Here's the The Lowdown
from DN Journal,
updated daily
to
fill you in on the latest buzz going around the domain name industry.
The Lowdown is
compiled by DN Journal Editor & Publisher Ron
Jackson.
Weekend
News Roundup: .CO Land Rush Extended, CFIT Wins Another
Round Against Verisign & New Domain Auction
Developments
Since
returning from vacation
TuesdayI've been playing catch up while
simultaneously putting out a new double length domain
salesreport and working on our next
Cover Story that will be out the first of the
week. As the week progressed there were several
interesting industry developments that I wanted
to pass along to you before getting back to work
on the Cover Story.
First,
the .CO registry announced
that, due to high demand, their Land Rush
period that had been scheduled to end Tuesday
(July 13) has been extended to Friday,
July 16. Land Rush is a period when
the most desired domains are made available at
premium prices before general public
registration begins (open public registration of
.CO domains will begin July 20th).
The
.CO registry says 26,000 premium .CO domain
names have already been registered with many
being taken by top global brands and Fortune
500 companies. Nicolai
Bezsonoff,
the chief operating officer of .CO Internet,
said "July 16th will be the last opportunity for
corporations, major brands, start-ups and
individuals to secure their desired domains
early." On July 20, all unclaimed
domains will be added to the general pool and
released on a first-come, first-served basis.
You
can claim a Land Rush domain through any
one of 10 .CO Accredited Registrar
partners, including GoDaddy.com, Register.com,
Network Solutions, eNom, InternetX,
Dotster, Melbourne IT, OpenSRS,
My.co, and Dominio Amigo,
or any of the resellers within each
registrar’s extended networks.
The registry said Land Rush domains are
priced at a premium level "to
reflect their high value and high
demand." Prices average between $250
to $300, depending on the
registrar.
If
more than one Land Rush application is
received for a particular domain name,
it will be auctioned to the highest
bidder.
The Coalition
for ICANN Transparency (CFIT) has
won another skirmish in its long running
legal battle with Verisign in
which, among other things, CFIT is
challenging Verisign's sweetheart no
bid contract with ICANN. That
arrangement has led to a steady stream
of price hikes on .com and
.net domain names, the latest of
which just went into effect July
1.
In the
latest round Verisign had asked the
9th Circuit Court of Appeals for a
rehearing after the court had overturned
a
lower
court's dismissal of the CFIT case. On
Friday, the 9th Circuit denied
Verisign's request. One of the CFIT
attorneys, Bret Fausett, released
the news and you can read the entire
decision here
(.pdf file).
From
this point (barring a settlement of some kind)
Verisign could try to take the case to the U.S.
Supreme Court, otherwise it will be tried by
the District Court. So, it will still be awhile
before the final chapter is written in this
saga.
There is
also some news on the domain auction
front. Moniker and SnapNames
completed their first ever .US
showcase domain auction on Thursday
and the results
were better than many expected. 35%
of the domains listed were sold (30 of
86 domains totaling $42,127), led
by Flights.us, a name purchased
by an end user for $11,770.
AirlineTickets.us
and CreditReports,us were next at
$3,600 each, followed by Psychics.us
($2,915) and Gadgets.us ($2,050).
I put a few domains into the auction
myself and sold three at an average
price of $1,100 each. That is
right at the level I average in selling
.US domains to small business end users
so the outcome was better than I would
have predicted for an industry auction.
As
the .US auction was winding down Moniker
and SnapNames announced they will stage
a live premium domain name
auction on Wednesday, August 18
during the DOMAINfest® One-Day Power
Networking Event
at the Grand Hyatt Hotel in New
York City.
The catalog
is packed with generic gems including Quotes.com,
Rate.com, Stocks.com, StockQuotes.com
and Reggae.com to name just a
few. The auction will run from 4:00-7:00pm
(U.S.
Eastern time) on August 18 and will be
followed by an extended online auction that will run through Wednesday,
August 25 at 5 p.m. (U.S. EDT).
We need your help to keep giving
domainers The
Lowdown, so please email [email protected]with any interesting information you might have. If possible,
include the source of your information so we can check it out (for
example a URL if you read it in a forum or on a site
elsewhere).
