NameMedia cashes in on degrees. NameMedia (Afternic, BuyDomains) sold two big “degree” domain names over the past week: BachelorsDegree.com for $62,500 and PsychologyDegree.com for $25,000. Both domains are protected by Moniker whois privacy and forward to eLearners.com. Add these othe...

Study suggests some sort of accountability required before ICANN is set free. A new study, to be formally released Wednesday, suggests that ICANN must be reformed before its ties with the U.S. Department of Commerce are severed. The Joint Project Agreement between ICANN and the Department of Comme...

Why can’t simple web transactions work the way they’re supposed to? Last year some of those web 2.0 bloggers started talking about web 3.0. It was quite a buzz for about three days before they found something else to write about. But even as we live in a world of “web 2.0″, ...

KohlerSucks.com saved at National Arbitration Forum. A $4,331 toilet from Kohler Kohler Co., which does everything from manufacture toilets to develop golf resorts, should read up on domain arbitration rules prior to filing its next request under UDRP. Domain attorney Howard M. Neu helped the owner...

Owner cites state regulations for temporary shutdown. Upstart domain escrow service EscrowDNS.com has temporarily suspended new service, citing state regulations: EscrowDNS is temporarily ceasing operation of it’s domain name escrow service. Any outstanding transactions will be completed as al...

Auction platform allows reserve priced domain listings, but there’s a fee if they don’t sell. In an effort to establish confidence with sellers and bring more premium inventory to its platform, Bido is allowing sellers to set reserve prices on their domain names. Part of my prediction w...

Company sells another domain name to raise cash. The domain liquidation at Live Current Media (OTCbb: livc.ob) continues: a reader spotted the sale of Body.com at Sedo’s Great Domains site for $400,000. That means Live Current has grossed at least $2M from domain sales since announcing in Oct...

GeoDomain expo will take place in San Diego next month. Associated Cities executive director Patrick Carleton just released this statement from president and acting chair Dan Pulcrano: The 2009 Geodomain Expo is going full steam ahead. AC has an iron-clad contract with the hotel, a theme, confirmed...

Get rich quick or go broke trying. A few weeks ago an account manager at a parking company told me he was frustrated. I asked why, and here’s what he said (paraphrased): A lot of new people are coming into this industry. They’ll register a couple hundred domains and park them. Then th...

Here are my five New Year’s resolutions for 2009. I’ve never broken a New Year’s resolution. That’s because I set the bar low, such as vowing not to eat seafood (I don’t eat the stuff anyway). But this year I’m going to lay out on the line 5 resolutions related ...

“Sorely misguided” complainant loses bid for Fired.com. [This is the second Domain Dunce award for 2008. See the first one for Verizon.] What do you do if you want a domain that’s already registered and you don’t want to pay for it? Furthermore, you have no chance of winn...

Uniform company files arbitration to get Peaches.com domain. Peaches.com wouldbe sweeter. Peaches Uniforms, a seller of fashion uniforms and scrubs to women in the medical industry, has filed an arbitration request with National Arbitration Forum to gain control of the domain name Peaches.com. Peach...

GoDaddy tops last year’s giving by $300,000. With all of the negative news I’ve written about Go Daddy this year, it’s nice to end the year on an up note. Today the company announced that its total philanthropic giving for the year is $1.7M, topping last year’s $1.4M in g...

As the year crawls to a close, here’s a look back at the most viewed stories of 2008. Good riddance. That’s what most people are saying to 2008. After losing half their retirement savings, seeing the value of their homes plummet, and fearing for their futures, most people want to forget...

Verizon likes to play both sides of the fence. For that we give it an award. With just a few days left in 2008, I thought I’d write about a couple of the more egregious stories in domain names this year. Think of it as the dumbest moments in domains. The first winner is telecom giant Verizo...

NameMedia’s withdrawn IPO more painful than it looks. It may appear that NameMedia’s decision last week to to drop its planned initial public offering is just a temporary setback. Aside from the costs of filing its S-1 to go public, going on the investor roadshow, and obliging quite per...

A look at domain name blogs I read frequently. Earlier this year I published a list of blogs that I subscribe to. That list has changed somewhat over the year because some blogs have disappeared and others emerged. I generally subscribe to a domain blog’s RSS feed if I find it insightful. A...

.Gov domain names are highly restricted domains. Here’s how they work. Yes, it’s a slow newsweek. Save for a $33 million cybersquatting judgment and NameMedia pulling its IPO, not much goes on in a holiday week. So here’s another post I saved for a slow newsweek like this. Ea...

Verizon wins default judgment against top 15 domain registrar. Customers of OnlineNic, Inc., a top 15 domain registrar with over 1,000,000 domains registered, should be concerned about the state of the registrar after a judge ordered the company to pay $33 million to Verizon (NYSE: VZ). A judge ent...

Actress wins domain name at WIPO. Actress Scarlett Johansson has won rights to the domain name ScarlettJohansson.com in an arbitration decision at World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). Johansson has starred in numerous movies including Lost in Translation, Match Point, and The Ghost Whi...

.Edu has strict eligibility requirements for post secondary education institutions. Utexas.edu. Phoenix.edu. London.edu. All of these domains belong to accredited post secondary education institutions and use the .edu top level domain name. This article will review the requirements for registeri...

Domain tasting is down, and will take another hit in March. But that may not be the end of it… Domain tasting — the practice of registering a domain to test for traffic and deleting it for a refund within a specified grace period — is down 84% since ICANN inacted a budget measure ...

New system improves submissions and tracks registrar compliance. ICANN has updated its Whois Data Problem Report System (WDPRS), which anyone can use to submit reports of inaccurate whois information on a domain name. According to ICANN, the new system offers many improvements: * More detailed info...

Documents from U.S. Government question ICANN’s actions. You’ve probably read a lot about ICANN’s introduction of new top level domains. Now, as reported over at DNJournal, the U.S. Government is weighing in. Domainers should be happy with its response. I just completed reading t...

Demand Media wants to offer new top level domain names using its eNom registrar. The owner of the world’s second largest domain registrar, eNom, plans to apply to ICANN to offer new top level domains. That’s the only plausible assumption based on the company’s one-sided comments t...