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- Namecheap abandons fight for .org price caps
- Identity Digital acquires another gTLD
- Seven dead registrars on the out
- Sav.com owner takes over .radio gTLD
- .com zone tops 160 million domains
- ai.com, the most-expensive domain sale ever
- .ai hits seven figures, raises prices
- Typosquatter gets two years in jail
- Epstein low-balled registrants to get his exact-match domain
- Epstein bought “mother” domains for Fergie while serving time
- Two former ICANN directors want back in
- Former ICANN director could lose control of ccTLD
- UK launches “police.ai”, but does it own the domain?
- Team Internet still in talks to sell off domains unit
- NamesCon returning to Miami in November
- “Mad Dog” politician registers nazis.us, redirects to Trump admin site
- “Lowest Price Guaranteed!” $48 .com registrar canned
- No RDAP? No accreditation
- Fifth-largest gTLD not dead after all
- Half of registrar’s domains are abusive, ICANN says
- Burr joins PIR after leaving ICANN board
- Refunds galore as gTLD losers finally bow out
- .goo terminated as search engine closes down
- GoDaddy to offer domain blocking to people who don’t have trademarks
- Happy new year expected for domain industry, says ICANN
- Salesforce to apply for a dot-brand
- Team Internet looking to break up
- Noss to leave Tucows corner office
- Rubens Kühl has died
- Sinha angry with Chapman’s firing as ICANN vice chair
- Glitch redux: ICANN screws up new gTLD security again
- CentralNic claims second-largest TLD migration ever
- DNS issue at Amazon takes out major apps and sites
- .io sales almost double over three years
- Amazon delays book and fashion gTLDs
- Lindqvist shuffles the exec deck
- GoDaddy launches “ultra-premium” domain marketplace
- .mobi to get a new rival in .mobile
- Bye-bye .boomer! Blockchain players abandon new gTLD plans
- Decades-old US registrar gets a spanking
- love.you sold in apparent five-figure deal
- Bogus harassment complaints could get you an ICANN ban
- ICANN slaps open-mic ban on conflicted lawyers
- Final GTFO warning for 19 failed new gTLD bids
- Nominet opens $500,000 fund for open source projects
- Com Laude buys larger rival Markmonitor
- Epik took down Charlie Kirk doxing site
- Number of subsidized gTLD bidders far lower than thought
- Another registrar goes AWOL
- gTLD loses its second-largest registrar after breach
- Com Laude buys Fairwinds
- Unstoppable wants to be a registry back-end
- Sixteen new gTLD bids could face the firing squad
- Registry to release one-letter domains tomorrow
- New ICANN funding rules will cost smaller ccTLDs more
- .ai rival lines up gTLD bid
- Team Internet lays off 200
- Sixteen more orgs vie for cheap gTLDs, but…
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- Cloud gTLD gets launch dates
- Governments say new gTLD program “credibility” at stake
- NIXI planning doomed new gTLD bids
- AI experts replace Chapman on ICANN board
- RDRS may not be dead
- Single-letter .com lawsuit thrown out of court
- Golding challenges McCarthy for Nominet board seat
- Three applicants qualify for cheapo gTLDs
- Blockchain crisis looming for new gTLD next round
- Two more dot-brands leave Verisign for GoDaddy
- ICANN looking at new bulk reg rules
- Reseller loss hits Tucows’ DUM but not revenue
- GoDaddy counts cost of losing .co deal
- Wine producers worried about new gTLDs
- Goodyear tires of its dot-brand
- Team Internet loses Radix to Tucows
- ICANN’s “review of reviews” kicks off
- Huge registrars flee from RDRS
- Namecheap loses attempt to bring back .org price caps
- Registrar shamed for alleged crypto abuse neglect
- Poblete’s ICANN board seat safe
- .com off to strong start in Q3
- .my is growing like crazy
- ICANN settles $77 million sexual harassment suit
- Chinese domain spikiness ends in first half
- Registrars agree to higher ICANN fees
- ICANN to review reviews after review review request fails
- Got junk? June’s biggest gTLD growers do
- ICANN ditches Oman due to Middle-East conflicts
- ICANN’s mighty overlord flexes on transparency
- ICANN faces first pushback over DEI U-turn
- Loads of firms flunk out of next-round gTLD back-end program
- presidenttrump.xxx among thousands of dead .xxx domains suddenly springing to life
- One of the dumbest gTLDs just switched back-ends
- GoDaddy loses .co to Team Internet
- Governments erect bulk-reg barrier to new gTLD next round
- Little interest in cheapo gTLD program
- US government opposes most new gTLDs
- GoDaddy loses last Amazon business to Identity Digital
- Third Amazon gTLD launch dates revealed
- .TOP promises to play nice on DNS abuse
- Court denies ICANN’s #MeToo “cover up” attempt
- Launch dates for two more Amazon gTLDs revealed
- An end to “Club Med for geeks” ICANN?
