Domain Industry News

Newfold Digital to Acquire MarkMonitor

A major domain industry acquisition was just announced in a press release this morning. NewFold Digital, the company that owns domain industry brands like Network Solutions, BuyDomains, NameJet, and many others, has agreed to acquire MarkMonitor from Clarivate Plc. Newfold will pay $302.5 million to Clarivate, the company that owns MarkMonitor.

Andrew Allemann Wins 2022 Lonnie Borck Memorial Award

The ICA presented the 2022 Lonnie Borck Memorial Award today during NamesCon. The deserving winner of this year’s award is Andrew Allemann of Domain Name Wire.

I have been reading DNW for many years, and I admire Andrew for his exceptional coverage of the domain name space. Andrew has always provided unparalleled and unbiased coverage of this industry, and I think all domain investors are better off as a result.

I am happy to see Andrew honored with the award that was named after a close industry friend of mine.

Thanks to Fred Kauber for sharing the news.

PayPal Reinstates Sav’s Account

In a blog post on August 18th, Sav reported that its PayPal account had been inexplicably closed by the payment provider. I am sure this would have impacted the registrar’s ability to collect payments from some clients, and importantly, it would have impacted the ability to pay clients proceeds from domain name sales.

This has happened to other domain industry companies in the recent past, and they had to make efforts to get their accounts reinstated. Sav requested that customers reach out to any PayPal connections they may have and to tweet to PayPal in a bid to get their account functioning again.

Yesterday afternoon, Sav reported that its PayPal account access has been restored:

Identity Digital: Donuts & Afilias Unveil Rebrand

At the end of 2020, Donuts acquired Afilias and its registry business. The two companies continued to operate and are now uniting under one brand name called Identity Digital. The rebrand was introduced in a press release this morning.

Identity Digital uses the Identity.Digital domain name for its website. The company also acquired IdentityDigital.com, which forwards to the .Digital domain name. Interestingly, it looks like the company had to privately acquire the Identity.Digital domain name in April or May of this year as it had been owned by a Spanish company, according to the DomainTools Whois History tool.

BrandForce Hiring; Over $15m in Sales YTD

Louis Pickthall, Co-Founder and Vice President at BrandForce announced that the company is looking to hire for several positions at the company. Louis shared the job posting on his LinkedIn page:

Andrew Miller & Hilco Global Form Hilco Digital Assets

On LinkedIn this morning, Andrew Miller announced that his company and Hilco Global have formed a new business venture called Hilco Digital Assets. The business will work with a variety of digital assets, including domain names and NFTs.

Andrew shared the post below on his LinkedIn page:

Recent Posts

Negotiate an Inbound Lead via Broker

5
Successfully negotiating a deal is something I enjoy. The negotiation is an important aspect of why I find domain investing to be exhilarating. It...

Candidate Gets Flack for Old Domain Investments

5
When I read about domain names being involved in a political campaign, it is usually because one candidate bought a domain name related to...

Pepe.com Acquired by Pepe Coin ($PEPE)

3
Pepe is a popular meme coin ($PEPE) that has been using the Pepe.vip domain name for its website. According to Binance, Pepe is trading...

FedEx Buys Its 3 Letter .com Ticker Symbol

0
It looks like FedEx has acquired a valuable 3 letter .com domain name. Whois records show FedEx is now the owner of FDX.com. The...

Squadhelp Rebrands as Atom with Atom.com

7
Squadhelp announced a complete rebrand this morning. The company is now known as Atom, and it acquired the Atom.com domain name in advance of...