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RRPproxy and Hexonet offering new gTLD pre-regs

Kevin Murphy, October 2, 2012, Domain Registrars

Two reseller-oriented registrars this week have enabled their resellers to start taking new gTLD pre-registrations.
Key-Systems said its RRPproxy API and web interface now support pre-regs for hundreds of applied-for gTLDs, noting that the transactions are “an expression of interest without any commitment”.
The company seems to have filtered out the obvious dot-brands, but it’s still offering some gTLDs — such as .antivirus and .lifeinsurance — whose applicants are planning single-registrant models.
Separately today, Hexonet launched its Expressions Of Interest offering to enable its resellers to take “non-binding requests” for domains in possible forthcoming gTLDs.
Opinions are mixed about whether these kinds of services are good for the industry’s reputation. There’s no guarantee that these gTLDs will launch, or whether these registrars will qualify to sell them.

Key-Systems adds parking API to RRPproxy

Kevin Murphy, September 10, 2012, Domain Registrars

Top-ten registrar KeyDrive has delivered on a major piece of integration work following the merger of Key-Systems and NameDrive last year.
Key-Systems today announced that its RRPproxy reseller platform now has API commands that enable its resellers — and in turn their registrants — to easily park domains with NameDrive.
The new commands allow entire domain portfolios to be parked in bulk, according to the company.
Key-Systems and NameDrive formed KeyDrive in July 2011. The company also acquired Moniker and SnapNames earlier this year.

KSRegistry to provide back-end for three ccTLDs

Kevin Murphy, August 23, 2012, Domain Registries

KSRegistry, the registry services arm of Key-Systems, has won deals to provide the back-end infrastructure for .gd, .tc and .vg.
The three Caribbean island nations — Grenada, Turks and Caicos Islands and British Virgin Islands — have used London-based AdamsNames for their registries for many years.
AdamsNames is now outsourcing the gigs to KSRegistry, according to a press release.
The transition means that the three ccTLDs will move to a standard EPP interface and dump its XML-RPC one, making it easier for registrars to start selling the names.
The .tc space is currently closed to new registrations, however. AdamsNames said it plans to relaunch the ccTLD in October following a marketing campaign.
KSRegistry, which is the named back-end provider for 27 new gTLD applications, also recently took over technical services for .dm, the Dominican ccTLD.

Key-Systems has 31 gTLD clients, offers digital archery services

Kevin Murphy, June 11, 2012, Domain Registries

Key-Systems has become the third company to announce it is providing new gTLD applicants with a chance to possibly increase their chances of success with digital archery.
The service costs €15,000 ($18,800) if the company gets your application into ICANN’s first evaluation batch.
Almost as an aside, the company also revealed in a press release today that its KSRegistry back-end service is the named registry services provider for 31 gTLD applications.
Digital archery services are also being offered by Pool.com and Digital Archery Experts.
Today, Digital Archery Experts announced that it will split the cost of its service between clients if it winds up shooting arrows on behalf of multiple applicants in the same contention set.

Moniker and SnapNames join Key-Systems stable

Kevin Murphy, February 1, 2012, Domain Registrars

KeyDrive has acquired rival registrar Moniker and rival aftermarket player SnapNames from Oversee.net, according to a statement on the company’s web site.
The deal, which closed in January, would make the combined company the sixth-largest ICANN-accredited registrar, with over 5.4 million domains under management, KeyDrive said.
KeyDrive formed with the merger of German registrar Key-Systems and aftermarket services provider NameDrive last July. It’s based in NameDrive’s native Luxembourg.
The deal gives the primarily European company an additional footprint in the US market. Moniker is based in Florida, SnapNames in Oregon.
It’s a not-too-soon exit for Moniker, which had a disappointing 2011 largely defined by the super-fast churning of domains under management and the regular canning of staff.
I’ve been hearing rumors that the two Oversee units were on the auction block for months.
It’s the fifth significant piece of M&A in the registrar market in the last six months, following the sale of Go Daddy and Group NBT to private investors, Tucows’ acquisition of EPAG and NetSol’s move to Web.com
Terms of the acquisition have not been disclosed. Indeed, there does not appear to have been an official announcement yet, beyond the KeyDrive home page.
The deal was first reported by DomainNameNews.
More details as they come in.

Key-Systems sued over brand protection trademark

Kevin Murphy, January 10, 2012, Domain Registrars

Israeli domain name registrar Domain The Net Technologies has filed a preemptive lawsuit against German competitor Key-Systems over their respective brand management trademarks.
According to the complaint, Domain The Net filed for a US trademark on the term “BrandShield”, which it uses to market brand protection services at brandshield.com.
Key-Systems, which runs a similar service called BrandShelter, filed an opposition to Domain The Net’s trademark application last October, due to the alleged potential for confusion.
Anticipating a possible lawsuit, Domain The Net has therefore sued first, asking the District Court in Virginia to declare that BrandShield does not infringe the BrandShelter trademark.
The complaint lists several dozen live brand+word trademarks to demonstrate that no one company should have exclusive rights to the word “brand”.
You can view the complaint, which was filed yesterday, in PDF format here.
(Hat tip: @GeorgeKirikos)

