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Fourth Quarter Estimated Taxes

Elliot Silver
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Well, it’s almost that time of year again. Most of us dread paying taxes, but I suppose if you have an estimated tax payment due for Q4, your business is alive and well. Estimated taxes for the fourth quarter of 2009 are due on January 15, 2010.

Here’s some info from the IRS to learn about Estimated Taxes. You can also download the Domain Tax Guide if you’d like (affiliate link).

I like posting these reminders because the schedule can be a bit confusing since it’s not evenly spread out. A couple of years ago, I accidentally paid the second installment in July instead of June, so this is also a good reminder for me. In case you run a small business or are just starting a domain business, here are the Estimated Taxes Due Dates:

  • January 1 – March 31: Taxes Due April 15
  • April 1 – May 31: Taxes Due June 15
  • June 1 – August 31: Taxes Due September 15
  • September 1 – December 31: Taxes Due January 15 of the next year

French Art of Loving: Sexy Lingerie and a Domain Name

Elliot Silver
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Aubade, a French lingerie designer came up with a captivating and eye-catching marketing campaign that has created a buzz, far beyond the Parisian street where it started. For ten days, a lingerie model danced and pranced in front of a lit up curtain just above street level to attract the attention of the curious who passed by the Paris street below.

On the tenth day, the lovely lady revealed herself and pulled across a second curtain, with the visible domain name, FrenchArtofLoving.com. It seems that people *voyeurs* stood on the street with cameras and video cameras to record this fantasy turned reality.

The French Art of Loving website is almost equally captivating. There is an interactive boudoir, and people can click on the dresser drawers to reveal what is in each. IMO, this is a great campaign, and you should see the video and check out their website.

How to Potentially Lose $11,000+ in Less than a Year

Elliot Silver
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According to the World Intellectual Property Organization website’s list of pending UDRP filings, Inter-Continental Hotels Corporation / Six Continents Hotels, Inc. filed a UDRP for 1,529 domain names that they believe infringe on some of their hotel brands. Names such as candlewood-braintree.com, holiday-inn-dfw-north.com, los-angeles-commerce-casino.com, and staybridge-bwi-airport.com were registered by what appears to be one party, Unister GmbH (although I only searched a random assortment of these domain names).

It appears that many of these domain name I searched were registered recently – in mid to late 2009. For example, staybridge-suites-reno.com was registered July 21, 2009, hotel-indigo-london-paddington.com was registered May 23, 2009, and holiday-memphis-hacks.com was registered July 21, 2009.

To possibly make a defense even more difficult for the domain registrant, it appears that some of the names I searched are listed for sale at Sedo (holiday-inn-universal-studios.com for example), and I would think the Complainant could allege this to be a sign of bad faith.

The names I searched all appear to have a hotel booking engine on them, and when dates of stay are entered into the appropriate fields, visitors are redirected to HotelReservation.com, which appears to be owned by the entity that owns the other domain names I searched.

I can never predict what a UDRP panel is going to decide, but if the panel awards all of the domain names to the Complainant, that could mean a loss of upwards of $11,000 assuming a registration cost of $7.25. Ouch.

Invaluable Advice on Domain Blog

Elliot Silver
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I want to give you a perfect example about why domain blogs are invaluable sources of information and why people frequently visit and read popular domain blogs. Yesterday evening, Larry Fischer of DirectNavigation.com had a brief post about the sale of CookingGames.com, which he titled Cookinggames.com sells for $350,000 – WTF ?

Larry speculated that the set-up of the domain name looks similar to DressUp.com, which he knew had “absurdly high PPC revenue.” There was 20+ comments on his blog related to the domain name, its traffic, and the PPC revenue from the buyer of the domain name as well as a couple of other knowledgeable people. Just by reading Larry’s post and the comments that followed, I learned quite a bit about a particular vertical I knew nothing about prior to reading the post.

After reading Larry’s post, I did a bit of research on this vertical, and I was very surprised at the results. Just have a quick look at some of the information I gathered below for these parked keyword domain names. GEKT is the Google Keyword Tool’s exact monthly searches, and the Compete information is estimated monthly traffic.

