Serbian National Register of Internet Domain Names (RNIDS) began registering .rs domains today, March 10 at 12 noon.

List of Accredited Registrars

On February 8, 2007, the Fox News Network announced that it was launching a business news channel. Later that day, a company by the name of Worldwide Directory Services registered the domain name foxbusinessnetwork.com. Fox news was unable to gain control of the domain because they did not register a trademark for the term until July 16, 2007.

Fox News, the cable television news channel of Rupert Murdoch-controlled News Corporation, announced its intention to launch a business news channel on 8 February 2007.

On that same day Worldwide Directory Services (WDS) registered the domain name foxbusinessnetwork.com. But because Fox News did not register any trade marks for the term ‘Fox business network’ until 16th July that year it was not entitled to force the handover of the address.

The World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) arbitrates in many disputes over domain names and can order their transfer if three conditions are met. The name must be identical or confusingly similar to a trade or service mark held by the person who wants to gain control of it, the person holding the domain name must have no rights in it, and the domain name must be registered and used in bad faith.

All three of these conditions must be met if a name is to be transferred, and Fox failed to meet the second.

Source

I think that at least nine times out of ten, the Complainant would win a case like this, but the real lesson here is that you should always purchase your domain names, and then announce your new service. This is a mistake that keeps repeating itself in the corporate world.

The complete ruling: Fox News Network, LLC v. Domains by Proxy, Inc. / Worldwide Directory Services

Here are some interesting statistics from the recently released Domain Name Industry Brief:

• In the fourth quarter of 2007, there were more than four million domain names registered per month (more than 133,000 new registrations each day)
• New registrations grew by four percent quarter over quarter and by five percent year over year.
• The largest TLDs in terms of base size were .com, .de, .net, .cn, .uk, .org, .info, .eu, .biz and .mobi. (Are there more registered .mobi names than .us names? Another interesting mobile internet statistic here)
• Impressive growth among ccTLDs; .cn, .ru, .es and .tv experienced double digit growth in the fourth quarter compared to the previous quarter.
• In the third quarter of 2007, the registry renewal rate for .com and .net was 74 percent.
• 23% of all .com and .net domains resolve to a parked or “coming soon” page.

Source: The Domain Name Industry Brief - Vol. 5 - Issue 1

My friend Peter at Domainers Gazette has a great series entitled CTOPD, or Creative Targeting on Parked Domains. Similarly, I often stumble upon a premium domain name that is used in an unusual way. Inspired by Peter’s naming convention, I will call them UUOPD, or Unusual Usage of Premium Domains. Today’s UUOPD is purple.com. The site is, quite simply, purple. That’s it, just purple. Well, actually there are a few hidden pages and subdomains as well as a FAQ that contains some very funny answers:

Q: I like purple! What can I do?
A: You can be a part of the purple affinity program!

Q: This is really lilac / pink / other, not exactly purple. Could you make it more purple?
A: No. (What color it appears is also dependent on your monitor and its calibration.) Actually, the page used to be #DD00FF from circa 1994 until late 2006, resulting in numerous complaints that it was not quite purple. On 6-Nov-2006 I changed it to #7D26CD based on various recommendations. It’s darker than the old purple, but more clearly purple. You can compare it to blue here.

How long has purple been here?
A: Since 1994. Here’s an old response from whois when I still used NSI.

Q: I’m at a loss. What do other people think?
A: Check it out for yourself!

Q: This is weird / useless / other.
A: That’s not a question.

Q: Are there any games?
A: Yes, there’s the Purple Game. A purple squirrel is animated on your screen. Your task is to click on him. If you are successful, you win. Win or lose, the game continues without pause. Only the squirrel knows.

By the way, I played the Purple Game and won …I think, or maybe not.

One of the more interesting discussions at DomainState is in a thread entitled “Feels like 2000 all over again.” The subject of the post is Stephen Webb who started a company called WeAre, LLC. Stephen says, “I was looking for a domain name for my business located in Charleston. I wanted to give the impression of ownership so I typed in WeAreMusic.com and it was available so was DVD, CD and IamCharleston.com. Now 13,000 domain names later we launched a new business.”

