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Based on a recent report, the .eu top-level domain, launched a year ago, has proven particularly popular with groups that have been created as a result of cross-border mergers. For example, Dexia, the Franco-Belgian group, as well as companies registered outside their home country for regulatory reasons. Cyprus, a popular destination for company registrations, has boasted the seventh-highest number of .eu domain names.
The European Commission says: “Now that the initial flush of registrations has passed, there is an increasing trend towards using .eu domains immediately they have been registered as opposed to simply registering them as a precautionary measure and letting them lie dormant.”
Read Full Story at Financial Times
Source: Financial Times – August 27th, 2007 – Original Article
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Online gamblers have been in a bit of a pickle this week with trouble at Bodog.com due to a dispute over the ownership of the domain name bodog.com, causing the website to be temporarily out of action. It’s back up and running now at a new address www.newbodog.com
The problem has stemmed from “a $48.6-million default judgment obtained by a Las Vegas company against Bodog in a patent infringement case” according to the Vancouver Sun. The Vancouver Sun goes on to say “according to Nevada court documents, 1st Technology LLC of Las Vegas obtained a $48.6-million default judgement on June 14 against Bodog Entertainment Group S.A., Bodog.net and Bodog.com.”
Further, it’s not clear why Bodog officials didn’t respond to the allegations, but it could be related to the US Department of Justice’s war on internet gambling. There have been a number of high profile arrests of online gambling executives, especially those from the UK. So it’s wise for these executives to steer clear of the US.
Known Bodog registered domains have been suspended, and as an immediate ‘bandaid’ solution the company registered New Bodog.com – the company has trademarked the Bodog brand and founder and CEO Calvin Ayre has said it is going to fight the action with determination. The implications for brand, business, search engine positioning and other elements are clearly significant. According to Internet searches, 1st Technology LLC is “….a leading technology licensing company with a patent portfolio of advanced Internet and multimedia innovations. 1st Technology is headed by Internet pioneer Dr. Scott Lewis who led the development of the world’s first single integrated circuit chip with on-board video and audio compression, advanced adaptive digital signal processing technology at Oxford University, and introduced multiple broadband Internet and multimedia technologies. 1st Technology has a long list of industry leaders as licensees. The “alleged” Bodog violation relates to the method for the production and transmission of enhanced multimedia information. An optimization method is disclosed that enhances the interactivity of multimedia information. The optimization method includes separating a multimedia information into primary and secondary layers and enhancing that information in the primary layers such that the perceived psychographic information quality is improved. This method has the advantage of providing compression and/or transmission algorithms to maximize enhancement of the multimedia information.” “Nearly all aspects of the Bodog website have been updated to reflect the environment our clients are accustomed to,” says Ayre. “We are working to resolve any of the minor remaining glitches on the alternate site, but other than that it is business as usual.”
The timing of the litigation is significant and presumably intended – the first two to three weeks of North American football are the busiest of the year for online sportsbetting in that market sector.
Everyone within the entire internet gambling industry is starting to take notice today of how the Bodog.com domain name hijacking applies to their businesses. No matter if you are an operator or an affiliate, everyone needs to realize that what happened to Calvin Ayre and Bodog Entertainment can happen to any other internet gambling operator.
Several operators have expressed their concern over the incident. While most of his competitors are usually overjoyed in his misery, all that we have spoken to have been nothing but supportive of the situation Ayre finds himself in after his prized domain name was redirected due to a default judgment against his company for $48 million dollars.
“We are watching what happens with the Bodog domain name case very closely,” stated a Bodog competitor. “What happened to Calvin can happen to anyone in the internet gambling industry and our legal team is already advising us on how we should proceed to prevent this from happening to our domain names.”
Mel Molnick has a registered patent that basically says he invented internet gambling. I know the thought of this reminds everyone reading this article of Al Gore bragging about how he invented the internet. On the surface it does appear as if Molnick created internet gambling, I am not joking either, at least as far as the US patent office is concerned! Everyone in the internet gambling industry realizes however that people were doing various forms of gambling via the internet before Molnick’s patent was awarded.
