Uniregistry beats Donuts to .shopping, but .shop still in play

Uniregistry has emerged as the successful registry-to-be of .shopping from the convoluted .shop/.shopping new gTLD contention set.
Donuts, the only competing applicant for the string, withdrew its application late last week.
As we previously reported, the .shop/.shopping contention sets were joined at the hip due to a bizarre string similarity challenge, making the scheduled auction very complex.
But Donuts and Uniregistry seem to have come to a private arrangement about .shopping, outside of the ICANN auction process, making .shop a straightforward nine-way fight.
Donuts tells me the auction, in which it is participating, is still scheduled for January 27.

4 Comments Tagged: .shop, .shopping, auctions, donuts, new gTLDs, uniregistry

Afilias $10 million court win slashed by judge

A US judge has dramatically reduced a $10 million ruling Afilias won against Architelos in a trade secrets case.
Architelos, which a jury decided had misappropriated trade secrets from Afilias in order to build its patented NameSentry domain security service, may even be thrown a lifeline enabling it to continue business.
A little over a week ago, the judge ordered (pdf) that the $10 million judgment originally imposed by the jury should be reduced to $2 million.
That won’t be finalized, however, until she’s ruled on an outstanding injunction demanded by Afilias.
The judge said in court that the original jury award had been based on inflated Architelos revenue projections.
The company has made only around $300,000 from NameSentry subscriptions since launch, and its sales pipeline dried up following the jury’s verdict in August.
The service enables TLD registries to track and remediate domain abuse. It was built in part by former Afilias employees.
Afilias has a similar in-house system, not available on the open market, used by clients of its registry back-end business.
Even a reduced $2 million judgment is a bit too rich for Architelos, which is desperately trying to avoid bankruptcy, according to court documents.
But the judge seems to be considering an injunction that would enable Architelos to continue to exist.
It may even be permitted to sell NameSentry, as long as it gives almost a third of the product’s revenue to Afilias for up to five years or until the $2 million is paid off.
The injunction might also grant joint ownership of the disputed patents to the two companies, allowing them to jointly profit from the technology.
This has all yet to be finalized, however, and Afilias can always appeal whatever injunction the judge comes up with.
It emerged in court earlier this month that Architelos offered to give full ownership of its patent, along with NameSentry itself, to Afilias in order to settle the suit, but that Afilias refused.
Afilias is also suing Architelos over the same matters in Canada, but that case is progressing much more slowly.

Comment Tagged: afilias, architelos, namesentry, new gTLDs, patents, security, trade secrets

.top gTLD tops a million as China goes domain nuts

China-based new gTLD .top has become only the second new gTLD to pass the one-million-domain milestone.
The gTLD, managed by Jiangsu Bangning Science & Technology Co, had 1,000,469 domains in its zone file on Saturday, an increase of 5,808 on the day.
The zone has grown by 453,833 domains in the last 90 days, according to DI PRO stats.
It’s growing just slightly faster, in percentage terms, than new gTLD volume leader XYZ.com’s .xyz.
The rapid growth can no doubt be attributed largely to price, feeding the current Chinese appetite for domain investment.
Its most successful registrar, West.cn (Chengdu West Dimension Digital Technology Co), is currently selling .top names prominently for CNY 4 for the first year. That’s just $0.60.
The registry says that registrants come from 231 countries and regions. On its web site, it highlights France’s Gandi.net and Gibraltar’s budget registrar AlpNames as key international partners.
However, the latest registry reports show that over 90% of its sales are coming from China-based registrars.
Despite .top being a Latin-script TLD, European and North America registrars seem to account for a very small number of registrations.
It’s not even carried by the likes of GoDaddy and eNom.
The third-place 2012-round new gTLD is currently .wang, another Chinese registry, which yesterday had 628,125 names in its zone file.
Number four is .win, which despite being run by Gilbraltar-based Famous Four Media is utterly dominated by sales via Chinese registrars.
At number five is .club, with 552,065 names and a much more international distribution of registrars.