- Some people paid premiums for .hot domain hacks
- .io questions in sharp focus as UK signs Chagos treaty
- Big .gdn registrar at risk
- ICANN “reaffirms its commitment to diversity and inclusion”
- ICANN kills off diversity and inclusion
- Kaufmann picked for ICANN board
- Conflicted? STFU under new ICANN rules
- .hot is for hookers? Amazon’s first premium regs revealed
- Gname adds another 200 registrars
- New Pope’s .com domain was registered the day Francis died
- Two deadbeat registrars get their ICANN marching orders
- DotMusic has sold a lot of names, but not many are turned on
- .med is a deeply weird gTLD, but it wants to be more normal
- ICANN cuts off money to UASG
- Web.com getting dumped
- .es and .pt riding out massive power outage
- .com is back as Verisign discounts bear fruit
- Dot-brand actually being used to get deleted
- Verisign gave Trump $100,000
- Private Whois requests hit new low after Tucows quits RDRS
- Zoom says GoDaddy took it down for hours
- The Soviet Union might be safe after all
Epstein low-balled registrants to get his exact-match domain
Dead rapist Jeffrey Epstein tried to secure the .com and .net versions of his name by low-balling the existing registrants over relatively trivial amounts, according to the latest batch of “Epstein files” published at the weekend.
Epstein had his accountants make an “exploratory offer” of $1,000 for jeffreyepstein.com in July 2013, according to emails between Epstein, his accountant and an SEO specialist.
At the same time, the accountants said they planned to make a $500 offer to the registrant of jeffreyepstein.net, who had offered to transfer the domain for just $850.
I guess you don’t get to be an (alleged) billionaire without screwing over a few little guys.
The newly published files do not show whether Epstein ever successfully secured the .com version, but it seems he did acquire the .net, which was to be used as part of a shady-sounding SEO campaign aimed at restoring his reputation online.
An Archive.org cache shows that the .net domain was listed at HugeDomains for $895 as late as 2013. The released emails show a SEO specialist acquired it on Epstein’s behalf before February 2014.
Epstein was apparently angry that the first 75 pages of Google SERPs for his name contained nothing negative information, including mugshots taken following his arrest on child sex offences.
A reputation management specialist offered a suite of services aimed at reducing his exposure to this unwelcome attention through a variety of standard SEO techniques and dodgy-sounding tactics such as exploiting EU privacy law, creating fictional Jeffrey Epstein characters who would upload food and sports content, and “hacking”.
The .com domain is currently offered at GoDaddy for just shy of $10,000, while the .net redirects to epsteinwiki.com, a wiki devoted to exposing Epstein’s crimes.
Epstein bought “mother” domains for Fergie while serving time
Dead rapist Jeffrey Epstein registered several feminist-themed domain names for former Duchess of York Sarah Ferguson while he was serving time for sex trafficking a minor girl, the latest batch of “Epstein files” reveals.
Newly released emails show that Epstein’s assistant, Story Cowles, registered mothersarmy.com and themothersarmy.com, along with the .org and .net equivalents, using Epstein’s personal credit card, April 27, 2009.
At that time, Epstein was serving a cushy 18-month prison sentence for soliciting a minor for prostitution, but reportedly was allowed out of prison to hang out at his lawyer’s office on a work release program.
The Mothers’ Army was a project Ferguson had planned to help women in need around the world, including rape victims. It doesn’t seem to have accomplished much and the company was closed in 2016.
The domains were registered with Network Solutions, published invoices show, and were eventually caught on the drop after Ferguson allowed them to expire. Some are now listed with BIN prices north of $5,000.
Emails show that Ferguson contacted Epstein in August 2011 to attempt to have the domains transferred to her and was told that she’d have to reimburse him the $600 he’d so far spent on registration and renewals.
Ferguson is the ex-wife of the former Prince Andrew. She lost her title Duchess of York last year when Andrew, now Andrew Mountbatten Windsor, was stripped of his titles due to his involvement with Epstein.
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