As reported on twitter and Hacker News, .IO domains have stopped resolving and apparently new registrations are not going through either. .IO is the ccTLD for the British Indian Ocean territory. The TLD is especially popular with startups. According to comments on the post, 5 of 7 nameservers are returning NXDOMAIN (=domain does not exist) Related...

Wednesday DNN ran an article about a purported hack of several domain name registrars by HTP (Hack the Planet).  While HTP claimed that the hosting company Linode.com was the intended target, the group also claimed they were able to hack in to Melbourne IT, Name.com, Moniker and Xinnet and provided "evidence" of this on their Related posts: Hacker...

A story on Hacker News from earlier Tuesday  mentions that a group of hackers , Hack The Planet (HTP), was able to hack in to several domain name registrars late last year . The registrars were not  specifically targeted, rather they were hacked in order to take down the hosting of another hacker's IRC channel. Related posts: Comcast.net Domain Hi...

As announced in a press release today, Good Sam, a provider of products for the RV and outdoor recreation consumer  purchased RV.com for an undisclosed sum. The domain name was owned by Dometic Group, another supplier for the RV and Marine Industries. The company is planning to develop the domain name into a new site Related posts: Strata Services...

Today two domain name auctions are ending – first the GreatDomains auction at Sedo then the Dotster Auction at SnapNames. Here are the domains and their current (at the time of this post) bids at Sedo ends in less than 3 hours:   Here are the domains and their current (at the time of this Related posts: Sedo's Monthly GreatDomains Aucti...

As announced on his personal Blog, Bill Sweetman is leaving his job Vice President, Domain Portfolio at Tucows as well as General Manager of YummyNames, on April 26, 2013. He joined Tucows in 2007 and is now planning to launch a "boutique domain name consulting firm later this quarter". Bill writes about his change: Over Related posts: Van Gelder ...

After a brief hiatus, Jamie Zoch at Dotweekly.com has returned to blogging.  Jamie lost all of DotWeekly.com in a hosting move and decided to take some time off . Jamie always had good content and interesting insights, so I'm glad to see him back at it.  Frankly, domain blogging seems to be a sea of copycatting Related posts: Tucows Will Use After...

While a large part of the domain industry gathers at the 46th ICANN meeting in Beijing this week, big news are being made in the country of Mali in Africa. As reported by The Guardian, .ML domains will be available for free in July 2013. The registry will be operated by Freedom Registry, the same Related posts: Free Speech Coalition Announces Plan...

As reported by a number of sources, Melbourne IT (ASX:MLB) is selling it's Digital Brand Management (DBS) to Corporation Services Company (CSC) for $152.5 million AUD. Melbourne IT had originally purchased the Digital Brand Management unit from VeriSign (NASDAQ: VRSN) for $50MM USD in 2008 and merged it with their existing corporate clients. Relate...

Frank Schilling's new gTLD play Uniregistry becomes ICANN accredited and launches their retail registrar, Uniregistrar. Uniregistrar completed their accreditation earlier this month. The name and site clearly identifies it as being associated with Frank Schilling's Uniregistry that is applying for 54 new gTLDs. The new site states: Uniregistrar is ...

According to Larry Fischer at DirectNavigation.com, a well known domain space veteran has passed away. Many of us know Igal Lichtman as a very successful business man and domain name investor.  In the domain space many may remember him from forums and from his whois where he left his mark as Mrs. Jello. If you'd Related posts: Fox news on domains ...

ICM Registry, the registry operator for the .XXX top-level domain (TLD) exclusively used for online adult entertainment, announces today that IRIS SARL, based in Luxembourg, has secured an additional 25 Premium Domains in a deal worth $185,000.  This is the second significant order from IRIS who previously acquired $650,000 of premium names back in...

Over the past week, 800 transactions took place on Sedo’s marketplace and via SedoMLS, totaling over $1.57m. Over 41% of total sales were the result of Buy Now listings. Highlights of public sales include: Top .com: apuestas.com (bets in Spanish) at 165,000 EUR, almost 222,000 USD Top ccTLD: veterinar.se  (Veterinary in Spanish) at 8,000 EUR Relat...