Method patents are widely litigated and Molnick’s internet gambling method patent can be challenged in court but the real question is:
What can a internet gambling operator do in order to avoid the opportunistic Molnick from holding them hostage?
1.) Change the ownership of their URLS around on a continual basis.
By changing the domain name ownership often, it will be virtually impossible to secure a court order against the specific owner of the URL because it will constantly be influx.
2.) Change the registrar of the domain name to one that is based outside of the jurisdiction of US courts.
While this does not 100% prevent a domain name hijacking from taking place, it certainly will make it more difficult, time consuming and costly for the party trying to acquire the domain name.
“Bodog was very reactive to my needs as an affiliate right from the beginning of the issue,” stated super affiliate Bones McCoy of 1800-Sports.com. “I already re-routed the tracking codes to the NewBodog.com URL and it is business as usually as far as I am concerned.”
Legal detail can be found at: http://www.metrokc.gov/kcscc/daily%2…7judgments.txt in case number 07-9-21969-8 dated 8/1/2007, and at http://dw.courts.wa.gov/index.cfm?fa…asesearchTerms
There is more information on the case in the Vancouver Sun here and at the New Bodog website here.
Source: Press Release – August 29th, 2007
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In his weekly wrap of the previous week’s domain name sales, Ron Jackson reports LI.COM was the biggest seller last week, selling for US$500,000. Other six-figure sales were supernatural.com ($125,000) and Passover.com ($100,000). Ron also notes Sedo was responsible for “27 of the 50 highest sales including the top two and seven of the first ten.” In the ccTLD sales, reviews.co.uk sold for £38,000 while baby.org sold for €47,234 and Pay.mobi for $50,000. An interesting sale was home.gr for €21,000, the 20th biggest sale for the week.
To see Ron’s list of the top 50, go to dnjournal.com/archive/domainsales/2007/domainsales08-28-07.htm
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The LA Times posted an article today discussing the ever growing trend of new internet based companies to use “cool” Google like domain names to become recognized. The questions being asked are valid…
“Would you feel OK owning Wakoopa shares in your 401(k)? Telling potential in-laws you met on Frengo? Relying on Ooma to call Grandma?”
Silicon Valley is in the midst of a great corporate baby boom. Venture capitalists have pumped $2.5 billion into 400 young Internet companies since the beginning of 2006, compared with $1.3 billion into 236 companies during the previous two years, according to research firm Dow Jones VentureOne. These entrepreneurial brain children have short life expectancies, destined to fight for revenue with the likes of Google, Yahoo and EBay. But still they are being born — and they need names.
Naming a company is far more difficult than naming a child. The name needs to sound snappy, separate its young company from the pack and provide a unique Web address.
Having two Ethans and three Madisons in a kindergarten class can create confusion, even embarrassment, but giving your start-up a name that’s already taken guarantees a legal fight you can’t win.
The result? New Internet companies are being baptized daily with handles that sound like a cross between toddler-speak, scat singing and what the aliens will greet us with when they land.
You won’t find a name among the horde that conjures up traditional companies such as Dress Barn, Best Buy and Burger King. Most Internet company names make little sense, and they roll around the mouth like a marble.
“Old-school ideas about sounding trustworthy or sounding big are not as important as they used to be,” said Burt Alper, co-founder of Catchword Branding in Oakland, which has helped companies pick such names as Vudu (makes a device for watching videos) and Promptu (creates voice-recognition products). “Now, it’s about sounding different and standing out from the crowd.”
Like naming a new baby, the process involves late-night brainstorming, some expert help and a dose of frank feedback from friends.
And like the grandparents-to-be, a company’s financial backers can kill a loved name with a raised eyebrow. Picking the wrong name can kill a multimillion-dollar investment.
