal his company just struck with KKR, Silver Lake, and Technology Crossover Ventures. Contrary to reports in publications such as The Wall Street Journal, this was not an […]
Sedo Increases Commission Rates – 01-Jul-11
Typical sales will see a 5% fee increase. Sedo has increased its commission rate on most transactions occurring directly on its site. The typical sale on Sedo.com will now carry a 15% commission, up from 10%. The commission is still 10% if the domain is parked at Sedo and it is sells through a fixed price. Sales on Sedo’s MLS system carry …
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