ImpeachTrump.com Domain Name in Auction at Flippa

Elliot Silver
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11

For the last several months, I have seen quite a few television commercials imploring the impeachment of US President Donald Trump. The multi million dollar ad campaign features a businessman named Tom Steyer, who discusses why he believes President Trump should be impeached. The website featured in the commercials is NeedToImpeach.com.

If Mr. Steyer is looking for a more obvious call to action domain name for his impeachment campaign, a better one is now on the market: ImpeachTrump.com.

According to a press release I received this morning, ImpeachTrump.com is now for sale via Flippa. The high bid currently stands at $250 but the undisclosed reserve price has not yet been met.

Depending on the reserve price and the reach of the marketing campaign promoting the auction, I would not be surprised to

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Escrow KYC Verification is Not Due Diligence

Elliot Silver
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3

In reading some forum threads and email chains over the last couple of years, I think there is some confusion about the Know Your Customer (KYC) verification at Escrow.com, Payoneer Escrow, and other escrow services. As far as I understand, the KYC verification process is not a form of due diligence for a buyer or seller.

From what I understand, KYC verifies that the buyer and seller in a transaction are who they say they are when the transaction is set up. If a scammer or thief is one party to a deal, the KYC process would likely not be able to “out” that party as a scammer or a thief. The process would simply verify that their banking details match their account details.

Let’s say that Joe is buying Example.com from Bob using a domain name escrow service. I believe the escrow service will verify that Bob and Joe are who they say they are. They do not verify that Joe has the funds to buy Example.com nor do they verify that Bob actually owns the domain name or has the right to sell the domain name. Essentially, if Bob stole the domain name or otherwise has no rights to sell the domain name, that is something that the escrow service would not check.

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Afternic Users Can Now Use Non-PPC Landers

Elliot Silver
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4

Afternic emailed its customers yesterday to let them know they could now more easily set up landing pages without pay per click (PPC) links on them. These types of “for sale” landing pages make it more obvious that a particular domain name is for sale rather than having a smaller “for sale” notice on them. These landing pages give visitors the option to call a toll free number to speak with an Afternic sales representative, or they can fill out an inquiry form. The asking price is not listed on the landing page.

An example of the landing page Afternic customers can implement on their domain names can be seen below:

Prior to yesterday’s news, customer were able to forward their domain names to this type of landing page, but it took more effort setting up forwarding for each domain name. This nameserver change option will allow users to set this up in bulk.

Commenting on this change, Afternic’s Alan Shiflett shared the following information with me:

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Heritage Auctions Selling Company-Owned Coin Domain Names

Elliot Silver
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6

Heritage AuctionsCryptocurrency domain names have been quite popular of late. Domain names related to cryptocurrency continue to sell for high prices at marketplaces and auction venues. Many sold domain names are very specific to cryptocurrency (ie they have “crypto,” “bitcoin,” or some other crypto-related keyword in them). Other domain names are less specific and have been somewhat repurposed to make sense in the crypto space.

Coin related domain names have also become popular because of cryptocurrency. NameBio has nearly 1,000 publicly-shared domain name sales archived with the word “coin” in the last five years. I would imagine many of these have been sold to cryptocurrency companies or people speculating on cryptocurrency domain names. Because of the increased value and demand for these kinds of domain names, companies have been listing domain names for sale that were bought for reasons not related to cryptocurrency. For instance, Token.com and Tokens.com were recently sold for substantial sums of money to companies in the crypto space.

This afternoon, Aron Meystedt announced that Heritage Auctions has listed some of its corporate-owned domain names that could be used in the cryptocurrency space. The company bought them for its own marketing purposes, but the opportunity to cash in was too great to keep the domain names on the sideline. Here’s what Aron told me about these domain names and why the company is selling:

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Domain Names in Auction Should be Removed from Marketplaces

Elliot Silver
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3

It is annoying and perhaps a bit disheartening to add a domain name I won in an auction to one of my marketplace accounts and learn that it can’t be added yet because it is listed for sale in another person’s account. This happens when the former owner let the domain name expire or put it up for auction and did not remove the domain name from the account post-auction.

The annoyance comes from having to email the marketplace and ask them to remove a domain name from someone’s account so I can add it to mine. I need to wait for the marketplace to remove the domain name and then I need to remember to go back and re-add it to my account when they get around to it. The disheartening part is seeing a name listed for sale for $2,500 when I paid $1,500 for it at auction. I understand that timing is everything with domain names, but if a name didn’t sell for $2,500 when it was publicly listed for sale, it could mean that it will be more challenging to see a worthwhile ROI on my investment.

I am not entirely sure what marketplaces like Sedo and Afternic can do to scrub their listings of domain names in auction. Once a domain name is in a private auction, the domain name is no longer visible to non-bidders (including third party marketplaces). Sometimes a

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Diamond.com Changes Hands

Elliot Silver
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5

It looks like one of the most valuable domain names has changed hands. Diamond.com recently had a registrant change, and it appears as if the domain name was sold. In 2006, Diamond.com reportedly sold for $7.5 million. According to NameBio, the $7.5 million sale is the eight largest public domain name sale of all time.

Prior to the recent Whois change approximately a week ago, the domain name had been owned by a Montreal-based company. It appears to be the same entity that has owned it since the sale in 2006. The domain name is now registered to a different entity located in Toronto called Gonumerical Ltd.

When you visit Diamond.com, you can see a very limited “coming soon” page, so it is not clear how the domain name will be used going forward. I did a Google search to learn more about Gonumerical Ltd., and I found a press release about a

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