DomainMonster gets .co accreditation

DomainMonster has announced that it’s the first UK-based domain name registrar to get a .co accreditation.

The partnership comes as .CO Internet expands its registrar channel beyond the initial 10 that were approved when it launched a year ago.

The registry announced in April that it would add 20 new registars over the next 12 months.

DomainMonster has been selling .co domains as a reseller of Colombian registrar Domino Amigo for the last year.

The company says did a pretty brisk trade on the first day of .co availability, securing more .co names in the first 10 minutes than any other registrar, with a 90% success rate.

I’ve heard from a few places recently that Go Daddy may have even asked DomainMonster to submit launch-day registrations on its behalf.

The company also has a new reseller platform of its own, DomainBox, which will also make .co domains available to partners.

Confirmed: Go Daddy bought NoDaddy.com

Go Daddy has confirmed that it has acquired the domain name nodaddy.com, which until recently was the address of a gripe site frequented by the registrar’s biggest critics.

“Sometime in July we reached an agreement between Insecure.Com LLC and GoDaddy.com to transfer the domain name NoDaddy.com,” a Go Daddy spokesperson confirmed.

I’ve reported on the deal for The Register, here.

I should probably offer apologies to Toby Harris for disbelieving him, without doing my own checking, when he speculated that Go Daddy had bought out the site’s original owner.

Go Daddy’s Bob Parsons set for Forbes rich list

Go Daddy founder and executive chairman Bob Parsons is likely to be included on the next Forbes 400 list of wealthiest Americans, according to Forbes reporter Luisa Kroll.

Kroll estimates that Parsons will be worth at least $1.5 billion following the closure of its recent reported $2.25 billion investment with KKR, Silver Lake and Technology Crossover Partners.

That valuation would place Parsons at #269 on the current Forbes rich list.

He would rank higher than former AOL CEO Steve Case, Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin, former eBay chief Meg Whitman and Yahoo’s Jerry Yang.

Parsons, whose public image is largely that of a regular guy fulfilling the American dream, reluctantly admitted that he may belong on the list, although he does not consider himself a billionaire, Kroll blogged.

“I am going to give most of the proceeds to a foundation,” Parsons reportedly said.

Russian firm fined millions over domain land-grab

RU-Center, Russia’s largest domain name registrar, will have to repay 240 million rubles ($8.6 million) for grabbing thousands of domain names and auctioning them during the .РФ landrush.

The company could also be fined up to 75% of its 2009 revenues for breaking competition law, according to a statement from the country’s Federal Antimonopoly Service.

When .РФ was launched by the .ru registry launched last November, it offered domain names on a first-come first-served basis, without the premium landrush period offered by other TLDs.

RU-Center took this opportunity to register 60,000 domains in its own name and sell them off to the highest bidder, essentially bringing the landrush to the registrar level.

Some ccTLD Coordination Center council members, responsible for setting the launch policies, had ownership interests in RU-Center either directly or through family members, according to FAS.

The registrar is currently being acquired by a company called RBC.

Shakeup at Go Daddy

Go Daddy has a new boss and new ownership following a deal reportedly worth $2.25 billion.

For the first time in its 14-year history, Bob Parsons will be neither the majority shareholder nor the CEO.

It appears that seasoned technology investment firms KKR, Silver Lake and Technology Crossover Ventures will own, between them, more than half of the domain name registrar.

Very little about the “partnership” was disclosed, including the financial terms. Various media sources valued the deal at $2.25 billion.

It was left to Domain Name Wire to uncover the news that Parsons will actually step aside as CEO to allow COO Warren Adelman to take over.

Parsons will become executive chairman.

A Go Daddy spokesperson said: “Mr. Parsons has said he will be very active in the business, especially in the areas he is most interested, such as marketing.”

She added that “very little will change”.

The spokesperson confirmed that after the deal closes Parsons will no longer be the majority shareholder. He currently owns 78% of Go Daddy, with the remaining 22% allocated to employee stock options.

As DNW reported, 36 employees will cash out for over $1 million each.

I wonder if we’ll see a mini wave of new domain name companies springing up in the Scottsdale area, as a result of newly minted Go Daddy millionaires leaving to launch their own start-ups.