Don’t Blindly Authorize a Listing on Afternic

Elliot Silver
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10


This afternoon, I received an email from GoDaddy with the subject: “Action required: Authorize your domain listings.” This is a fairly standard type of email that I get on a somewhat regular basis. The domain name included in the email is one that I own and have registered in my GoDaddy account. A quick check in my Afternic account revealed that the domain name was not yet listed for sale there.

I believe this means someone else added this domain name to their Afternic account, and GoDaddy sent the authorization email to confirm the registrant authorizes the domain name to be listed for sale via Afternic.

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Some Buyers Will Pay a Premium at GoDaddy

Elliot Silver
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5

There have been a number of times where I received a direct inquiry or offer on a domain name, and instead of doing a deal directly with my company, the buyer will purchase the domain name via GoDaddy, where I also have it listed for sale. Sometimes the deal is done at a higher (or substantially higher) price than I would have offered had the deal been closed directly with me. Some buyers simply trust the GoDaddy brand name and are willing to pay a premium price to close a deal via GoDaddy.

Pierluigi Buccioli kicked off a discussion on Twitter yesterday, and I commented in response to him:

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If You Renew an Expired Domain Name, Check the Name Servers

Elliot Silver
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8

A friend of mine reached out this afternoon to ask if I know who is managing the portfolio of Mrs Jello, the domain investment company founded by the late Igal Lichtman. I gave him the name of someone I thought might be helpful and asked what’s up. He mentioned that Mica.com expired and Mrs Jello should renew the domain name before it is auctioned or deleted.

I took a look at the Whois record, and I noticed the domain name is registered at Uniregistry, and it has an expiration date of March 2021. The domain name was not in expired status because if the registrar had renewed it for a year in preparation for an auction, the domain name would have already run through its full expiration cycle by now. What my friend noticed and I confirmed is the name servers are set to Uniregistry’s default name servers (NS1.EXPIRED.UNIREGISTRY-DNS.COM NS2.EXPIRED.UNIREGISTRY-DNS.COM), and as a result, the landing page indicates the domain name is in expired status:

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Watch Out for “Generic” Sounding Trademarks

Elliot Silver
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4

Every day, I see quite a few domain names in auction with bids that could have trademark issues. Some of these trademarks are super obvious, like Microsoft or Volvo, but others are not as clear. Olympics, for example, is a highly defended trademark, and there are a number of UDRP filings for Olympic-related domain names.

Over the weekend, Peter Askew shared some advice about staying away from generic sounding terms that are actually trademarks. His observations were based on a domain name that is listed on GoDaddy Auctions and will be sold in about one week:

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Nobody Will Request an “Appraisal Certificate”

Elliot Silver
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Domain industry attorney Jason Schaeffer reported today that three of his clients received $60,000 offers to buy domain names, and the supposed prospective buyer requested an “appraisal certificate” in order to proceed with a deal.

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Brandsight Job Opening: Account Executive

Elliot Silver
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2

Brandsight is looking to hire someone in an Account Executive role, according to a job opening posted recently on LinkedIn. Because GoDaddy acquired Brandsight earlier this year, the job listing is under the GoDaddy branding. This is a work from home remote job (at least for the time being), and the location is the United States or United Kingdom.

Here’s the description of what the job entails:

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