Verizon iPhone Domain Name Suffers Same Fate as WikiLeaks.com at Go Daddy

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Page Not Available

As news spreads of a presumed iPhone announcement from Verizon Wireless tomorrow, commentators have been discussing some related domain names that are now owned by Verizon. For instance, iPhoneForVerizon.com now appears to be owned by Verizon. The company  fiercely  defends it’s trademarks, so this is no surprise to me.

Perhaps the best iPhone / Verizon domain name would be VerizoniPhone.com, which does not appear to be owned by either Apple or Verizon Wireless. Instead, it appears to be registered to a California resident and registered with Go Daddy.

According to a historical snapshot available on DomainTools, the domain name appears to have previously had a standard Godaddy landing page, which generally contains pay per click links.

However, the landing page seems to have suffered the same fate as that of the WikiLeaks.com domain name. Instead of a PPC-filed lander, there is a graphic that says, “Sorry! This site is not currently available.” I don’t know if there is a way to tell if Go Daddy intentionally isn’t monetizing it or if the customer changed the landing page, but it seems to be a smart move to avoid litigation for monetizing this domain name.

A big question I have though is if Go Daddy is responsible for removing the PPC landing page on this domain name, does it put the company at risk with other potential trademark names that are being monetized by them on their coming soon pages?

Could other trademark holders argue that if Go Daddy is willing and able to change the landing page for a name like VerizoniPhone.com, they should be doing it for all trademark names?  I have no legal expertise but think it’s interesting.

Oh… and I am very eager to hear the news… You can be sure my Blackberry will become a relic once the iPhone is available on the Verizon network.

Go Daddy Sponsors .ME College Scholarship Give Away

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.ME college scholarship

I heard about something pretty cool, and I thought it might be of interest to you if you know someone in college or thinking about going to college. Go Daddy is sponsoring a $100,000 .ME college scholarship fund, and the company will be giving away 10 college scholarships.

Here’s what the Go Daddy website has to say about the newly announced Go Daddy Scholars program:

“Do you have what it takes to be a Go Daddy Scholar? We want to know how  the Internet or Internet technology (e.g., websites, blogs, forums, social media,  etc.) has helped you during the course of your studies. Have you used the  Internet to advance your athletic, artistic or intellectual pursuits? How do you  envision benefitting from it through college and beyond? Tell us in 500 words  or less and you can become one of 10 Go Daddy Scholars to receive $10,000  for your college tuition.”

The submission start date is January 10, 2011, and all submissions must be received by March 31, 2011 at 11:59 pm (PT). The winners will be announced on or around April 25, 2011.

There are a few requirements of applicants, in addition to the essay. Applicants must have a 3.0 or higher high school GPA, ACT score of 18+ or SAT score of 860+, and references from two people (not family members).

I think it’s very cool of the company to offer scholarships like this, especially given the tough economy and increasing college tuition costs. It’s also a great way to promote the .ME extension, since this will surely get some mainstream press.

Is Godaddy Spurning DomainTools on Whois Lookups to Sell Domain Names?

I’ve noticed something when performing Whois lookups at DomainTools for domain names registered at Godaddy, and I believe it is a fairly recent change. Instead of providing the full registrant information, there is a link to the Whois lookup page at Godaddy.

Interestingly, however, when you do a Whois lookup of a Godaddy-registered domain name at iWhois.com, the full Whois information is available.

When you visit the linked page on the Godaddy website, you are first met with the available domain names with the same term in other top level domain name extensions. Below this are available alternative domain names that can be hand registered, and further below this are premium domain names that can cost in the thousands of dollars.

There is also a link to Godaddy’s Domain Buy Service to help you acquire the domain name that is being looked up.  Finally, below all of this, you can see the domain registrant information.

Although this is a bit annoying for me when using DomainTools to lookup domain names, it is probably a shrewd financial move by Godaddy.

Standard Whois Lookup at DomainTools:

Whois Lookup at DomainTools for name registered at Godaddy

Whois Lookup at iWhois.com for name registered at Godaddy

Top 10 Domain Tools Websites

I thought about this for a few days, and want to share my top ten domain tools and websites that are beneficial to my business. While this does include a few news websites, I consider them tools because the information provided is used to bolster my business.

These are in alphabetical order.

  • DNJournal.com (Weekly sales reports)
  • DNSalePrice.com
  • DomainBoardroom.com
  • Domaining.com (News Feeds)
  • DomainTools.com (Whois Lookups, Whois History, Reverse IP, Domain Monitor)
  • Escrow.com
  • Estibot
  • FreshDrop.net
  • GoDaddy (Bulk Domain Checker)
  • Google (Adwords Keyword Tool)

What are your favorite tools/websites?

Leverage the .CO Godaddy Super Bowl Commercial to Sell Domain Names

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Godaddy Super Bowl CommercialAccording to a post on the .CO Registry’s blog, Godaddy will use at least one of its Super Bowl commercials to inform consumers about .CO on the massive stage that is the Super Bowl. Each year, millions of people across the world watch the Super Bowl, and advertising on it was one of the primary ways Godaddy first became a household name.

One can assume that when the Godaddy Super Bowl commercial mentioning (or featuring) .CO domain names airs, a lot of people will be interested in learning more about .CO domain names. They will visit Godaddy.com, and they will search for their favorite .CO domain names, hoping to register them.

Since there are now over 600,000 .CO domain names registered, I would imagine most people will find their coveted .CO domain names previously registered by others. Many of these domain names are probably owned by domain investors, and some of those names may actually be for sale, although consumers most likely wouldn’t know that or wouldn’t know to look.

It might be a very smart idea for you to list your .CO domain names for sale on Godaddy’s sales platform, where your name may be seen if a visitor searches for it or for something similar. The sales commission rate is very high at 30%, but when you consider the potential exposure, it’s not so bad.

Update: WikiLeaks.org Not Online, Neither is WikiLeaks.com

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First it appeared that Godaddy (or Wikia, Inc.) was monetizing WikiLeaks.com traffic that was intended for WikiLeaks.org website by placing sponsored links on the standard coming soon landing page.

Next, it appeared that Godaddy had taken down all of the sponsored links on the WikiLeaks.com landing page, perhaps in response to complaints about it monetizing the traffic. Some people still felt this wasn’t the right thing to do and thought that Godaddy should not have WikiLeaks.com resolve at all.

Now, the day after the DNS was removed from WikiLeaks.org, effectively taking it offline (until it moved offshore to WikiLeaks.ch), it appears that WikiLeaks.com has nothing on its website. The current WikiLeaks.com website says “Sorry this site is not currently available.”