Domain Name News: Week 6 of 2011 in Review

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.tel Pages Will Soon Look Like… – 11-Feb-11
Contest for .tel facelift ends. Now for the winner… .Tel pages may soon get a facelift courtesy of a design competition. Telnic, which runs the .tel domain, ran a contest on 99Designs to get user submissions of a potential new template. It received 223 submissions as of Wednesday’s deadline. .Tel is a unique domain name created for …
SanDiego.com Dispute Goes to Court – 11-Feb-11
Former owner files breach of contract claim. [Update: I now have a copy of the complaint (pdf). It focuses on mostly alleged verbal contracts between Burgess and DeuPree for total damages of $185,00. It also alleges that when DeuPree negotiated to buy the site that he "and unknown collaborators planned for force Burgess from sandiego.com, …
Nominet and Police Web Take-down Should Seek Judicial Oversight – 11-Feb-11
Changes to the website takedown rules should be considered very carefully and there needs to be a full judicial oversight, the Open Rights Group has said. The comments from the organisation come as Nominet, the .uk domain name registrar, opens a consultation following a request by the Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA) to be able to take down websites, which they believe to be used for criminal activities at a moment’s notice. However, in order to do this changes to the terms and conditions under which UK domain names operate are required.
Dotgay Llc Selects Neustar Registry Services – 11-Feb-11
Dotgay LLC announced today it has selected Neustar, Inc. (NYSE: NSR), a leading domain name registry services provider, to provide the backend technology required to support the .gay generic Top-Level Domain (gTLD). Dotgay LLC expects to submit its application to manage the .gay gTLD to the Internet Corporation of Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) later this year. Dotgay has endorsements from some of the largest gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender (GLBT) organizations in the world already in place (combined memberships of approximately two million).
Send a Valentine With Google? Company Registers Valentine’s Domains. – 10-Feb-11
Google may be offering some sort of Valentine’s Day gimmick next week. Valentine’s Day is Monday, February 14th. As millions of guys struggle to find that perfect gift, it’s possible that Google will come to the rescue on Monday.
Nominet Makes Formal Call for Soca Takedown Views – 10-Feb-11
UK internet registry Nominet has formally called for opinions on potential legal powers for fast takedowns of websites and domains, following proposals by the Serious Organised Crime Agency.
Comodo Buys DNS.com – 10-Feb-11
Security firm buys DNS company with domainer roots. Congratulations are in order for two people close to the domain name industry — Dan Kimball and Sean Stafford. The pair have sold their company DNS.com to Comodo, a large online security firm.
Afilias and Crowell & Moring to Collaborate On Supporting New Top-level Domains – 10-Feb-11
Afilias Limited, a global provider of Internet domain name registry and Domain Name System (DNS) services, today announced that it has entered into a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Crowell & Moring LLP. Under this MoU, Afilias and Crowell & Moring will extend their current working relationship into supporting new top-level domains (TLDs).
New Phishing Tactic Emerges at One of World’s Largest Payment Processors – Domain Name System Hijacking Р10-Feb-11
IID report reveals new tactic to steal critical personal information online like credit card numbers. Report also shows gaming and e-commerce phishing.
Keynote From .Nxt Meeting: Juan Calle “.Com is Really a Typo of .Co” Р10-Feb-11
As the 1st .Nxt show in came to a close in San Francisco today, Juan Calle the CEO of the .Co registry took the stage and spoke on the future of domain names and the opportunity that new gTLD’s will bring.
Domain Name Sales Grew By 12% Last Year, Report Finds – 10-Feb-11
The domain names market saw 12 per cent growth in sales last year, according to a new study. Sedo revealed that year-on-year domain name transactions grew, while the value of each also increased as more companies looked to get their hands on an address for their website. The Annual Domain Name Market Study found that the average .com domain name value grew by 61.9 per cent, while .net suffixes rose by 10.2 per cent.
Former Nazi Death Camp Changes Domain Name After Polish Government Pressure – 10-Feb-11
An official at the former Nazi death camp of Majdanek says the memorial has switched its website from a Polish to a European domain name. Danuta Olesiuk, deputy director at Majdanek said Thursday that the memorial site changed its Internet address to www.majdanek.eu from www.majdanek.pl after a request from the government.
Image-based Adverts Come to .tel – 09-Feb-11
Telnic Limited (https://telnic.tel), the Registry Operator for the .tel top level domain (TLD) today announced that image-based adverts are now supported in .tel domains.