As tweeted by George Kirikos, the court granted ICANN's motion to dismiss Image Online Design's (IOD) .WEB lawsuit. ICANN posted the "Order Granting ICANN's Motion to Dismiss Complaint" (PDF) today on their site. IOD had applied to operate the .WEB gTLD in 2000, but ICANN did not select the TLD for the phase at the Related posts: Kentucky Circuit ...

We are blogging the auction live today at Webfest Global 2013 in Santa Monica, CA. Related posts: DOMAINfest global becomes WebFest Global, opens registration for 2013 DomainFest Global Low/Now Reserve Live Auction Results Seven Hours to register for Webfest Global at the Early Bird rate DOMAINfest Global 2011 Live Auction Results DomainFest Global...

Sedo is brokering Internet Real Estate Group's Chocolate.com and the web business. The site is a marketplace for fine chocolates that lists 250 vendors and their over 5,000 products. “The Chocolate.com domain name and address is one of the most sought after plots of virtual real estate on the Internet,” said Andrew Miller, Managing Director Relate...

In the case of the non-deletion of publication.com last Friday, DNN has now obtained a copy of the court order that prevented the deletion and you can see it here (PDF). Please note that this is the unsigned version of the restraining order as it was currently published by the court, but DNN does have Related posts: Publication.com deletion stoppe...

Many domain investors were wondering yesterday why Publication.com was renewed during the deletion process. VeriSign (VRSN) apparently received a court order forbidding them to delete the domain. Here is an official statement from VeriSign that we received a few minutes ago: The status of publication.com was changed as the result of a court order. ...

The name publication.com was scheduled to be deleted today and had a large number of interest with the various backorder platforms – for example over 170 bidders at Namejet and pre-bids over $3,000. The drop just completed, yet the name was not deleted. Here is the whois as it was displayed earlier today: Domain Name: Related posts: OneClick...

Demand Media just announced this morning that the are acquiring the retail registrar name.com. name.com was founded by Bill Mushkin in 2003. Demand Media also owns eNom and BulkRegistrar.com and is an active player in the new gTLD space. The acquisition will increase their reach into direct domain sales. Santa Monica, California – January 7, Relat...

Lots of buzz surrounded the end of the year Godaddy Groupon code deal.  For $25 the deal would get you $70 in credit on godaddy.  The credit applied to anything they sold, including premium domain listings as some reported.  Some domainers/couponers went all-in buying groupons from the 70 or so cities that had the coupons Related posts: Godaddy Gr...

As reported by InternetNews.me, PIR, the registry operating the .ORG gTLD has announce a price increase of 10% effective July 1st, 2013. The new price to registrars will be $8.25, an effective increase of $0.55 per domain name year. This makes .ORG more expensive that .COM ($7.85) as of mid next year. Related posts: .ORG registry to increase prices...

Update on the Groupon Deal.   Yea we're going there. . . . one last time because the savings is pretty hard to beat. The deal has a few more hours left in a few different cities still in the US.  I can also confirm that you can buy these deals from multiple cities.  I've Related posts: Awesome Godaddy Groupon Deal $25 gets you $70 in credit Groupo...

Godaddy.com is running a pretty sweet Groupon.com deal. Buy $70 worth of credits for $25 .  The deal ends Sunday at 12:00 AM I purchased this deal myself and can tell you it applied a credit to my account. I was able to use it for renewals but the credit showed up in my account Related posts: Groupon Addresses Australian Cybersquatting Problem Det...

Flippa.com sold StockPhoto.com at the asking price of $250,000 earlier today. The name was owned by Black Start, a photographic agency since 1995 based in White Plains, NY. The current site is not included in the sale. Related posts: Retweet.com Sells for $250,000 SitePoint Launches New Website Marketplace Rick Latona Adult Domain Auction ends toda...

As announced in a blog post by Crystal Peterson, Jasmine Begg is the new Director of Sales and Marketing, EMEA at .CO Internet. Most of the people in the domain industry know her from her time at German registar InternetX, where she served as Team Leader of International Business and attended many conferences. Crystal Peterson writes: No related p...