Entrepreneurs today pick names they think will help their companies stand out, as do parents of little Zander and Arlo, Eliza and Matilda.
“Naming a company is like naming a celebrity,” said serial entrepreneur Jared Kopf, who has helped christen companies including Adroll.com, his online advertising firm, and Slide, a Web photo service. “Made-up words don’t come with psychological baggage.”
One approach is whimsy: picking a name that seems inspired by Dr. Seuss. If the late author were to tell a story about Internet start-ups, he could pit Qumana and Qoosa (blog editing and Web browsing) against Tagtooga and Tendango (both social networking). Peace would be brokered by Ooma (Internet phone calling). BooRah (restaurant reviews) would hiss, then cheer. Lala (music sharing) would sing.
Call it the Google effect. Thanks to the successful Internet search company with the goofy name, entrepreneurs feel no shame telling people they work for ItzBig (career networking) or asking venture capitalists to invest millions of dollars in Picaboo (a website for ordering custom photo books). Who needs the gravitas of an International Business Machines or a General Electric?
Many names come with little context. Firms such as Xobni, Meebo and Squidoo give no hint of what they might do (e-mail management, instant messaging and online recommendations, respectively). Entrepreneurs say having to explain their mission provides a marketing opportunity.
But naming experts say the current crop of Internet companies is in danger of overwhelming customers. Not many will bother to commit it to memory that Imeem is a social network for sharing music and videos or that Imbee is a social network for kids.
“Now, it’s almost like fashion styles, all these vowels and unpronounceable made-up names,” said Steve Manning, managing director of Igor, a naming company in San Francisco. “You cannot possibly remember one from another.”
Some corporate namers seek a feeling of familiarity by evoking the Internet’s biggest success stories.
Elad Hemar, co-founder and chief executive of Yoomba, an e-mail service, said the name was chosen because it echoes the double O in Google and suggests that the service is about “you.” It joins other double-O entries such as Oodle, Renkoo, Kaboodle and Wakoopa, to name only a few.
Naming your company after a mainstay such as Google provides “linguistic comfort,” said Anthony Shore, global director of naming and writing at Landor Associates. But “when everyone apes a name, everyone loses.”
Twitter, which lets users broadcast short bloglike pronouncements via text message, instant message or e-mail, sought inspiration in nature.
“Every time I listen to birds, I get a sense of that short burst of information,” Twitter co-founder Biz Stone said.
With his second company, Ariel Maislos didn’t want to repeat the problem he faced with his first, Passave Technologies. It was the Hebrew word for “broadband,” which is what the chips the company made were designed to improve. But people complained they couldn’t spell or say the name, pronounced Pa-SAH-vay.
So his new company, described so far as producing “a breakthrough technology that makes your phone conversations interesting,” is as simple as a kid’s lunchbox snack. It’s called the Pudding.
“Everyone likes pudding,” Maislos said.
Google too may have sounded silly in its early days, but the name developed a pedigree through good products, Twitter’s Stone said. “If these things are around long enough, the name grows up,” he said.
Internet entrepreneurs say the desperation to be unique is compounded by the need to simply own an Internet site.
Like Manhattan real estate, almost every conceivable, recognizable domain name has been scooped up in the hope that they’ll be resold for big money. In two extreme examples, the rights to creditcheck.com recently sold for $3 million, and porn.com went for $9.5 million.
Internet companies have come up with tricks to capture Internet addresses, such as rejiggering the spelling of regular words: Drop a letter to make Flickr or insert odd punctuation, like Ma.gnolia and Del.icio.us.
And if the name doesn’t catch on? This generation of Internet companies so embraces change — “Internet time” is to regular time like dog years are to human years — that it is not averse to changing identity if the name or business model don’t work out. Riya became Like. Eefoof has been reborn as VuMe.
Name remorse is not uncommon. A few months ago, Bijan Marashi began to wonder if he had erred in giving his San Francisco start-up a name that loosely rhymed with “stupid.”
