Domain Sales

The .ru ccTLD has a long-held reputation as a haven for spam and cyber crime, but recent changes made to the domain’s registration requirements could clean it up. It used to be very easy for criminals to register .ru names with fake identities. But as of April 1, all registrants …

No, not that Mona Lisa, the .com! Domain MonaLisa.com has sold for $200,000 USD. That’s a small fraction of the $713 million experts estimate the painting to be worth. The market for Mona Lisa replicas and other derivatives of the painting is huge. The name would be perfect for an …

Tens of thousands cheered last week at the Russian Internet Governance Forum in Moscow, where Rod Beckstrom gave a keynote speech entitled, “The future of ICANN: Toward a Global Internet.” The ICANN CEO is poised to join the ranks of Martin Luther King and John F. Kennedy for his amazing …

The week came to a slow close as far as domain sales are concerned. Topping all other sales over the last few days is capture.com, which captured a sum of $53,200 USD. WHIB.com and IPS.com fetched $48,600 and $37,505 respectively. One intriguing sale that has gone largely unnoticed is Tahoo.com …

Florida resident David Ways has a rather interesting idea of how the future of the web will look. Apparently we’re all self-absorbed, because he has filed a trademark application for the .ego gTLD. In an interview with Domain Name Wire, Ways stated his plans for extension. He sees it as …

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, better known as the Academy Awards, gave Go Daddy something far different from an Oscar this week: a 134-page lawsuit for cybersquatting. Here’s the catch: the lawsuit doesn’t accuse Go Daddy of cybersquatting. Rather, it is seeking millions in damages because the …

Japanese firm Rakuten Inc. has announced that it will acquire web retailer Buy.com for $250 million in a cash deal. The site is well-known in the United States a competitor to Amazon. Rakuten is Japan’s number-one e-commerce site. Hiroshi Mikitani, the company’s CEO, stated: We feel it has a great …

Last month, our beloved VeriSign sent a request to ICANN requesting permission to launch a domain exchange service. The system would allow host-registrars to get a partial refund on the domains of canceled customers, essentially letting the company register names for as little as 30 days at a time. Thankfully, …

According to the New York Times, security firm Symantec is on the verge of closing a deal with VeriSign’s authentication services unit for $1.3 billion USD. The unit made up nearly have of VeriSign’s $1.03 billion sales revenue last year. VeriSign wants to get out of the authentication business in …

Apple won an important victory with the WIPO this week after it was given control of the name itunes.com.mx. I’m sure Cupertino lost quite a bit Mexican traffic to this domain and owning it will help it protect the Apple brand. The company is also the first multinational corporation to …