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Citi Hiring Domain Administration Analyst

Citi, one of the world’s largest financial companies, is looking to hire a Domain Administration Analyst. The job listing was posted on LinkedIn about a month ago, and there are a handful of applicants so far. I think this job would be desirable for someone with domain management experience looking for a corporate job related to domain names.

Here’s an excerpt from the LinkedIn post that describes the job opening:

Panelist Cites GoDaddy Broker’s Suggestion in 4 Letter.com UDRP

I read a disappointing UDRP decision this morning involving the 4 letter .com domain name, DWRS.com. The WIPO UDRP panelist, Warwick A. Rothnie, ruled in favor of the complainant, who had unsuccessfully tried to acquire the domain name via GoDaddy’s Domain Brokerage Service (DBS). The complainant is a shoe company founded in 2015 that uses DWRSLabel.com for its website.

I want to make it clear that I don’t lay the full blame on the panelist. The domain registrant did not file a response to the UDRP as the contact information on the Whois record was inaccurate. The panelist, in my view, made a good attempt at piecing the ownership and usage history of the domain name beyond what was presented by the complainant. Kudos to him for using the Wayback machine and Whois records to see how the domain name has been used over the prior few years. This made the registered and used aspect of the UDRP decision murky at best.

What bothered me most about the decision is the panelist’s reliance on the GoDaddy DBS broker’s suggestion about increasing the offer. Since the domain name does not appear to have been listed for sale on GoDaddy or Afternic, the DBS broker is working for the buyer. His job is to get a deal done at the best price for the buyer. Here’s an excerpt from the decision:

Did FTX Founder Acquire SBF.com?

FTX is a leading cryptocurrency exchange that owns FTX.com but operates in the US on FTX.us. The Economist published an article about FTX Founder and CEO, Sam Bankman-Fried. The article mentioned that Bankman-Fried is “widely known as SBF.”

It appears that Bankman-Fried recently acquired the SBF.com domain name. If you visit SBF.com, you are forwarded to FTX.com/foundation and then land on the FTXFoundation.org website. Whois records for SBF.com show the domain name is currently registered to Domains By Proxy, LLC, GoDaddy’s Whois privacy proxy service.

Putting in the Work

We took a trip out to Nantucket this weekend to see some friends and enjoy one of our favorite places to visit. I brought my bike on the trip and had the pleasure of taking two nice training rides on the island. I am not athletically gifted, so I really need to put some miles on the bike before August’s Pan-Mass Challenge ride.

Truthfully, just one of the rides was great from a riding perspective. The first one, though, we ran into a torrential downpour with some hail for the final 4 miles. We thought we could beat the rain bands that were threatening from afar, but we got caught in the middle. It was incredible. On the plus side, every few years it seems like we deal with a pretty strong rain during the PMC, so it’s good train in that weather.

Squadhelp Scans for Similar Developed Domain Names

Companies that own domain names and operate websites on sub-optimal domain extensions are often the most likely candidate to purchase the better domain name when they can afford it. Squadhelp CEO Darpan Munjal shared a new feature offered by his platform to help make sellers aware of similar developed domain names:

My Thoughts on GoDaddy / Dan “Commission Alignment”

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As part of his coverage of GoDaddy’s pending acquisition of Dan.com, Andrew Allemann published an interview with Paul Nicks, President of Domains, at GoDaddy. The question and answer that caught my attention the most was regarding commission:

Domain Name Wire: Many people use GoDaddy’s Afternic DLS to get in the registrar registration path, but choose Dan.com landers because they’re cheaper (9% vs. up to 20%). Will this still be an option or should we expect to pay higher prices for landing page sales in the future?

Nicks: We are still in the early stages and do not have a plan around commission alignment. Once we have updates to share, we’ll share proactively.

The thing that jumped out at me was Paul’s comment about “commission alignment.”