Domain Sales

Big box retailer Wal-Mart won two domains in a recent arbitration dispute: peapleofwalmart.com and walmart-winners.com. The corporation claims the names were used in bad faith “to raise advertising revenue through the use of sponsored links.” This case is interesting because the owner of peapleofwalmart.com probably didn’t mean to profit from …

Just in time for Christmas, ICANN has released its 2009 Annual Report. I guess jolly old Rod Beckstrom and his elves at ICANN are full of holiday cheer. More information about the document can be found here. Let’s keep it simple and say it’s long and boring. Some things included …

The .de extension is doing very well this week. Two-character domain 66.de sold at auction recently for $12,780. While this sale isn’t big compared to yesterday’s, it’s still a good chunk of change. Other notable sales include ad4sure.com for $2,350, giftideas.org for $2,500, and taxes.co.uk for $5,000. In my view, …

Anthony Fox of Tennessee, USA registered Netlix.com to launch the website for his web hosting service company called Netlix Inc. Little did he know that the DVD giant, now famous for dethroning Blockbuster Video would file a complaint of cybersquatting against him. The argument is that the name netlix.com is …

A few weeks ago, Büromöbel.de (German for “office furniture”) sold for €69,000 ($100,581 USD). In a completely different yet similar sale, Gartenmöbel.de (“garden furntiture”) has sold at auction for nearly twice as much at €150,000 ($214,500). What can I say, Germans must really like furniture. Other sales include Conclude.com for …

Afilias, the registry for the .info domain, has released its 2009 report on the TLD. The full document may be viewed at this location, but here’s a quick run-down: Out of all the TLDs, .info is the seventh-most popular. It makes up 40% of all new TLD registrations. There are …

The introduction of Cyrillic IDNs in Russia has been hailed as a success by the government, but many Russian citizens are worried about the possible implications the domains might have on their freedom. According to a recent New York Times article, they are afraid the new names will cut the …

American web media giant and ISP AOL has won a dispute at the National Arbitration Forum over the domain 4ngadget.com. AOL claimed the name violated the trademark of its gadget blog Engadget. At first glance, but two may not seem confusingly similar, but because “4” is located right next to …

So far, Microsoft’s new Bing search engine has been relatively successful. Now, a St. Louis design firm named Bing Information Design is suing the Redmond company for causing confusion regarding the relationship between the two companies. The St. Louis Bing has had a trademark on “Bing” for quite some time …

In an effort to put a stop to online pornography, the Chinese government has shut down 775 pornographic domains in the last three days. This swift action is the result of the country’s new domain name complaint center, where concerned citizens can rat out adult websites. The center is operated …