A news report caught my attention this afternoon. Rupert Murdoch launched a US version of his UK news publication, The Sun. Unfortunately for Mr. Murdoch, the publication was forced to use a hyphen in the domain name, The-Sun.com. The reason? TheSun.com has long been owned by another entity.
Rupert Murdoch launches US version of the tabloid The Sun https://t.co/uVpBcztZ4M pic.twitter.com/MTsZAEf2jd
— The Hill (@thehill) January 13, 2020
Fairwinds Partners, a Washington DC-based Internet strategy and domain name consulting firm, is looking to hire a Senior Consultant. The job opening is based out of the company’s Georgetown (DC) office. This job may be a good fit for someone who has domain industry expertise, perhaps an experienced domain broker or domain name consultant looking to change jobs.
Here’s an excerpt from the description of what the job will entail:
One thing that has changed for me during the past couple of years is that I have been negotiating on purchases and sales via text message much more than in prior years. I have closed a few deals on both sides via text message, and it seems to be more acceptable these days than in prior years.
On my Embrace.com price request inquiry form, I have an optional field for the prospect to leave a phone number. Typically, I will send a canned reply via email with the price of the domain name and a bit of a sales pitch. If the prospect left a contact phone number, I will usually send a text message to let them know their request was received and a reply was sent.
In November of 2019, DAE.com expired and was sold via GoDaddy Auctions for $126,000. According to UDRPSearch.com, a UDRP was just filed against this high value domain name at the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). The case is WIPO case number D2020-0041.
The buyer of DAE.com chose to register the domain name using GoDaddy’s privacy proxy service, so the current registrant is not publicly known. It does not appear the domain name has been put into use yet, as the domain name resolves to a default GoDaddy landing page at the time of publication. Assuming it was an end user buyer, this is not surprising considering the search engine and marketing ramifications of a domain name rebranding.
A week ago, there was an active discussion about whether a small startup called Userbase should acquire its brand match .com domain name which was in an expiry auction at GoDaddy Auctions. The company has been operating on Userbase.dev, and the company’s founder (Daniel Vassallo) had polled Twitter to seek out opinions on whether he should spend the money required to buy the domain name. The auction ended at $33,500, and it appeared the company was passing on the opportunity.
it turns out that the winning bidder at GoDaddy Auctions apparently defaulted and did not complete the purchase. As the underbidder in the auction, Daniel was given the opportunity to buy the domain name at his highest bid after the winning bidder’s bids were removed. It looks like he is jumping at the opportunity to purchase the domain name for just shy of $25,000:
A UDRP was filed against the Lotto.com domain name at the World Intellectual Property Organization. The complainant in the UDRP is Bremer Toto und Lotto GmbH of Germany. The decision was published on the WIPO website today, and not surprisingly, the domain registrant won the UDRP.
The respondent’s contention in the decision is what caught my attention (bold emphasis is mine):