Why does this make it feel like the year 2000 all over again? Well, one of the most memorable and largest of these types of “Theme Portfolios” was created 7 or 8 years ago by Dr Lieven Van Neste, who eventually registered over 200,000 domains. He picked prefixes like “family” and then paired them with popular keywords (highschool, highway, import, etc.). Sometimes they made sense (familyminivan.com) but more often they did not (familyimport-export.com, familyhighway.com). While he may have had a few sales that helped hype his portfolio, high renewal fees forced him to let the names expire (after attempting to sell them at firesale prices at afternic and through brokers).

Likewise, I have read numerous interviews and press releases celebrating the “success” of Stephen Webb and WeAre, LLC., but I only remember reading about 3 reported sales or leases from the 13,000 domain portfolio. The portfolio also contains names like “WeAreTheAdultDiapers.com” and “WeAreClock.com” as well as more risky and possible trademark violation registrations like “WeAreTheArizonaWildcats.com”. While I certainly hope that the business works out for Mr. Webb, it is important to remember that more often than not these types of theme portfolios do not work. Anyone who scans drop lists will see theme portfolios expiring all the time, and just recently more than 5000 domains from Stephen’s portfolio have or are about to expire. Although these 5000 expiring names cost him at least $35,000 to register (at $7/name), letting these names expire shows that Stephen understands that he made some mistakes and some names in his portfolio are simply not worth renewing. For those just entering the market, the less expensive way to learn this lesson is to take some time to study the industry as much as you can before you register any domain names, read the forums and blogs, ask questions, and perhaps simply start slowly.

After the dissolution of Yugoslavia (.yu) in the 1990s, the independent country of Serbia and Montenegro (Crna Gora i Srbija in Serbian) was assigned the ccTLD .cs (yes, the same one previously assigned to Czechoslovakia). During this time, the .cs extension was never assigned an operator and was not used. The Republic of Serbia then became an independent state in 2006, after Montenegro (now using .me) left the union. According to documents on the official website (http://www.rnids.rs/include/data/list0032_en.pdf), existing .yu domains can be converted to .rs domains before general registration is opened to the public.

Serbia: Start of .rs domain registration March 10.
Serbian National Register of Internet Domain Names (RNIDS) informs Serbian and international public that registration of the new Internet domain names of the Republic of Serbia with .rs extension, will commence on Monday, March 10, 2008 at 12h noon.

RNIDS will accept requests for registration of new .yu domain names until Friday, February 29, 2008. After this date registration of new .yu domain names will no longer be possible. All .yu domain names registered until this date will continue to function normally at least until September 30, 2009.

Registration of new .rs domains will be conducted through 27 Serbian companies, which were accredited by RNIDS as the accredited registrars of .rs domain names.

List of the accredited registrars of .rs domain names, as well as detailed rules and procedures regarding .rs registration and transition from .yu to .rs, are available at Web site www.rnids.rs.

(Source: Economy.co.yu, February 28. Link to article)

What do you do when the perfect domain name comes along and you do not have enough cash to purchase it? Well, in part 1 of this post I mentioned that leasing might work, but what other options do you have? The first idea that comes to mind is to take out a loan, but since we are discussing creative financing we will not discuss the traditional business, personal, or home equity loans. If you are looking for loan and you own a strong generic domain name, companies like digipawn.com will let you use a name you already own as collateral and then lend you the money you need. If you do not own a strong generic, but you have enough to cover 20 to 25% of the purchase price, you might be able to get the remaining financing from a company like domaincapital.com.

If you do not want to lease or take out a loan, there is still another great option for you in the form of a custom escrow transaction. In a traditional escrow transaction, a domain is moved into an escrow account and payment is made to the escrow account, then the domain is moved to the purchaser’s account and the money is moved to the seller’s account. With a custom escrow transaction, you can modify both the terms and the payment schedule. For example, I recently used a custom escrow transaction to split the purchase price of a domain name into 12 smaller payments over the term of 1 year. In this situation, the domain was moved to the escrow account, and then I submitted my first payment. A portion of the first payment covered the the Moniker escrow fees and the rest was disbursed to the seller. The domain name remained in the escrow account until all payments were made, but I was able to change the DNS and develop the name after the first payment. I was also able to recover some of the cost of the purchase by monetizing the domain while making payments on what is the equivalent of an interest free loan.

