What Other Currencies Should Escrow.com Consider Adding?

Elliot Silver
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27

Escrow.com announced that the company would begin accepting Euros for payment beginning at the end of April. Knowing that the domain industry crosses borders, I am wondering what other currencies Escrow.com should consider adding to help with your business.

One issue of course is that it’s far easier to transact in a foreign currency if both parties use the same currency. For instance, it might be expensive for me to complete a deal in Yuan since I will then have to convert to US Dollars, costing me a few points on the transaction.

Feel free to share what other currency Escrow.com should consider adding. If you’re like me and are happy with US Dollars, there’s no need to cast a vote.


Escrow.com To Begin Offering Transactions in Euros in April

Elliot Silver
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11

f you’ve completed a large domain name acquisition or sale, it’s likely that you used Escrow.com for the transaction.  At the present time, Escrow.com only allows for transactions in US dollars, but that will soon change.

In April of this year, the company plans to begin offering clients the ability to make purchases or sales in Euros.  They will not be doing any currency exchanges, so when a transaction is started in Euros, it will be disbursed to the seller in Euros.  As always, funds will be held in a non-interest bearing trust account at Bank of America.

According to Andee Hill, Director of Business Development at Escrow.com, “over half of Escrow.com transactions involve an international buyer or seller.”  Based on customer feedback and statistics, the Euro makes the most sense to be used in addition to US Dollars.  The company may expand into additional currencies as demand dictates.  The fee structure will closely mirror the current fee structure the company uses for US Dollar transactions.

This is going to be a big deal for the company and it will save international customers quite a bit of money.  They will no longer need to worry about currency exchanges, which can take several points off of both ends of a transaction.  This is especially important on large deals.

I will let you know when Escrow.com begins offering to transact using Euros.  I am told it will be right around the time of the Domaining Spain conference at the end of April.

Industry Veterans Launch Redesigned Resume.com Website

Elliot Silver
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14

Domain name industry veterans Rick Kirkendall and Richard Lau have relaunched a redesigned Resume.com website. As you might expect, the website is a “resume hosting & job service provider that allows job seekers to upload their resumes & employers.”

From what I understand, Kirkendall and Lau acquired the name within the past three years, and they started this joint venture shortly thereafter. The pair also own the plural Resumes.com.

Despite the fact that the resume search term is ultra competitive in this difficult job market, Resume.com consistently ranks in the top of Google and Bing for related search terms. The relaunched website looks sleek, is highly functional, and will presumably produce results for users and for its owners.

Congratulations to Rick and Richard on the re-launch. Wishing them both much continued success.

Namecheap Warns About CISPA, Makes Another EFF Pledge

Elliot Silver
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1

I haven’t heard much buzz about the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA), and I suspect you probably haven’t either. In fact, if it wasn’t for a blog post by Namecheap, I probably wouldn’t know that it’s re-emerged.

Here’s how Namecheap has summarized the issue with CISPA should it be passed into law:

“CISPA, which emerged in 2012, has been rebirthed this week as an  even bigger threat  to online freedom. If CISPA is passed, the US government gains the power to shut off Internet traffic and empowers the US government to ask your ISP about your online activities in the efforts to learn about possible cyber security threats and Internet attacks. Advocated under the premise of anti-terrorism legislation, this legislation is so broad that it threatens to endanger the privacy of every individual and ordinary and law abiding citizens. This act makes your private online activity now public, giving ISPs the right to share your personal information completely without your knowledge, due process, or authorization.”

As its done in the past, Namecheap is trying to raise awareness about CISPA by making a financial pledge tp the  Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF). For every tweet and re-tweet mentioning its blog post, Namecheap is pledging a $.10 donation to the EFF. If you register or transfer a .com, .net, or .org domain name to Namecheap, you can save $1.00 using promo code CISPAalert, and in addition, the company will donate $.10/name to the EFF.

Not only is this a great way to get people to know about CISPA, but it also shows Namecheap’s marketing prowess. Over the last couple of years, the company has donated over $100k to the EFF as a results of efforts such as this.

If you’d like to read more about CISPA and what others are saying, I encourage you to check out the following articles on the topic:

Take the Domain Industry Survey

Elliot Silver
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11

At the beginning of each year, Andrew Allemann publishes a comprehensive survey with questions about the domain industry. The survey covers everything from domain forums to parking companies to market conditions, and everything in between.

Andrew has posted the 2013 DNW survey, and time is running out to complete it. The survey will take no more than ten minutes to complete, and the more industry participants who take the time to complete it will make it more informational. Last year, over 1,500 people took the survey.

I am told the survey will close on February 8th, so if you want to participate, now is the time. With the new gTLDs coming later on this year, it will be fun to look back and see what domain industry participants predicted and measure against how things turned out.

Estibot Founder Launches Dropping.com

Elliot Silver
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19

I received an email from Estibot founder Luc Lezon announcing that his company launched Dropping.com,  “a unique service for acquiring expiring and expired domain names.” It seems to be quite comprehensive, and I plan to check it out over the next few days to see if it helps my business.

The value proposition for Dropping.com is the amount of data the service provides about dropping domain names. According to the press release I received (and posted below), “Dropping.com provides access to over 100 data points for each domain (such as pagerank, searches, CPC, backlinks), 30 of which are proprietary and only available on the website, and allows users to search through a constantly updated database of 7.5 million domains.”

There are three levels of accounts on Dropping.com. The Basic account costs $49.95/month, Intermediate is $99.95/month, and Advanced is $149.95/month. Obviously, you get more features with the higher level account you have.

Interestingly, I believe Domaining.com founder Francois Carrillo had launched a service on Dropping.com back in 2009. Since the domain name is still under privacy guard, I don’t know if Estibot/Luc owns this domain name or if it’s owned by Francois.

Press Release:

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