On Tuesday, I noticed something peculiar on a domain name I have parked at Uniregistry but do not have listed for sale. At some point, I believe, there was a change made that essentially rendered the “not for sale” option useless. Customers not only had to choose that option, but they needed to also select “no” under the sales banner option, or the domain name would still show the sales banner.
Thorsten from Finlead tweeted about changes to Uniregistry parking pages, and I asked him what aspect he was referencing:
Whoever @Uniregistry made the changes to the parking pages… no es bueno!
— Finlead (@finlead) September 8, 2020
Removing the header images from the mobile pages, removing the domain name from the parking pages, reducing the links from 10 to 6 on the desktop view, removing the search box altogether.
— Finlead (@finlead) September 8, 2020
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:
Last week, Finlead first highlighted a big corporate name change involving Uniregistry and GoDaddy. It looks like the new corporate registrar name for domain names registered at Uniregistry is GoDaddy Online Services Cayman Islands Ltd. This comes on the heels of GoDaddy’s acquisition of Frank Schilling’s company, which includes Uniregistry and Name Administration.
GoDaddy isn’t wasting any time. pic.twitter.com/T2hrPYZRAW
— Finlead (@finlead) June 12, 2020
Winemaker.com has sold for $100,000, I learned late last week. The domain name was sold by NetIncome Ventures, the domain investment firm operated by industry veteran Garry Chernoff. Uniregistry broker Tom Aughton helped close the all-cash deal.
Because of GDPR, I am unable to see who acquired the domain name. Whois records show the new registrant appears to be based in Zurich, Switzerland. The name servers are currently set to default Uniregistry name servers, so more information about the buyer is not known. The Winemaker.com landing page has a “coming soon” message within the top header.
At the NamesCon live domain name auction in February of 2019, Frank Schilling acquired DomainNames.com for $370,000. The domain name was sold in the auction by Network Solutions, and it has been forwarding to Uniregistry’s website since the purchase was completed.
As you know, GoDaddy acquired Uniregistry and Name Administration from Frank Schilling. After speaking with a company spokesperson, I was able to confirm that GoDaddy has acquired DomainNames.com as a part of the Uniregistry acquisition.