Owners of .tel domains can now embed links to image-based adverts, through the use of open APIs or third party services supporting these records, providing more visual imagery to enhance their templates, display their products or add banner-type advertising links to generate click-through revenue.
ISSC-austria Gifts Two Modern Sporting Rifle Domains to The NSSF – 09-Feb-11
ISSC-Austria, exclusive importer and distributor of rugged, Austrian engineered and manufactured .22 LR training pistols and rifles, has announced that it will transfer ownership of its domains www.modernsportingrifle.com and www.modernsportingrifle.org to the National Shooting Sports Foundation as a demonstration of ISSC’s good faith and support of the NSSF’s ongoing modern sporting rifle media campaign.
Months Later, Google Promises Fix for Change of Address Bug – 09-Feb-11
In November 2010 an SEO complained in a Google Webmaster Help thread that when he used the change of address feature in Google Webmaster Tools, it prevented him from doing so because it thought his domain was not a root domain. It gave him the error, “Restricted to root domains only” but it was a root domain.
UDRP Panel Transfers Payback.es Domain Name – 09-Feb-11
Generic domain name to be transferred as result of arbitration decision. Is the term “payback” generic? Of course it is. It has many potential uses. Still, a World Intellectual Property Forum panelist has awarded the Spanish ccTLD Payback.es to Germany’s Payback GmbH.
Pac-12, 2pac Fan Battle for Domain Rights in Web Squatter Case – 09-Feb-11
The newly expanded Pac-10 — or Pac-12, as it’s called now — has a problem on its hands. You see, the conference already has its own happy domain, Pac-10.org, but needs a domain change to accommodate its new name, Pac-12. The conference wants Pac12.com, but the domain is currently owned by a loyal 2Pac fan. And thus, we have an issue.
DNS: Will World Governments Be Able to Veto Your Domain Name? – 09-Feb-11
Millions of websites and billions of users depend on DNS to make the Internet work. The DNS Zone provides DNS overviews and covers the future of DNS.
Prepare for a Web Transformation As New Domain Names Emerge – 09-Feb-11
Soon the standard .com’s, .nets and .orgs , which are now the basic domain suffixes of most web addresses, will give way to custom domain names.
Verisign to Bolster .gov Security – 07-Feb-11
The U.S. federal government’s ongoing effort to improve the security on its Web sites may get a boost now that Verisign has taken over operation of the .gov registry. Verisign is providing all domain name registration services for the .gov and fed.us domains, which are restricted for use only by federal civilian agencies or city, county and state government organizations.
Smart Tool Could Spot Dodgy Domains and Block Botnets – 08-Feb-11
Watch out spammers, phishers and botnets: a new tool designed to hunt down malicious web domains could illuminate your shady corners of the internet. Internet service providers (ISPs) currently have no way of clearly and automatically identifying dodgy domains. “In general ISPs don’t know what’s going on in their network,” says computer security researcher Leyla Bilge at the International Secure Systems Lab near Antibes, France.
Domains Like “.videos, .music, .movie,…” Will Soon Take On Internet – 08-Feb-11
ICANN [Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers], the non-profit governing body of internet‚ domain name system [including IP address (IPv4, IPv6) space assignments], is close to finishing talks with its board, – while collecting responses from Internet societies and industry leaders ‚Äì – and will soon accept applications from companies and governments that want to operate new domains a.k.a internet addresses.
SEDO Tops $100m in Sales in 2010 – 08-Feb-11
Domain broker announces record year for domain name sales. Sedo announced today that it helped sell over $100 million worth of domain names last year. It’s the first time the company has hit 9 figures in a year. The total was no doubt helped by the $13 million sale of Sex.com. Without the Sex.com sale Sedo’s numbers would actually be down …
Zoupon Brings in The Deals, Companies Buy Misspelled Domain Names – 06-Feb-11
Having an easy name to say and spell is of benefit when it’s turned into a domain name, but sometimes you have to give the people what they want. Sometimes, that means buying an entirely new domain name, while other times it means buying a range of domain names that are common misspellings of your existing domain name, just so you can make things easier for the people that fund your business – your customers.
Dramatic Increase in Value of Domain Names – 08-Feb-11
Annual domain name market study from Sedo records 12 per cent growth in domain name sales year-on-year. The research, which features in Sedo’s latest Annual Domain Market Study, highlights the strength of the online property market at a time when offline property prices decreased by 2.4 per cent in the same period†.