The following is a guest post by Joe Alanga, GM North American Markets at CentralNic. He attended yesterday's prioritization draw at the LAX Hilton in Los Angeles. His summary outlines the results of the lottery draw along with some important information regarding the timeline of the new gTLD process. Yesterday, ICANN held the prioritization draw ...

Some quick information regarding the ICANN new gTLD Prioritization Lottery Draw, which happens shortly: 1766 tickets were sold, 92% of applications (1920 total) First draw is for IDN applicants (108 out of 116 applications purchased tickets) Second draw for non-IDN applicants The proceeds of $176,600 for the ticket sales will go to the following th...

Pinky Brand of Domain Diction released a mock movie trailer today for the new gTLDs. The prioritization draw takes place today. [via InternetNews.me] Related posts: Reuters on New gTLDs 36 Fortune 100 Companies that applied for new gTLDs Movie Gallery's Reel.com To Be Sold Survey For Registry Service Providers (new gTLDs) Minds + Machines Parents P...

As already reported by others FindYourDomain.com sold Trumpet.com on Namejet for a price of $57,500 domains on Namejet. DNN reached out to the buyer, Nokta Domains. Arif ?engören told DNN: As NoktaDomains.com, we are still going on buying premium domains in order to refresh and improve our domain portfolio. We are mainly focusing on one-word Relat...

There are little less than 11 hours left in Sedo's current Greatdomains auction, which ends today (Dec 13, 2012) at 12pm EST. The auction features 308 domains. The current highest bids are: ik.com @$130,000 USD (reserve not met) reconnect.com @$20,000 USD (reserve not met) europe.tv @$13,000 USD (reserve not met) choinki.pl @$9,999 USD (reserve not...

The .PW Registry, a Directi Business that is launching the .PW ccTLD (Palau) globally, has announced a coopration with NameJet and AfterNIC to operate the sunrise and landrush auctions and offer premium name distribution. This relaunch of the country code is aimed at professionals and businesses around the world. NameJet and Afternic will provide ....

Eleanor Bradley, former Director of Operations for Nominet has been appointed to the role of Chief Operating Office (COO) for the UK registry. She also joined the Nominet board. [via Nominet News] Related posts: Three New Members Added In Nominet's Non-Executive Director Election Nominet passes 9 Million Domain Mark Nominet Considers Release of One...

This week, 900 transactions took place on Sedo’s marketplace and via SedoMLS, totaling over $1.52 million. Over 42% of total sales were the result of Buy Now listings. Highlights of public sales include: Top .com: endgame.com at 80,000 USD Top ccTLD: k1.de at 12,000 EUR Top “other” TLD: stromrechner.net at 9,100 EUR See the full Related posts: Sed...

As reported by TechCrunch Investing.com was bought for $2.45 Million USD by Virgin Island based Forexpros/Fusion Media Ltd. As TechCrunch writes, with the purchase, Forexpros will today launch a global financial portal under the Investing.com URL, where it plans to offer a free resource for novice and semi-professional traders and investors to find...

As announced last week, Melissa Dafni joined Above.com. Melissa is a veteran in the domain industry. She has extensive experience around all three of the major components offered by the Above Investor Platform – domain monetization management, domain name registration and the domain auction marketplace. Prior to joining Above.com, Melissa ser...

Here's is Sedo's weekly sales report – highlights of public sales include: Top .com: hotelsguide.com at 60,000 USD Top ccTLD: verzuimmanagement.nl at 12,100 EUR Top “other” TLD: roulette.biz at 6,750 EUR As The Domains points out the sales report includes Internet-Traffic.com sold for $1,000, which is similar to Frank Schilling's domain monet...

According to a Reuters release United States and European authorities seized 132 domain names. According to DNN's knowledge this is the first time that an international cooperation in order to seize domain names happened like this: ICE agents seized 101 domain names in the United States and 31 were taken over by officers in Britain, Related posts:...