(For more great information on creative financing, also check out this great post by Sahar entitled “Pricing Is NEVER An Issue!“)

According to the press release, the company owns over 150,000 domain names in its private domain name portfolio, including the following:

• Over 1,000 “Gems” (their premium names, 100 examples below)
• 39,000 Surnames (used to sell email addresses like john@smith.net, etc.)
• 22,000 Brandable Names (names they are selling to other businesses)
• 88,000 Direct Navigation Names (names they are monetizing)

Here are the 100 examples listed in their press release:

Actresses.com Aerodynamic.com Alligators.com Amnesty.com Anger.com AnimalTrainers.com Artillery.com AutoRacers.com Backs.com Ballads.com BasketballPlayers.com Beagles.com BigSisters.com BikeRiders.com Biologist.com Blessing.com Breeding.com Brontosaur.com Bulldozer.com Burmese.com Canaries.com Cardiologists.com Cartoonists.com ChorusLine.com Codeine.com Congressman.com Corked.com Desperados.com DietFood.com Dietician.com Divorced.com DogBreeders.com DreamLover.com Drummers.com EndlessLove.com EnglishTeachers.com EquipmentStorage.com ExoticCat.com Geologists.com GraphicArtists.com GreatDanes.com Gynecologists.com Honourable.com Humble.com IceSkaters.com Interviewer.com JehovahsWitnesses.com Jewellers.com Labradors.com Lemons.com

Leopards.com Liberals.com Listener.com LonelyHearts.com Lutheran.com MailDelivery.com Mammal.com Masseuse.com Minis.com Moonlighting.com MorningShow.com MyGarage.com Narcotics.com Naturalists.com NewsReporter.com Ouzo.com Parakeets.com Paramedics.com PawnShops.com Penicillin.com Perfumer.com Pianists.com PoliceOfficer.com Pomeranian.com ProjectManagers.com PunchLines.com Puppysitters.com Relics.com Retrievers.com Rockclimbers.com Satanic.com SiameseCat.com Skateboarders.com Sleuth.com Sobriety.com SoftwareDesigners.com Stylist.com TennisPlayers.com TheBeaches.com TheCaribbean.com TheCompany.com TheHotel.com TheOpera.com ThePostoffice.com TheUnitedStates.com Tool.com Umpires.com Veggies.com Weasels.com Wrestlers.com

Source

The sale prices of premium generic domain names are often out of reach for the average domain investor. If you cannot simply write a check or send a wire transfer to pay for a name, it is important to know that there are other options available. One of these options is leasing the domain name with the option to buy at the end of the lease. Elliot has a great post about domain leasing and how you can benefit from a well structured deal. The most important component as a lessee is to have a solid contract in place with the option to purchase the name at the end of the lease agreement for a set price. Ideally, one would make enough money during the course of the lease to pay for the name at the end; however leasing is just one of many options that you could consider. In part 2 of this post, I will discuss some other creative financing options that are available.

Although the quality of domain related press coverage is getting better, there are still many journalists who mistakenly report that anyone who owns more than one domain name or an undeveloped name is a cybersquatter. To counter this misconception, I would like to offer a brief definition of cybersquatting and then a simple comparison between domains and gold. First, what is cybersquatting?

Cybersquatting is defined as registering a domain name with bad faith intent to profit from the goodwill of a TRADEMARK belonging to someone else.

A person who registers NewYorkYankees.com, and has no affiliation with the New York Yankees, would be considered a cybersquatter because they would profit from the goodwill of a trademark belonging to someone else. A person who registers Baseball.com would not be considered a cybersquatter (even if they do not develop the name) because the term is generic.

Another misconception occurs when someone is mistakenly labeled a squatter because they own multiple domains or domain names that are undeveloped. The term squatter is derived from “squatting,” which is the act of occupying something that the squatter does not have permission to use. After paying the registration fee, a domain owner is given permission by the registry to use the name that they registered, so by definition they are not squatting.

I wonder if any of these misconceptions would exist if they were applied to another item such as gold:
Should you only be allowed one piece of gold?
If you do not develop your gold into something useful like a necklace or watch, should you not be able to keep it?
If you have more than one piece of gold, are you a gold squatter?

By the way, if you answered yes to any of these three questions then you must also believe that Mr. T is a goldsquatter, and I pity the fool who thinks that.