Domain Sales

In the past, it was impossible to register a .pro domain under four characters in length. However, a recent agreement between ICANN and RegistryPro, the operator of the .pro extension, means that these names will soon be available to register. It is usually not possible to register domains under three …

ICANN announced yesterday that they had sent notices to three domain registrars informing them that their accreditation would not be renewed. According to the documents available on ICANN’s website, the registrars have violated the conditions of the RAA (Registrar Accreditation Agreement). The reasons and details of the violations are explained …

OMG WTF! Internet giant Yahoo has bought OMG.com for the price of $80,000 USD, or £48,642. The sale reportedly occurred last week, but the buyer wasn’t revealed until today. As anyone who texts or uses instant messaging knows, OMG is short for “Oh my God.” Urban Dictionary sums up the …

In July, Amazon, the online sales giant, purchased the shoe store Zappos for $928 million. What many did not know is that they also acquired a high-priced domain name: Clothes.com. Back in May of 2008 Zappos bought the domain from Idealab for a reported $4.9 million After fund.com sold for …

Despite all the security measures online payment systems provide, the reality is Internet shoppers are never 100% safe. Last week one of the largest domain registrars in the United States reported a security breach that affects some 573,928 customers. The incident involved a piece of malicious code running on servers …

We hear about domain auctions on a daily basis, but rarely does one get the chance to see such an event live. The video above shows the sale of Ad.com during T.R.A.F.F.I.C. Silicon Valley in April. The winning bidder was Divyank Turakhia, who paid £946,137 ($1.4 million USD) for the …

After a business closes, its intellectual property- domains, trademarks, logos, etc.- still have value and can be sold. Bankrupt toy retailer KB Toys took advantage of this to pay its creditors when it sold its trademarks, logos, and KBToys.com domain for £1.25 million ($2.1 million USD) yesterday. Retail operator CE …

Mobile telecommunications giant Nokia filed a complaint with the National Arbitration Forum over the domain ovistore.com. The respondent in the case was Nehra Corp. Nokia owns the trademark OVI, and their application store website address is store.ovi.com. Like many other cybersquatting cases, the respondent used ovistore.com to display a website …

On Thursday Microsoft announced their purchase of Office.com, a domain previously owned by ContactOffice, an online office service. The next version of Microsoft’s office suite, Office 2010, reportedly includes a web-based version. The web-based version will be part of their Windows Live service and will be compatible with browsers other …

One issue of contention among domainers lately is when the new gTLD system is introduced next year, should price caps be placed on the extensions? Currently, ICANN forces price caps on all TLDs, including .com, and limits registration terms to ten years. This helps ensure customers get a fair deal …