Xoopit (pronounced ZOO-pit) was a riff on the word “soup,” but it proved tricky to pronounce and for some, baffling to spell.
Then there was the typical parental fear: Would rival start-ups — the bullies of the Internet playground — call it “stupid” or make off-color jokes about a zoo pit?
Could Xoopit, which has yet to launch its service but promises to rethink how we organize e-mail, grow into a serious company with such a name?
Concerns were so great that a venture capitalist who considered investing in Marashi’s business said he wouldn’t do so unless the name was changed.
Marashi suggested Phr332 (pronounced like Freak), but that was quickly shot down. So was Flume.
So Marashi conducted market research. He approached 10 strangers in various San Francisco neighborhoods and asked them to read the name “Xoopit” aloud. Most could. He reported his findings to the start-up’s eight employees and sought the advice of friends and family.
Marketing experts assured him that X was the new Z.
In July, Xoopit decided to stay Xoopit. The company plans to embrace it in a marketing slogan that, using Xoopit as a verb, suggests its users will become smarter: “Don’t be stupid. Xoopit.”
“Once you pick a name, you have to stand by it,” Marashi said. “The baby is born and you have to sign the birth certificate.”
Source: Article by Michelle Quinn – LA Times – August 29th, 2007
http://www.latimes.com/technology/la-fi-names29aug29,1,3782702.story?page=2&cset=true&ctrack=2&track=rss
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The ICANN comment period on its new gTLD policy is over. The comments reflect overwhelming opposition to the Council’s attempt to impose a standard of “morality and public order” on new TLD strings. The vast majority of comments — about 60 of the 75 or so comments — criticized the policy of censoring TLD strings and asked ICANN to stick to technical and operational criteria. Only one comment — by Vittorio Bertola, putative leader of ALAC — called for ICANN to retain limitations on expression.
About 50 of those critical comments came from the “Keep the Core Neutral” campaign. It is unfortunate that the effort to create a process for adding new gTLDs will be slowed as the policy must be redrafted to take this opposition into account. There was, at one point, an agreement within a subcommittee to remove the words “morality and public order” from the recommendation, but a single trademark constituency member insisted that it be put back in.
A more subtle issue also emerged from the comments. There was significant opposition to Recommendation 19, which would require all new top level domain registries to rely on ICANN-accredited registrars as the distributors of their services. This opposition not only came from former Board member Michael Palage, but from a domain name registrar from China and a representative of CNNIC, the Chinese country code registry. Both comments argued that it was inappropriate for applicants for internationalized (non-ASCII) domains to rely on ICANN-accredited registrars, because “local registrars best understand local users’ needs.”
A Beijing-based registrar made the odd (and obviously false) comment that IDNs are “territory-oriented.” Quite apart from the economic issues associated with requiring registries to follow a particular business model, the resistance from China will be an interesting test of the global nature of the ICANN regime.
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DotAsia Organisation announced a landmark partnership with ICANNWiki, a grassroots domain collaborative website and industry resource for ICANN stakeholders, that will leverage the Web 2.0 web-based communities to expand online community participation for DotAsia’s .Asia Pioneer Domains Program.
This initiative marks the first time in the history of the Internet that the online public, including ICANN stakeholders from both inside and outside of ICANN, will play a major role in deciding who will be awarded the best cyber real estate in a domain, in this case, the new .Asia domain name. ICANN is responsible for managing the assignment of Internet domain names and addresses, including the introduction of new generic top-level domains.
At the same time, DotAsia said it will extend the application period for the Pioneer Domains Program to September 10, 2007.
“The partnership between the team at ICANNWiki and DotAsia enables greater participation from the overall community in the launch of .Asia. With this, DotAsia is again setting a new benchmark for community participation by managing the entire process in a more Web 2.0 way then a typical new domain registry,” said Dan Mendell, the Executive Director of ICANNwiki and the CEO of Neutral Space, Inc., the organization that maintains the Wiki for the ICANN community.