  • RacingGames.com: GEKT: 368,000 monthly, Compete: 5,960 visitors
  • ShootingGames.com: GEKT: 450,000 monthly, Compete: 7,457 visitors
  • FunnyGames.com: GEKT: 450,000 monthly, Compete: 17,188 visitors
  • CarGames.com: GEKT: 673,000 monthly, Compete: 7,465 visitors
  • GunGames.com: GEKT: 90,500 monthly, Compete: 3,069 visitors
  • MakeoverGames.com: GEKT: 135,000 monthly, Compete: 1,672 visitors
  • FashionGames.com: GEKT: 135,000 monthly, Compete: 3,537 visitors

I am sure there will be plenty of people who try to register names like FrenchCookingGames.com or something like that, but that wouldn’t have value (at least none that I can see). Everyone could be given the same information, but some people will still register bad names like my example and try to sell them for stupid money.

Learning how to get a feel for domain values is part of the reason why it’s smart to read and analyze posts and commentary from proven industry leaders. You never know who will appear with commentary or what you might learn.

UDRP: “Geographic Names Are Not Subject to Trademark Protection”

Elliot Silver
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In the last year, I’ve probably received 5 or 6 emails from people who had concerns that geographic domain names could be risky to own in the event a city or municipal jurisdiction files a complaint or lawsuit, despite a number of cases where the domain owner retained the domain name. Some of these cases include Pocatello.com, MyrtleBeach.com, Barcelona.com, StMoritz.com, and others.

In a UDRP dispute decision that should pacify any concerns about geodomain names, LomaLinda.com was retained by Nat Cohen’s company, StateVentures, LLC , which was represented by Ari Goldberger of ESQwire.com Law Firm. The Complainant was Loma Linda University Medical Center, which claimed to have rights to the Loma Linda mark.

Although there was a dissenting opinion, panelist Richard Page made a statement in his dissent which should be noted by geodomain owners: “the general rule that geographic names are not subject to trademark protection.”

The reason for the dissenting opinion is that Loma Linda was apparently used by the Complainant’s predecessors prior to it being used as a geographic location (city of Loma Linda, California). In the decision though, two of the panelists cited the various uses of Loma Linda by parties other than the Complainant, including the first Loma Linda city directory in 1936, the Loma Linda Food Company in 1937, and the fact that the Justice Court was established in Loma Linda in 1946.

The dissenting panelist disagreed that some of the other usages of “Loma Linda” indicated the University had given up rights to the term, however. In addition, because the domain name is possibly earning PPC revenue from potential competitors of the Complainant, it could be infringing on its rights.

In the end, Nat’s company has retained LomaLinda.com, and it will probably developed when the company has an opportunity to do so. This is a solid win for geodomain owners – and it’s also a very good reason to have a 3-person UDRP panel. Congrats to Ari, who was also responsible for defending other geodomain names in the past like Pocatello.com and StMoritz.com to name just a couple.

Use a Payment Plan When Buying Domain Names to Lower Your Risk

Elliot Silver
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Here’s an idea I had a while back and have used successfully one time on a quick domain resale. When coming to terms with a domain seller, I added a payment plan to acquire the domain name over a set period of time. Using Moniker to handle this type of payment plan/extended escrow, I agreed to pay $xx,xxx over a 12 month period without a prepayment penalty. If I stopped paying, the domain seller would get all payments up to date and receive the domain name back.

Essentially what I did was give myself the opportunity to quickly sell the domain name in one month for 1/12th of the purchase price, in 2 months for 1/6th of my purchase price…etc. Fortunately, I was able to sell the domain name at a profit within 2 weeks of its acquisition, but had I not been able to do so, I would have had cash in my pocket and the ability to sell the domain name over the course of a year.

Of course not all domain sellers will offer or agree to a payment plan, and some may but would want more money for the domain name – either up front or built into the overall sale. It just so happened that the domain seller offered a payment plan before we even closed, which is what gave me the idea in the first place.

Technically, the buyer could also pay 1/12% of the sales price for the opportunity to re-sell at a profit, and if the buyer can’t find a person to whom he could flip it at a profit, he could simply cancel the deal, losing out on just a little bit of money. This is a pretty good way to reduce your risk when you’re simply looking to flip a domain name.

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