Key-Systems wins .dm registry deal, 20 others

Kevin Murphy, December 19, 2011, Domain Registries

The German domain name registrar Key-Systems will provide the registry platform for Dominica’s soon-to-relaunch .dm country-code domain, the company has announced.
The company will provide local registry manager DotDM Corp with “tools to facilitate .dm registrations at the registry, registrar and reseller levels”, according to a press release.
It’s the first TLD deal Key-Systems, under its KSregistry registry services brand, has announced since it stopped providing back-end services for .cd back in 2005.
But KSregistry will also be involved in “more than 20” new ICANN gTLD applications next year, including brand, geographic and generic strings, according to a spokesperson.
DotDM has been the de facto manager of the .dm zone since 2001, but did not receive its official IANA redelegation until 2007. It plans to “market the .dm suffix worldwide” according to its web site.
It plans to launch the new system in the first quarter next year and is currently looking for registrars interested in accreditation.
Dominica is a small Caribbean island with a population of around 72,000, best known for its bananas.

Pricing competition begins in .xxx

Kevin Murphy, May 13, 2011, Domain Registrars

DomainMonster plans to charge between $75 and $300 for .xxx domain names, a fair bit cheaper than the only other registrar to so far disclose its prices.
A single .xxx domain will cost $99.99, dropping to $89.99 and $74.99 if the customer has more than 10 or more than 25 items in their cart when they check out, according to CEO Matt Mansell.
DomainMonster’s pricing scheme offers discounts on all products – including non-domain services – when more than 10 are purchased at the same time, and this will also apply to .xxx.
For trademark holders wanting to register or block their names during the sunrise period, the company will charge $299.99, $289.99 and $249.99, all but $50 of which is non-refundable.
Grandfathering prices for existing porn sites without trademarks will cost $199.99, $179.99 and $149.99, with the same non-refundable component. Landrush fees will be the same.
The only other registrar I’m aware of to announce prices so far is Key-Systems. Regular .xxx names will cost $133 there, with landrush names checking in at about $250.
ICM Registry, the .xxx manager, will charge $60 for domains during general availability. I hear through the grapevine that its fee to “block” a trademark for 10 years is $162.
According to ICM, the ratio of pre-registered domain names to registrants works out to between 20 and 30 names per person, so it’s seems possible DomainMonster’s volume pricing has a market.
About 60 registrars have been approved to sell .xxx domain names so far.

First .xxx domain name prices revealed

Kevin Murphy, May 11, 2011, Domain Registrars

New .xxx domain name registrations could retail for as much as $158 a year, a markup of almost $100 over the wholesale registry fee, it has emerged.
Key-Systems, one of the first registrars approved to sell .xxx names, plans to charge €92.44 ($133), or €110.00 ($158) including VAT, per name per year during general availability.
The prices were revealed on the German company’s consumer-facing web site, DomainDiscount24.com.
ICM Registry’s wholesale fee is $60 per year. Excluding VAT, Key-Systems stands to make a whopping $73 margin on .xxx domains.
For comparison, the registrar’s margin on .com domains is less than $10.
Prices for trademark holders that wish to register .xxx names defensively will be even higher.
In the first sunrise period, reserved for porn companies with trademarks, the company will charge a non-refundable application fee of €134.95 ($194), plus €130.90 ($188) per name per year.
In a second sunrise, which “grandfathers” registrants of porn domains in other TLDs, domains will cost €95.20 ($137) in non-refundable application fees, with the same again for the first year’s registration.
If you’re a non-porn trademark holder, and you want to block your brand from the .xxx namespace – say you’re Disney and you want disney.xxx permanently reserved – it will cost €450 ($648).
That’s a “one-time fee”, but it’s not yet clear how many years it covers for 10 years, which works out to €45 per year.
Landrush fees, for non-trademark holders, will be €80 ($115) per application, non-refundable, plus €95 ($137) per domain per year.
Key-Systems is the first registrar to disclose its pricing plans. It’s possible other registrars will offer lower (or, I suppose, higher) prices.

.CO sunrise sees gaming attempts

Kevin Murphy, July 12, 2010, Domain Registries

.CO Internet has published a list of over 1,500 domains that were rejected during its two-month-long trademark-protection sunrise period for the .co namespace.
While the document does not break down the reasons why each name was rejected, it appears to list some attempts to game the system by registering non-existent trademarks or trademarks belonging to other entities.
It’s a 48-page document, compiled by Deloitte, but the range of rejected domains can be illustrated without leaving the C’s.
Names that were applied for and rejected despite being household names include the likes of circuitcity.co, compusa.co, comet.co and currys.co, all electronics retailers, and chevrolet.co.
Since these are names for which trademarks certainly do exist, I’m drawing the conclusion that the sunrise applicant was not the owner of the trademark.
There were also attempts to register personal names, such as christopher.co and courtney.co, as well as geographical terms, such as coventry.co, cleveland.co and chennai.co.
One wildly optimistic applicant even took a chance on colombia.co.
Some applicants went after the .co variants of popular .com web sites, such as chucknorrisfacts.co and collegehumor.co.
In terms of generic terms, applications were rejected for the likes of coffeehouse.co and countrymusic.co.
All of these names, and 1,500 more from the list, will be released back into the landrush period, in which anybody can attempt to register them, a few hours from now.
The recently extended landrush period ends this Friday. General availability begins next week.
Hat tip to Key-Systems, which released the list earlier today.