The Birth of a Domain Name: Where Websites Come From – 08-Feb-11
Though everyone knows that different websites have different domain names, not everyone knows exactly where these domain names come from, or who’s in control. If you’ve ever wondered, this post is for you.
Homeland Security Begins Seizing Domains Again – 07-Feb-11
Late last year the Department Of Homeland Security seized roughly eighty domains, including at least one search engine, under a broad new copyright protection push that is on shaky (at best) legal grounds. DHS continued those domain seizures last week, including a significant portion of domains for streaming websites like ChannelSurfing.net — clearly as part of an effort to crack down on illegal sports streams ahead of the Superbowl. Except as Techdirt points out, at least one of those seizures was of not only a foreign domain (Spanish streaming site Rojadirecta), but for a legitimate company that has found its streaming rights upheld repeatedly in Spanish courts.
Critics Slam Feds for ‘Unprecedented’ Domain Seizure – 07-Feb-11
A vocal chorus of lawmakers and policy wonks are decrying the US government’s practice of seizing large numbers of internet domain names without first giving the owners a chance to defend themselves in court. The latest installment of Operation in our Sites came last week with the seizure of 10 addresses for websites accused of illegally streaming live pay-per-view sporting events. Under the initiative, feds confiscate the internet addresses with no prior warning to the owners, many of whom are located outside US borders.
On Domain Seizures Over Links, DHS Faces Digital Conundrum – 07-Feb-11
What makes Google searches any different from websites dedicated to searching out and linking to copyrighted content on other servers? That’s a question Homeland Security Investigation Special Agent James Hayes had a hard time explaining during a recent phone interview with John Moe of American Public Media.
Registrar Brandon Gray Internet Services Loses License to Sell .CA Domains – 07-Feb-11
A Canadian domain registrar affiliated with a reseller that the Canadian Internet Registration Authority (www.cira.org) says has sent out misleading renewal notices to domain owners has lost its license to sell dot-ca domains, according to a report by IT Business. Markham, Ontario-based Brandon Gray Internet Services (https://namejuice.com) lost an injunction request on January 27 to keep its license pending an upcoming trial against CIRA involving a $10 million lawsuit.
For Countries That Own Shorter Web Site Suffixes, Extra Cash From Abroad – 06-Feb-11
Country codes owned by governments that have two-letter combinations at the end of their sites, like the “.me” for Montenegro, are attracting purchases by foreign companies.
Go Daddy Sees Anticipated Traffic, Sales Spike From Super Bowl Ad – 07-Feb-11
GWeb hosting and domain giant Go Daddy (www.godaddy.com) announced on Monday that it had doubled its best-ever Internet traffic spike in the wake of its advertisement in Sunday’s Super Bowl broadcast, and had successfully converted the traffic into significant sales. The company, which owes much of its rapid rise to prominence to a deft spinning of the controversy surrounding its original Super Bowl ad, says the surge that followed its first appearance in the broadcast pushed its total domains under management past the 46 million mark.
.Co and Other Commercialized ccTLDs Hit New York Times – 06-Feb-11
Article highlights commercialization of two letter country code domains. The New York Times published an article today about the commercialization of country code top level domain names. Colombia’s .co will get major attention after a Go Daddy commercial plugs it today, and .co was front and center in the article. .Co Internet CEO Juan Calle noted that Colombia gets 25% of revenue from sales of .co. This is the first time I’ve seen this number published.
Super Bowl Celebration: Less is More With Dot-co – 07-Feb-11
It’s the morning after. The blogosphere is abuzz with excitement about Super Bowl Sunday, and EnCirca is tickled to join in and offer special pricing for registering a dot-co domain. EnCirca’s promotional pricing for a dot-co registration is $11.99 for the first year and will be available until Friday, February 11, 2011. Dot-co, an old domain name, has reinvented itself and is now available for unrestricted international use.
Domain Name Dispute – 07-Feb-11
Domain name disputes such as this where one party claims to have rights in a domain name which has been registered by another party are governed by The Rules for Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (“the Policy”). The Policy is incorporated by reference into all agreements on registering a domain.
Web’s Domain-name System in for Huge Expansion – 07-Feb-11
The pillar of the basic Web address — the trusty .com domain — is about to face vast new competition that will dramatically transform the Web as we know it. New websites, with more subject-specific, sometimes-controversial suffixes, will soon populate the online galaxy, such as .eco, .love, .god, .sport, .gay or .kurd.