10 Comments Tagged: .top, Chengdu West Dimension, china, Jiangsu Bangning, new gTLDs, west.cn

.cloud gets 500 sunrise regs

Aruba, the .cloud gTLD registry, said it received 500 applications during its sunrise phase, which closed this afternoon.
While low by pre-2012 standards, it’s a relatively respectable performance for a new gTLD, where sunrises periods consistently result in double-digit registrations.
It’s almost certainly in the top 10 for 2012-round gTLDs.

exactly one hour left to submit Trademark Priority Registration Orders in the .cloud sunrise… 500 received so far 🙂 #dotCloudFTW

— Get .Cloud (@getdotcloud) January 15, 2016

I gather there was only one duplicate application during the period, which ran from November 16.
Before sunrise began, Aruba already had about 30 “pioneer” registrants in the web hosting space, including Ubuntu and Weebly.
Landrush is set to kick off January 25, with general availability following February 16. Retail pricing will be around the $25 a year mark.

1 Comment Tagged: .cloud, aruba, sunrise

Kinderis calls on industry to cut the bullshit

Domain Name Association chair Adrian Kinderis has called for the industry to “grow up”.
The former ARI CEO, now Neustar veep, said Monday it’s time for the industry to kick out the handful of bad actors that ruin its reputation, and to quit the “bullshit bickering” about which TLDs are best.
“For far too long this industry has turned a blind eye to the less than scrupulous activities,” he said, “and these activities have plagued this industry. Bad actors have tarnished the perception of this industry.”
“This may have been acceptable when it was a few insiders first grasping at a fledgling product in the early nineties but… we are now front and center of the internet,” he said.
“These practices of a few bad actors have led to the frustration of consumers. We have not served the best interests of our consumers at all times,” he said. “This has to change.”
He was speaking to an audience of registries, registrars and investors at the opening session of the NamesCon conference in Las Vegas on Monday.
It was a fairly standard DNA sales pitch, the kind Kinderis has given before, but few could deny the truth of his remarks.
He called upon the industry to more effectively self-regulate, working with ICANN, to keep the boogeymen of government legislators and law enforcement agencies at bay.
“It’s time to grow up and show that we can regulates ourselves and build a strong sustainable industry with integrity,” he said.
He also called for unity among industry participants, pointing out that the threats to their businesses are external to the domain industry.
“The domain name war must be over,” he said. “The infighting and bullshit bickering has to stop. The .coms, the not-.coms, the IDNs, the g’s versus the cc’s… this must stop.”
“As an industry we have been very lucky. We’ve stumbled through 20 years without a collective strategy nor cohesion,” he said. “Outside forces have not had a massive impact on us, yet. QR codes have tried. Apps are trying.”
He pointed to the recent positive “bump” that many domain companies have experienced as a result of investment from China, but attributed to “dumb luck” rather than the result of any smart marketing or outreach.
The 10-minute speech can be viewed below or on the NamePros YouTube channel.

15 Comments Tagged: ICANN, namescon, neustar

GoDaddy launches mobile app for investors

GoDaddy has launched a new mobile device app specifically for domain investors.
GoDaddy Investor, as it is called, will enable domainers to monitor watch-lists of expiring domains, as well as bid in and track auctions, the company said.
Authentication is handled via a special PIN system or, on iOS, Apple’s TouchID.
“We worked closely with our domain investors to bring the same great investing experience to mobile that they’ve enjoyed on desktop for years,” Paul Nicks, GoDaddy’s senior director of aftermarket, said in a press release.
The app is available for Android and iOS operating systems and is available via their respective app stores.

Comment Tagged: .app, auction, godaddy

M+M acquires .boston from Boston Globe

Minds + Machines has added .boston to its stable of geo-gTLDs, buying the contract from the publisher of the Boston Globe newspaper.
The company said today that it has acquired 99% of Boston TLD Management, a new company into which the Globe plans to sign over its .boston ICANN contract.
The deal is contingent on ICANN approving the contract reassignment.
The ink is still moist on the .boston Registry Agreement, which was signed December 10.
The gTLD is officially in pre-delegation testing right now.
But the acquisition also means M+M will take over back-end duties for .boston. Originally, the Globe had intended to use OpenRegistry.
The gTLD was officially a “geographic” string under ICANN rules, and needed support from the local government in Boston.
.boston would become M+M’s fifth geographic gTLD — sixth if you include .london.
The company said it plans to launch the TLD later this year.