“A great promise of the Internet is the enablement of mass participation. The partnership with ICANNwiki enables us to engage the community to express their thoughts on voting for the best creative ideas for the best .Asia domains,” said Edmon Chung, CEO of DotAsia.
“This sort of democratization has never been done before when there has been so much still on the table.” said Dan Mendell CEO of Neutral Space, Inc. “Edmon and his team are true believers in the .Asia domains and this sort of balanced commitment to the process shows that they really mean it.”
The online polling will be global through the ICANNWiki website [www.ICANNWiki.org]. Results will be maintained online and will provide input to the Pioneers Commission — the evaluation committee — in the consideration of Pioneer applications.
The posting of the Pioneer applications on the ICANNWiki website will also assist in the challenge process, enhancing the procedures for the allocation of domain names. In an announcement earlier, DotAsia has partnered with the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) a specialized agency of the United Nations dedicated to the maintenance of a balanced and effective international intellectual property system, to be the Challenge Resolution Provider for the Pioneer Domains Program.
The .Asia Pioneer Domains Program offers the ultimate first-mover advantage for brand development and e-commerce in Asia. Applicants are invited to submit a brief proposal for the domain of their choice and measures are in place to protect the rights of others and curb abusive registrations. This concept marks a departure from the conventional first-come-first-served allocation model to directly motivate the adoption and positive usage of the domain names. The best ideas win the right to operate the best .Asia domains. “This is the overall key to any rollout in business,” said Dan Mendell. “Anything you can do to kick off usage, verses encourage long term holding of the domain, is good for the registrar’s branding and good for it’s supporting community.”
After the deadline for the Pioneer Domains’ Program, the DotAsia organisation will launch the Sunrise (i.e. priority registration period for prior rights holders) registration of names for the .Asia domain on October 9, 2007.
To summarize some of the advantages of the Pioneer Domains Program over the Sunrise:
Before the Sunrise begins, Pioneer applicants may propose the best .Asia domain names
The Sunrise process requires evidential proof of rights in the form of Trademark registrations. The Domain name applied for must match with the trademark. For the Pioneer Domains Program, applicants can apply for additional domain names such as common typos of a brand or variants that are commonly used but not trademarked. Brand owners can apply to use an abbreviation or variation of their brand as the chosen domain name, and the name thus applied for is not required to have a registered trademark.
The .Asia sunrise process requires for a trademark to be applied for before certain cut-off dates. For the Pioneer Domains Program, there is no such requirement, especially for common words and phrases.
Applying for .Asia domains under the Pioneer Domains Program is free of charge. Trademark verification fees, which are required for Sunrise applications, will be waived by the DotAsia Organisation for the Pioneer Domains Program. Applicants under the Pioner Domains Program are however required to place a Marketing Commitment Deposit of US$10,000, and will be promptly refunded for marketing of the proposed businesses upon documented proof.
DotAsia will work with Pioneers on co-marketing and other joint promotional activities, highlighting the commitment to the Asia community.
think.asia/press/2007-08-27-DotAsia-PR.html
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Today, August 29, European registrar EuroDNS announced that it is launching a Summer End Sales Rally. The following ccTLDs are being discounted: .hk (Hong Kong), .sk (Slovakia), .be (Blegium), .co.uk (Great Britain), .nl (Netherlands) and .lu (Luxembourg).
In order to benefit from the sales price you have to enter the discount code during the checkout process. You can get this comes from the chart below as well as the discount expiration dates. So don’t miss your chance and visit EuroDNS and AsiaDNS! If you have any questions you can contact them at http://www.eurodns.com/info/support/
Source: EuroDNS Press Announcement – August 29th, 2007
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According to the quarterly Verisign Domain Name Industry Brief – August 2007 published by VeriSign, Inc. (NASDAQ: VRSN), the number of domain names registered worldwide is now over 138 million domain names . Of course, as expected, most registrations are .com, .net, .de (Germany), .uk, .cn (China) and .org.