Did GoDaddy Turn Off Premium Listings During The Super Bowl? – 07-Feb-11
For domain investors who list their domain names with Go Daddy’s Premium Listing program, the Super Bowl commercial was possibly expected to bring a big bump to sales. With massive amounts of website traffic, premium listings should have received significant exposure during the game.
Sen. Mccaskill Pays Cybersquatter $4k for Domain Name – 07-Feb-11
Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) recently paid a cybersquatter $4,000 for the rights to ClaireMcCaskill.com, which now redirects to her campaign website. The St. Louis Dispatch caught the expense listed on McCaskill’s latest campaign finance report. A Missouri-based graphic designer owned the domain name, according to the paper.
US Government Wants Veto Power On New Domain Suffixes – 07-Feb-11
In the midst the forthcoming rampant expansion of the Internet, the US government will look to gain veto power over future domain name suffixes. Numerous additions, like .car, .movie, and .web, could be officially introduced next month. But before any new top level generic Top Level Domains (gTLDs) are allowed into our address bars, ICANN’s international representatives have to sign off on them.
Big Business Buys Up to Outsmart ‘Typosquatters’ – 06-Feb-11
BIG Australian companies are buying up ”misspelt” internet domain names to stop others making money from their brand. Corporations such as Qantas, Westpac and Woolworths have registered the incorrectly spelt internet names because many people are terrible typists or cannot spell.
Country Domain Names Becoming Source of Revenue – 06-Feb-11
Catchy suffixes like those of Colombia (.co) and Montenegro (.me) are in higher demand because the popular .com is running out of room.
A Second Tour As CEO – 05-Feb-11
David Ulevitch of OpenDNS says a professional setback helped him fine-tune some management skills.
Massive .co Domain Registration Sale! – 05-Feb-11
If you’ve ever wanted a short custom domain name for your business, organization or whatever it may be, a .CO domain name may be just what you need! The new and highly talked about .co domain extension is the perfect choice to get your brand or business name on the web! A .co domain name is the perfect alternative to the .com domain extension which has been highly dominate for years now across the world wide web as we know it.
From Big Pong to Fight Centre … The Rush to Register Online Typos – 05-Feb-11
BIG Australian companies are buying misspelt internet domain names to stop sneaky businesses making money from their brand names. And corporations such as Qantas, Westpac and Woolworths have registered the incorrectly spelt internet names because some people are terrible typists or cannot spell.
How to Stop Domain Names Being Seized By The US Government – 05-Feb-11
As the United States authorities continue with their domain name seizure policy, file-sharing, streaming and link site operators around the world are looking for ways to mitigate this aggressive action. To this end, an Internet engineer and website operator has put together a guide that might just help site owners avoid a whole heap of inconvenience in the future.
Broomfield Man Grabs Metro State-associated Domain Names – 04-Feb-11
What’s in a domain name? For an enterprising Broomfield man, there’s the hope for some income should Metro State go ahead with plans to change its name. According the domain name-manager GoDaddy.com, John Gunter, of Broomfield, bought both universityofcentralcolorado.com and denverstateuniversity.com on the same day the Denver Post reported that Metropolitan State College of Denver is considering changing its name to either University of Central Colorado or Denver State University.
Senator Wyden Demands Feds Justify Domain Seizures – 04-Feb-11
Asks Obama Administration to explain what standard the DoJ expects other countries to use when seizing US-based domain names, as well as whether or not the DoJ and ICE take into account the legality of sites in their home country before seizing them.
Trademarking a Domain Name? Sure, Why Not? – 04-Feb-11
So what’s the short answer to the question can a domain name be a trademark? They are subject to the same rules and standards as all other types of trademarks so the generic transfer protocol, dot, and top level domain can’t function as source indicators.
Oregon Senator Questions Homeland Security’s Domain Seizures – 04-Feb-11
Oregon Senator Ron Wyden has sent a letter to the head of Homeland Security’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement (www.ice.gov) that questions the agency’s seizure of domain names over the past few months.
IANA About to Release Final Seven Batches of Domain Names As Ipv4 Runs Out – 04-Feb-11
Almost four billion domain names have now been taken since the internet began nearly 40 years ago, according to the organisation that runs the distribution of addresses. The Internet Address and Naming Agency has announced that it will be releasing the remaining seven blocks of domain names later in February, as the latest system – IPv4 – runs out combinations.