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 a new ICANN accredited registrar designed to let you create domain names in the new top level domain extensions offered by Uniregistry.

Beginning in 2014 anyone will be able to create and manage their domain names using the simple site we plan to create here. The names offered by Uniregistrar will be shorter, clearer, easier to use and manage than the .com .net or .org names you know from the past.

We think you’re going to like the names we have to offer and we look forward to serving you. Check back with us later this year as a new site gets created at this location.

With this move the registry operator and new gTLD applicant is one of the first of the new entries that is making it clear that they will be operating their own retail registrar.

“Vertical Integration” (registries that own/operate registrars) has been a long and ongoing issue at ICANN, but in late 2010 the board decided that registries are indeed allowed to own registrars. One of the other applicants, Demand Media, recently increased the reach of their retail channel recently by buying the retail registrar name.com.

The French domain registrar Rapidomaine.fr. announced today that they obtained the Trusted Shops Trustmark certification.

Trusted Shops, leading service provider for secure online shopping in Europe, announces the certification of the site rapidomaine.fr:  legal compliance and refund guarantee secured.

In order to join the circle of e-commerce sites that have been certified by Trusted Shops, Rapidomaine has had to undergo a legal audit based on more than 70 quality criteria. Key areas of inspection include respect of consumers’ privacy, transparency in pricing and the conformity of the general terms and conditions with the law and the regulations of consumer associations.

“During the certification process, a legal expert guided us in rendering certain details of our site compliant. The legal audit revealed 14 criteria to be worked on out of fifty-six- that had already been fulfilled by our site,” highlights Alexandre Badelon, managing director of Rapidomaine.

“This trustmark attests to the fact that our general terms and conditions of sale, our product information and our other legal documents are in compliance with the law, which was already generally the case, but above all it shows that these elements form a coherent whole and function together in the interests of the customer,” he adds.

Collaborating with Trusted Shops and benefiting from its buyer protection allows online shops to offer their customers a secure environment.

“The Trusted Shops Trustmark is a display of trustworthiness that is indispensable for any e-commerce site that wants to show that it is reliable. Rapidomaine has fulfilled all of the quality criteria required to become certified. It is interesting to note that Rapidomaine is the first French domain name registrar and site host to be certified,” explains David Chau, director for France at Trusted Shops.

Rapidomaine is a French domain name registrar that was founded in 2002. The company manages more than 2500 active customers, 7000 domain names and hosts 1500 sites. The company became part of the SedoMLS network in July 2012.

Trusted Shops was founded in 1999 and has accredited over 10,000 retailers. Trusted Shops offers a comprehensive service for the benefit of both – shop operator and consumer, which encompasses Customer Rating, Legal Compliance and Money-back guarantee. Their clients include major brands such as Microsoft Store, Sarenza and Zalando.

According to a survey by German eCommerce aggregator Schottenland.de in 2011, more than 60% of users pay attention to quality labels when shopping online. Do you recognize the Trusted Shops brand or other trust marks? Do you think it will help Rapidomain sell better?

Information company Thomson Reuters announced today that they bought brand protection company and corporate domain registrar Mark Monitor for an undisclosed sum.

“This acquisition marks the beginning of a transformational shift within the Intellectual Property & Science business of Thomson Reuters,” said Chris Kibarian, president, IP & Science, Thomson Reuters. “It is emblematic of our strategy to accelerate innovation and growth within our business.”

“Thomson Reuters already helps thousands of companies create, manage and protect hundreds of billions of dollars worth of intellectual property assets,” said David Brown, president, Intellectual Property Solutions, Thomson Reuters. “With the addition of online brand protection solutions like those provided by MarkMonitor, we’ll be able to deliver advanced technologies to keep customers one step ahead of brandjackers and reduce the enormous risk posed to brands online.”

The MarkMonitor team, led by President and Chief Executive Officer Irfan Salim, will join Thomson Reuters.

Mark Monitor submitted a number of new TLD application on behalf of corporate clients

See the full release after the jump. [via TechCrunch, hat tip to VSDHoldings]

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According to an email from Sedo, SedoMLS Premium listed domains are now also promoted  through United Domains. United Domains has integrated Sedo’s multi-listing service, SedoMLS Premium, for its US-based clients, allowing domain sellers to list their domain portfolio for sale at Sedo, and have potential buyers search for and purchase these domain listings directly at their registrar’s website.

“With SedoMLS Premium, we have extended our domain name market to additional US clients,” said Tim Schumacher, Sedo’s CEO. “This is an ideal sales channel for international domain sellers and for those interested in domains, purchasing a domain name is now as easy as registering it.”

