Domain Names costlier! .org hiked by 10%

Public Interest Registry, the registry for .org domain names, has notified ICANN that it is increasing the wholesale prices for .org domain names by 10%. The annual wholesale price for .org domain name registrations will be $6.75, slightly below the $6.86 rate that .com domains are expected to be available at later this year. As the profit margins are thin on domain registrations, the price hike will pinch not your favorite domain registrar’s pocket but yours!

Public Interest Registry has given no rational for the price increase to ICANN. As far as I can make out, it has the most obvious business interest in its mind - profits!

One can’t really blame Public Interest Registry for thinking about ways to increase its profits. After all, it has monopolistic control over the .org domain names! In fact, when .biz registry NeuStar raised prices last year, it was belligerent enough to state the reason for the price hike as - everyone else was doing it. What bullshit!

Also, there are talks that Afilias is all set to hike prices of .info and that NeuStar is already planning another hike in .biz prices.

I have always believed that this whole system of ICANN and domain name registries is rotten to the core. They all have a cartel of sorts. Why does the government allow such monopolistic market conditions to emerge? I wish some intelligent guy in the US will hire good lawyers and file a lawsuit against all this!

Why am I mad? Well, the simple reason is that I have loads of domains that I need to get renewed every year and even now it is quite a lot of money I have to spend. With the price increase it will be a whole lot of new burden.

Yes, yes… I know… you will ask me to monetize the domain to sustain themselves. But bro, monetization doesn’t work on its own. It requires a lot of time, skills and effort, which again costs money. A domainer like me is not a programmer or web designer or an SEO expert. To hire them, I would need to spend money. Domaining is getting costlier by the day. Tsk… Tsk…

if I keep it spending on sustenance, when do I get to enjoy it?

Jerry Seinfeld wins domain dispute over JerrySeinfeld.com

Another domain dispute has been resolved by the intervention of UDRP.

Noted comedian, Jerry Seinfeld won control of the domain name JerrySeinfeld.com after his lawyers launched an appeal to get the control of the domain name from a company called Anything.com, which used the site to host little but advertisements.

I wonder how much money did Anything.com was able to make through the advertising on the website considering that Jerry Seinfeld has quite a following!

Anything.com has agreed to hand over the domain name that it had owned for ten years even before the dispute went to arbitration.

Virtual Real Estate market is booming!

The real estate market may be facing a real tough time these days, but the market for virtual real estate properties, the domain names is flourishing with people making heavy investments in acquiring prized premium domains.

According to DN Journal, domain sales worth $38,029,543 were reported In the first quarter of 2008, which is a 78% increase over the $21,253,105 in domain sales reported for the first quarter of 2007! The average sale is reported to be with average sale at $10,103 and the total number of reported sales was 3,764.

Amazing… I would say

The largest sale reported was that of the $10 million sale of Fund.com during the first quarter of the year! Other prominent sales included $2.6 million for Pizza.com and $1.7 million for DataRecovery.com

I am thrilled with this all. Seems like I am in the right business after all

Bond.com up for auction at Sedo!

A premium domain name, Bond.com has been put up for auction at leading domain name marketplace Sedo.com, for a reserve price of $1million.

Considering the immense hype surrounding the latest of the Bond movies, the interest of the fans in the Bond franchise, and the recent opening of the Ian Fleming exhibition at the Imperial War Museum, the domain name is likely to prove to be too hot and fetch a record price.

This is going to be worth watching out for, my friends!

Casino Royale was the best Bond movie if you ask me and the James Bond is one of my favorite movie series and I am sure that this domain is gonna be bought by a fan and for an astronomical sum! An excellent investment opportunity, more like a jackpot in a casino, it will be for whoever wins the domain auction

.CA Domains cross the 1 million mark

According to the Canadian Internet Registration Authority, the operator of the dot-ca Internet country code, .ca domain names crossed a milestone when the 1 millionth domain name was registered by a Calgary lawyer, Brent Krause for his law practice.

Since the first dot-ca domain name was registered in 1988 it is estimated that the dot-ca domain name usage has increased by more than 20 per cent year on year.

The dot-ca domain names are reserved exclusively for Canadians — those eligible include citizens, permanent residents, Canadian corporations, a variety of groups that require a majority of their members to be Canadian, and the Queen.

Pizza.com sells for $2.6 million!

The owner of the domain pizza.com is reported to have accepted an offer from to an anonymous bidder of $2.6m for the domain name pursuant to a week-long online auction. The domain was originally registered in 1994 for just $20 annual fees!

The sale is expected to be finalized within next few days.

Ooooooh man, I wish I was into buying domain names when the world wide web was just taking off in the early 1990s. What a return on investment! What a business! Domaining…

Network Solutions takes down site against Islam

US based domain name registrar Network Solutions has reportedly taken down the promotional website of a 15-minute film that is said to be derogatory to the religion of Islam.

The domain name and website, which belong to a Dutch lawyer and filmmaker Geert Wilders, have been taken offline after Network Solutions reportedly received complaints about the offensive nature of the film.

The film is said to have described the Islam as “the enemy of freedom” - a statement that is worrying Dutch officials about possible violence, similar to the results of the controversy surrounding Dutch newspapers’ publication of an illustrated depiction of the Prophet Muhammad.

I wonder if this move will be able to stop Mr. Wilders from releasing the full version of his movie as he says he will do within a month’s time. If no other domain registrar or web hosting company allows him to do it, he can always put it up on Youtube and other similar sites that have enormous visitors every day.

Supposing that Mr. Wolders does this and even if subpoenas were served to Google for taking down the objectionable videos from its subsidiary Youtube, millions would have already seen the video and that serves the purpose of Mr. Wilders. Not to mention the enormous amount of publicity this issue has already garnered.

Ramp.com sold on eBay for 25k USD!

Premium domain name www.ramp.com sold for US $25,211 tonight!

The domain, Ramp.com was owned by Ramp Corporation which is being liquidated in bankruptcy (U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York case 05-140006).

The transaction will be completed through the debtor’s law firm Snow Becker Krauss in New York (www.sbklaw.com).  The law firm will hold the payment in escrow until a bill of sale is executed and the domain is transferred to the new owner (eBay ID - discountramps).

If you ask me, the sale was a hurried one and the domain could have fetched much more, at least One Million USD, had the law firm made it a longer auction and publicized it a little as well. What do you say, guys?

Casino.de sold for half million dollars!

Another BIG sale of a premium domain, casino.de for half a million dollars! What more could the seller ask for when .de domains are available for as low as $15 per year? He must be today one real happy domainer

The buyer intends to use Casino.de to guide online gamblers through the options available in online casino and poker room choices by offering independent and thoroughly researched information about gambling on the Internet.

The past few days have seen some impressive domain sales in the aftermarket including that of datarecovery.com for 1.7 million USD and fund.com for 10 million USD!

Domaining isbecoming more and more popular as each day passes by!

Fund.com sold for cool $10m!

A New York, USA, based company, Fund.com Inc. (earlier known as Meade Technologies Inc.), has bought the rights to the domain fund.com for reportedly almost $10 million in an all-cash transaction! Another world record of sorts!

The deal was brokered by Clek Media Inc. and the sale of the domain FUND.COM was actually for US$9,999,950.

It is yet another big dollars domain acquisition to make people and take notice of the excitement that surrounds domaining and the profit that the domain has fetched its original registrant.

Such transactions, though few and far between, keep the hopes of us small-time domainers alive! Though I do not have any single word .com premium domain, yet I have a few that my domaining sense tells me will be worth a couple of hundred thousands down the line and till then, I am holding them