1 Comment Tagged: .boston, boston globe, ICANN, m+m, Minds + Machines, new gTLDs

.sucks “gagging” registrar critics?

.sucks may be all about freedom of speech, but some registrars reckon the registry is trying to ban them from criticizing the new gTLD in public.
Vox Populi is proposing a change to its standard registrar contract that some say is an attempt to gag them.
A version of the Registry-Registrar Agreement dated December 18, seen by DI, contains the new section 2.1:

The purpose of this Agreement is to permit and promote the registration of domain names in the Vox Populi TLDs and to allow Registrar to offer the registration of the Vox Populi TLDs in partnership with Vox Populi. Neither party shall take action to frustrate or impair the purpose of this Agreement.

It’s broad and somewhat vague, but some registrars are reading it like a gagging order.
While many retail registrars are no doubt happy to sell .sucks domains as part of their catalogs, there is of course a subset of the registrar market that focuses on brand protection.
Brand protection registrars have been quite vocal in their criticism of .sucks.
MarkMonitor, for example, last year wrote about how it would refuse to make a profit on .sucks names, and was not keen on promoting the TLD to its clients.
Asked about the new RRA language, Vox Pop CEO John Berard told DI that it was merely an attempt to clarify the agreement but provided no additional detail.
Registrars are also angry about a second substantial change to the contract, which would allow the registry to unilaterally make binding changes to the deal at will.
The new text in section 8.4 reads:

Vox Populi shall have the right, at any time and from time to time, to amend any or all terms and conditions of this Agreement. Any such amendment shall be binding and effective 15 days after Vox Populi gives notice of such amendment to the Registrar by email.

That’s the kind of thing that ICANN sometimes gets away with, but some registrars are saying that such a change would let Vox Pop do whatever the hell it likes and would therefore be legally unenforceable.

14 Comments Tagged: new gTLDs, rra, sucks, vox populi

Top 2015 new gTLD sale looks like cybersquatting

One of the top secondary market domain sales of 2015, as reported by Sedo, appears to be a case of somebody selling a domain matching a trademark to the trademark’s owner.
According to a press release yesterday, the domain basic-fit.fitness was the third-priciest reportable new gTLD domain sale handled by Sedo last year.
It went for €7,949 ($8,634).
Given that it’s not intrinsically an attractive-looking domain, I tried to figure out why it sold.
Judging by Whois records, the buyer is the corporate owner of Basic-Fit, a chain of over 300 gyms in four European countries.
It has at least one trademark on “Basic-Fit”.
The original registrant, according to records cached by DomainTools, was a Belgian web designer.
The domain seems to have changed hands around May last year. In April, it spent a couple of weeks under Whois privacy.
The domain was registered August 27, 2014, the day .fitness exited its Early Access Period and domains were available at regular prices.
It seems the same Belgian web designer owns several more new gTLD domain names matching brands that are parked with Sedo and available to buy instantly.
Many are .immo (“.realestate”) domains matching the brands of Belgian real estate firms. There are also a few .beer domains under his name matching the brands of breweries and beers in the UK, US and Czech Republic.
It’s not unheard of for web developers to register domains on behalf of clients. It’s rather less common for them to then list them for sale, with buy-now prices, on domain marketplaces.
Looks dodgy to me.

1 Comment Tagged: .fitness, basic-fit, cybersquatting, sedo, trademarks

Uniregistry offers app for iOS

Uniregistry today launched an app for customers of its registrar.
The Uniregistry App became available on Apple’s App Store today, for iOS-based devices.
A company spokesperson said that an Android version is in the works and will become available later this year.
According to the company, the app allows users to manage or buy domains as usual.
“Update it all, nameservers, DNS records, forwarding, auto-renewals, AUTH codes, even your domain lock,” the app’s description says.
For those worried about carrying the keys to the kingdom around in their pockets, authentication is handled by Touch ID (Apple’s fingerprint technology) and/or Google Authenticator, a one-time password app.

3 Comments Tagged: uniregistry