Florian Huber, CEO of United Domains, confirms the benefits of such a partnership: “United Domains has built a successful partnership with Sedo as a preferred registrar, and we are very excited about expanding our partnership to include the Sedo MLS program,” he said. “By adding the Sedo MLS Premium service to our search results, we can to offer our customers a wide selection of premium domains for purchase, as easily as they can register new domains with us.”

SedoMLS Premium for domain sellersis an additional channel for displaying their domain listings to potential buyers. As soon as a user carries out a search on their registrar’s website, SedoMLS Premium provides them with the opportunity to purchase a domain that is already registered by another party at a fixed price, and complete the transfer through the SedoMLS Premium partner’s site.

United Domains will also be further expanding its partnership with Sedo by integrating its own sales inventory into the SedoMLS Premium network in 2012.

As reported earlier the Cyrillic .?? IDN ccTLD launch had reached a stunning number of 500,000 registrations in the first week. Considering the numbers, it was obvious that speculators were playing the TLD, but apparently six registrars are involved in registering many of the names for resale & auction and are now involved in a legal dispute as reported by TheMoscowNews. Many of the registered names have been frozen by the registry.

The accused registrar, RU-Center said there are no plans to stop sales, with spokesman Andrei Vorobyov saying: “We do not believe we have violated the law or the rules of the co-ordinating centre.”At the end of last week the Federal Anti-Monopoly Service (FAS) launched legal action against six registrars claiming they had broken competition laws.

Apparently the RU-Center itself bought 38% of the names registered and acquired another 48% of the registered domains through partner companies – a total of 86%.

[via TheMoscowNews & DomainIncite]

[Ed. Updated - Hagon Lovells is not the first law firm to gain an ICANN accreditation]

According to a post by World Trademark Review Hogan Lovells is the first law firm to obtain an ICANN Accreditation, however Ladas actually was accredited much earlier. The company intends the new registrar to help their clients register domain names, for example in the sunrise periods for new TLDs.

DNN was not yet able to locate the company’s public registrar site required website, as their link on the ICANN website points to a login screen hosted on Anchovy.com.

[via WTR]

[Update] The registrar has been sold.

DomainConsultant.com, mostly known for their Domain Madness auctions so far have a special item that is being auctioned today – an entire domain registrar business. The business is an ICANN accredited company that has about 8,000 domains under management and uses “DomainName.com” as their brand. You can find a breakdown of their existing registrations, for which they currently charge $29.95(!) per year, below. The customer base also includes 200 hosting accounts with an annual revenue of $200 each.

While the Buy It Now price of $3,000,000 USD expired yesterday, bidders are welcome to bring forward their bids by visiting DomainConsultant or send an email to Mike Fiol at mike (at) domainconsultant.com.

The auction started at 9am EDT today and will end at 3pm EDT.

Disclaimer: Adam Strong, Managing Editor of DNN, also is a consultant with DomainConsultant.com.

As  Andrew at Domain Name Wire revealed, Fabulous.com is going to be releasing a new solution for Registrars and Resellers by the name of Yexa. According to the PDF published on the preview site, that also hosts a sign-up form for the beta of the software, The software is going to allow customers to sell domains, SSL certificates and Hosting.

DNN chatted with Jen Sale about the launch and the features of the new product via Instant Messaging. Read the full interview and learn more about the new product after the jump. (more…)

The French registrar Gandi.net is giving away 55,000 Domain Names in celebration of the ICANN accredited company’s 10th birthday. The amount of promo codes given away will increase from day to day up to a total of 55,000. The longer a registrant has been with the company the more promotional codes they will receive. The coupon codes can be used by the registrant themselves or passed on to someone else. The special event is supported by a number of registrar partners and applies to the following TLDs: .be, .com, .eu, .fr, .info, .me, .mobi, .net, .tel and .uk. More information can be found on the anniversary website.

As of this writing, the RollingStone.com website has become a Network Solutions domain parking page.  Gawker Media first pointed out that the music industry website was no longer active.

I know what you are thinking, the domain expired and NSI took it over.  WRONGO!  The domain doesn’t expire until September 2011.

The company refers to the problem as a “glitch” .  A pretty good size glitch given that according to Compete.com the site averages over 1 million monthly unique visitors.  This seems like a pretty large mistake  for a well-known publishing company to make on their own, so we’re left wondering who dropped the ball here.

Mashable is also covering the story and a commenter pointed out that the domain may be experiencing issues with their DNS provider or Akamai.