With the current Swine Flu outbreak getting more and more press the domain speculators have come out in force. In just the last week there has been a 6155% increase in dotcom, dotnet, and dotorg domains containing the string “swineflu”. Read the rest of this entry »
While working on acquisitions I see both sides of the deal. I get to work with all the different people at our company that touch a deal, and I’ve seen that everyone has a distinct set of dealbreakers. During the due diligence phase I get a realistic business view of the companies we are acquiring while learning about their domain and SEO strategies. Seeing a number of domain and website deals has evidenced that most domain investors and developers have no exit strategy in mind and are not preparing their properties for likely buyers.
After OnlineNIC refused to show up at the legal proceedings that resulted in the largest cybersquatting decision in history, I speculated that their decision to ignore the federal lawsuit may have been based on not having any U.S. presence.
OnlineNIC is in trouble with Verizon resulting in the largest cybersquatting decision ever. According to a Verizon press release, the damages are $33.15 million because of 663 domain infringing names. The Chinese-based registrar did not participate in the federal court proceedings, resulting in a default ruling, perhaps due to the question of whether or not Verizon chose the proper venue to bring such a case. If OnlineNIC has no assets in the U.S. then they may have little to lose from a U.S. court.
ICANN has delayed ESTDomains de-accreditation because the troubled registrar submitted documents to ICANN indicating that CEO Vladimir Tsastsin was removed as CEO on June 25. Read the rest of this entry »
With the recent demise of ESTDomains due to alleged sketchy behavior, where are all the spammers going? They seem to be headed for OnlineNIC because they are the friendliest registrar to phishers and spam. Read the rest of this entry »
ESTDomains has lost its accreditation after CEO Vladimir Tsastsin was convicted various cyber-crime charges, according to the Washington Post. Read the rest of this entry »
The dollar is up 26 percent on the euro in just the last four months and some economists are speculating on the possibility of reaching parity ($1 = €1). Read the rest of this entry »
Bus to Tahoe
Right now we are on the way back from our company off-site and I am staring out the window at the beautiful Sierra Nevada and blue skies that seem to extend forever. Read the rest of this entry »
Today I received an e-mail asking if one of my generic, two word .ORG domains was for sale. The potential buyer was a representative of the non-profit that lost the domain and was professing that the non-profit couldn’t afford the price listed on Sedo. They went on to cast doubt that anyone would EVER pay that much for the domain. Read the rest of this entry »