Since many domain investors keep lists of domains ready to purchase when there are specials available, we figured we’d let you know about a current special that one of the early registrars, AIT Domains, is running for a limited time. You can register or transfer any COM, NET, ORG, INFO, BIZ or US domains for $2.99 including private registration and ICANN fee. No coupon code is needed.The price is only valid for the first year of domain registration and a limit of five domains per customer applies. Find out more about the special on their site.

• Most businesses use .co.uk, and 93% of UK names are .co.uk
• [...] these [second level] names will not be offered to the owners of .co.uk (e.g. the BBC would not automatically get BBC.uk)
• Instead priority will be given to trademark holders. Sounds fair to you? Read here why this is a bad idea.
• Existing domain owners will have to prove that they are entitled to the matching .uk domain name, or buy it at auction (if it hasn’t already been taken by a trademark holder)
• This will cause uncertainty and confusion, and risks damaging trust in .co.uk and hurting UK businesses
• [Due to the higher proposed annual registration fees] the direct cost to UK businesses will be at least £50,000,000 per year, and associated adjustment costs could run to £billions. This estimate does not account for auction income from domain names that several parties are interested in.
• Other countries went about the same process quite differently. In every previous case, existing domain owners were given priority ahead of other interests.

If Nominet still decides to go ahead with the release of second level domains, Hawyward is proposing a process (“Proposal for the Equitable Allocation of .uk Domain Names” as of page 8 (PDF)) where the existing registrants of the .co.uk equivalent of the names get priority in a sunrise procedure for registering the .uk counter part.

The phases of the counterproposal are:

1. Domain Owner Sunrise (60-90 days): Sunrise phase for existing domain owners, also taking trademarks (from current domain owners) into account
2. Trademark Sunrise (120 days): Sunrise period for trademark owners without existing domains.
3. Landrush (60 days application + 30 day auction): Expression of interest available to everyone
4. General Availability (first come first served): Domains available to everyone, normal registration fees

What do you think, who should get priority rights for the release of .UK names? Should they be released at all? What do you think of Edwin’s proposal?

Canadian company Irex Corp,  just launched www.DomainNames.ca, a marketplace for selected domains from their own portfolio, such as ez.ca, cruise.ca and usedcars.ca.

Since 2001, Irex Corp has been offering website services to both consumers and business interests through numerous verticals including real estate, education, web design and philanthropic initiatives.

Today,, Sedo, announced a partnership with French registrar Rapidomaine. As the newest SedoMLS Premium partner, Rapidomaine provides their customers with access to Sedo’s inventory of 16 million premium domains directly at Rapidomaine’s website.

“Becoming a SedoMLS partner has given us the chance to expand the services we’re offering our customers” said Alexandre Badelon, CEO of Rapidomaine. “Users can now purchase premium names to augment their portfolio without leaving the familiarity of their Rapidomaine account.”

“The SedoMLS Premium network is all about connecting sellers and buyers, wherever they’re based globally,” said Liesbeth Mack-de Boer, Sedo’s Chief Sales Officer. “With a new partner in the network, we’re making our inventory of 16 million domains available to even more potential buyers around the world.”

About Rapidomaine

Rapidomaine is a French domain name registrar that was founded in 2002. Rapidomaine makes their customers’ interest their priority.

About SedoMLS

The SedoMLS Promotion Network is the largest domain distribution network, with more than 80 partners, including Go Daddy and other top registrars. It supports more TLDs than any other domain distribution network, and provides its registrar partners with a new revenue stream. SedoMLS partners display matches from Sedo’s unique inventory. Some partners redirect potential buyers to Sedo.com to continue with the purchase, while others allow buyers to purchase a name directly by searching for it, adding it to their shopping cart, and completing the partner’s online checkout page.

About Sedo

Sedo, an acronym for “Search Engine for Domain Offers,” is the leading domain marketplace and monetization provider. Headquartered in Cologne, Germany and with offices in London, England and Cambridge, Mass., Sedo has assembled the world’s largest database of domain names for sale, with more than 16 million listings. The success of Sedo’s model has attracted a global base of more than 1 million members.

[via Press Release/email]

Disclaimer: DNN’s Managing Editor Frank Michlick provides consulting for SedoMLS through his company DomainCocoon.

Apparently Facebook has not only continued their practice of filing disputes for domains names it saw infringing on its trademarks but now also has changed gears and filed a suit on July 22nd against more than 100 parties claiming Cybersquatting, Trademark infringement, False Designation of Origin, Trademark Dilution, Breach of Contract and Tortious Interference . The filing with the United States District Court for the Northern District of California (PDF) lists 104 different domains with the majority of names containing the term “facebook” in some variation (i.e. facebooki.com) but also lists the domains (14) that the typo-domains are/were redirected to (i.e. 1939.com which according to a notice posted on the site was a redirect service at one point and SocialRewardCenter.com).