Strong growth in country code TLD (ccTLD) registrations, such as China (.cn), Russia (.ru) and South Korea (.kr). ccTLDs grew to about 51.5 million worldwide by the end of the second quarter, approximately 13 percent more than the first quarter of 2007, and 36 percent more than the same quarter of last year. More moderate growth was experienced by gTLDs, including .com and .net, which grew to 73 million domain name registrations.
Raynor Dahlquist, VP of Naming Services at VeriSign said, “As the Internet grows and becomes more global, so does the challenge to ensure that businesses and Internet users throughout the world can rely upon it. VeriSign is focused on ensuring that as the Internet develops, it remains accessible and operational around the world.” As domain name registrations increase, so have the demands on the registry infrastructures that enable users to register domain names, access Web sites, send emails or conduct commerce and communications. VeriSign’s registry infrastructure continued to experience heavy demand, processing a peak of 30 billion Domain Name System (DNS) queries per day in the second quarter. The VeriSign DNS continued to maintain operational accuracy and stability for 100 percent of the time as it has for the past nine years. As part of its commitment to continually strengthen its infrastructure, VeriSign in February announced Project Titan, a major initiative to expand and diversify the capacity of its global Internet infrastructure by ten times by the year 2010.
The latest VeriSign Domain Name Industry Brief also underscores the growing importance of international business for the more than 840 .com and .net domain name registrars throughout the world. These registrars and their resellers comprise the channel through which domain names are registered. A recent survey conducted by VeriSign found that 80 percent of all registrars draw business from countries outside their home country. Overall, registrars say they view expansion to other countries as an attractive way to build their businesses, with a third of those surveyed planning to expand geographically in the next 12 months.
VeriSign publishes the Domain Name Industry Brief to provide Internet users throughout the world with significant statistical and analytical research and data on the domain name industry and the Internet as a whole. Copies of the 2007 second quarter Domain Name Industry Brief, as well as previous reports, can be obtained at www.verisign.com/domainbrief.
About VeriSign
VeriSign, Inc. (NASDAQ: VRSN) operates digital infrastructure services that enable and protect billions of interactions every day across the world’s voice and data networks. Additional news and information about the company is available at www.verisign.com.
Statements in this announcement other than historical data and information constitute forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. These statements involve risks and uncertainties that could cause VeriSign’s actual results to differ materially from those stated or implied by such forward-looking statements. The potential risks and uncertainties include, among others, the uncertainty of future revenue and profitability and potential fluctuations in quarterly operating results due to such factors as increasing competition and pricing pressure from competing services offered at prices below its prices and market acceptance of its existing services, the inability of VeriSign to successfully develop and market new services and the uncertainty of whether new services as provided by VeriSign will achieve market acceptance or result in any revenues and the risk acquired businesses will not be integrated successfully and unanticipated costs of such integration. More information about potential factors that could affect the company’s business and financial results is included in VeriSign’s filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including in the company’s Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2006 and quarterly reports on Form 10-Q and Current Reports on Form 8-K. VeriSign undertakes no obligation to update any of the forward-looking statements after the date of this presentation.
Posted on August 29th, 2007 – Chief Editor – DomainNews.com
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An interesting article about parents naming their kids with the condition that the baby’s domain name must still be available can be read here.
Source: August 21st, 2007 – MSNBC News Article – http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20378395/
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For those of you who were unable to attend Domain RoundTable 2007 in Seattle, we have gathered videos that were taken during the show. Click on Read More below to see them all.
Especially noteworthy is the keynote address video held by Frank Schilling, a domain mastermind who owns over 300,000 domain names and has had the foresight that pay per click advertising would become a BIG DEAL when nobody was thinking along those lines yet. Enjoy the clips!
Frank Schilling’s Keynote Address
Interview with Jay Westerdal from DomainTools
DomainTools Live Auction at Domain RoundTable 2007
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