Yesterday morning, Richard Branson announced “Virgin Group’s investment in Hyperloop One.” The amount invested was not revealed, but it was a large enough amount that the company’s name is changing to Virgin Hyperloop One.

Although it is not yet resolving or forwarding to a website, VirginHyperloopOne.com was unsurprisingly registered. The domain name is registered under privacy proxy, so it is not clear who owns the domain name or who registered it. What is a bit surprising is when this domain name was registered. Usually companies wait until the final moments to register a domain name, but this wasn’t the case for VirginHyperloopOne.com.

Had outsiders been paying attention to Hyperloop-related domain name registrations, the registration of VirginHyperloopOne.com may have tipped people off to this news several months ago. According to Whois records, VirginHyperloopOne.com was registered back in April.

DomainTools has a great tool called

I thought I would share a tip to help people acquire domain names in private. Sometimes the Whois email address is not accurate and an offer or inquiry email will not be received by the intended recipient.

It can be frustrating to email a very good offer to a domain registrant and not even receive a response to the email. I understand that what seems like a very good (reasonable and/or fair value) offer to me may be low to the domain owner. I also understand that some people have no interest in selling a particular domain name regardless of how good the offer is. I think it is courteous to reply, so not receiving a response can be frustrating.

One thing that could prevent a reply from being made is if the domain registrant did not receive the email. Many domain registrants have a credit card on file at their registrar so their domain names are renewed without having to be reminded via email. They may never receive emails about their domain names, but since the domain names automatically renew, this isn’t something they even notice.

Yesterday morning I was doing some email follow-ups when I received

I saw a thread on NamePros from someone asking about a potential scam. Apparently, the person received an offer to buy a domain name but the person said a (paid) domain appraisal would be necessary before doing a deal. This doesn’t seem legitimate to me.

From the NamePros thread:

“I just received an offer to buy my domain from a supposedly domain broker and the email seems to come from a large internet company in Japan.

However, the agent says that due to regulations in Japan, the buyer needs to have a proper certification to do a bank transfer due to the price being more than 10k.

The broker then sent me a link to get my domain certified for USD199. “

I can not think of a real reason why an appraisal would be necessary to complete a deal. I can not imagine a legitimate domain buyer or domain broker would require one. From my perspective, it seems like the prospective buyer is trying to induce the domain owner to pay nearly $200 (yes, $200!!!!) for a domain appraisal and will then disappear once the payment is made. I can’t think of anyone who has paid for a domain appraisal in order to justify or “certify” a domain name sale.

Domain names are a dynamic market. The prices and values can

Yesterday afternoon, TechCrunch reported that Priscilla Chan and her husband Mark Zuckerberg had a baby girl named August Zuckerberg. I was curious to know if the couple purchased the matching AugustZuckerberg.com domain name in advance of their baby’s birthday. The domain name was registered in June of this year at GoDaddy.

Because AugustZuckerberg.com is registered using GoDaddy’s Whois privacy proxy service (Domains By Proxy, LLC), it is not known whether Mark Zuckerberg or his wife registered the domain name. Because of the unique name, I would imagine the domain name was registered by one of them (or a close associate of the family). If you visit AugustZuckerberg.com, you can see a default GoDaddy landing page that does not offer any information about who owns the domain name or how it will be used.

Mark and Priscilla have another daughter