The listed defendants are:

• Cyber2Media, Inc.
• Daniel Negari
• Cleanser Products
• Counter Balance Enterprises Ltd.
• FB Promotions/Freebie Promos
• Mackrooner Ltd. Inc.
• Newgate Services Ltd.
• Pioneer Enterprises Ltd.
• Rabbit Gogo Media LLC
• SMTM Enterprises Ltd.
• YourTick
• Zilt
• Jacob Daniels
• Jerry Hui
• Ryan Johnson
• Eric Jordan
• Karrie-Lee Karreman
• June Kimchi
• Tim Meyers
• Ankit Pandey
• S. Pace
• Elise Petri
• Mark Risi
• John Souza
• Michael Suggs
• and John/Jane Does 1-119

This topic was also covered by Elliot Silver and Bill Hartzer. Hat tip to Domain Trader.

GeoPublishers Expo to be held in Chicago from September 30th to October 2nd 2011

GeoPublishers.com is the new trade association for the geodomain industry. The inaugural Expo will be in Chicago at the Fairmont Hotel. Starting with the President’s reception on Friday 30 September, there will be a day-and-a-half program of keynotes and
panels, and a sponsored dinner on Saturday 1 October.

Speakers so far confirmed include

• Don Jones, President of New Orleans.com
• Gordon Borrell, CEO of Borrell Associates
• Sandy Martin, Director of Mobile, Schurz Communications
• Sara Mannix, Mannix Marketin
• Dan Hippler, VP Marketing, Vegas.com
• Sean Miller, NewYorkCity.com

Registrations are now open for the early bird price discount of $495 (and reduced pricing of $395 for second and subsequent registrations from the same company).

Details are on the event’s website at www.geopublishers.com/geo-publishers-expo.

According to GigaOm Trademarkia has released a domain name registration service. As reported in the comments on GigaOm, the domain registration service will only notice trademarks that exactly match an existing trademark.Another caveat is that the notice of the potential infringement is only displayed relatively late into the checkout process.

Trademarkia is a trademark-research and production site/service. According to the domain registration service description it appears that their service will also help you register a trademark for your domain. Domain pricing starts at $2/year for a.biz domain.

The new service recognizes domains that are registered already and will offer the customer to “bid” on the domain name – potentially the sign of a coming brokerage service. It also displays a screenshot, social media comments and other information about the domain name. As pointed out by DNW, the service also offers you to file a cease and desist for $185 should there be an existing domain infringing  on your trademark (using the thumbnail search).

[via GigaOm]

Earlier today IANA added the .XXX Top Level Domain to the root nameservers. While the registry operator Afilias is still in their setup process for ICM registry, the zone is currently propagating. While a number of registrars have already been taking pre-registrations, the actual timeline for the launch has not yet been published. The Sunrise launch is a three phased approach. After much back and forth and protests against the sTLD the ICANN board had approved the application for the new TLD at their meeting on March 18th of this year.

[Update] As Kevin over at DomainIncite points out in his post on the same topic, the registry website, sex.xxx and porn.xxx (both placeholder pages, safe for work) are now resolving under the new TLD. xxx.xxx is resolving as well.

The delegation record for the new TLD can now also be found on the IANA website.

Below the output of the dig query:

dig ns xxx.

;; Got answer:
;; ->>HEADER< <- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 22036
;; flags: qr rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 6, AUTHORITY: 0, ADDITIONAL: 0

;; QUESTION SECTION:
;xxx.				IN	NS

;; ANSWER SECTION:
xxx.			300	IN	NS	a2.xxx.afilias-nst.info.
xxx.			300	IN	NS	a0.xxx.afilias-nst.info.
xxx.			300	IN	NS	b2.xxx.afilias-nst.org.
xxx.			300	IN	NS	b0.xxx.afilias-nst.org.
xxx.			300	IN	NS	c0.xxx.afilias-nst.info.
xxx.			300	IN	NS	d0.xxx.afilias-nst.org.

See the IANA record after the jump
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After a recent announcement by SnapNames for a price increase for catching dropped domains from $59 to $69, NameJet will be announcing to their customers in an email later today that they are dropping their price from $69 to $59 in a trial. It appears the prices have already been lowered on the site.

[Updated] See the text of the email below.

(more…)

auDA, the Australian Domain Name Administrator, announced today that the registry had passed the 2 million registration mark last night.

“The .au domain has the highest penetration rate in the world for regulated namespaces with restricted eligibility when you take into account our population. The .au domain has become part of the fabric of doing business in Australia. We have seen continual strong growth in the namespace despite the global financial crisis and other market factors. .au is Australia’s domain namespace of choice and the only place to show that you are a trusted Australian,” Mr Kinderis, AusRegistry’s CEO, said.