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“Domaining.com has been apparently compromised”

According to a tweet from the Twitter account of Domaining.com, the Domaining.com website may have been compromised. I have not independently confirmed the veracity of the tweet:

I do not have details about what information may have been accessed, but I would imagine a big concern for Domaining.com users is passwords. Users with accounts on Domaining.com should strongly consider changing duplicate passwords on other services. In addition, other industry service providers should be aware of this issue to be on the lookout for logins that may be utilizing duplicate passwords.

It is always advisable to not reuse passwords on different websites and platforms. You might also consider using different logins when possible. In addition, using 2 factor authentication is always recommended.

I hope Francois provides more information about this and highlights this on Domaining.com so more people are made aware of the issue.

If I learn more about this, I will share it.

Portugal.com Sold for $350,000 via Sedo’s Great Domains Auction

The largest sale in last month’s Great Domains auction at Sedo was Portugal.com for $350,000. As with all auctions, a domain name is not really considered sold until the transaction is processed by the platform. It looks like the sale of Portugal.com has gone through, according to a tweet from Sedo:

.US Town Hall Forum on November 4

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If you are an investor that owns .US domain names, you might consider adding the .US Town Hall forum to your calendar on November 4, 2021. The event annual event livestream is open to the public and gives participants an opportunity to learn more about the .US registry and its operations.

Additional Brief Filed in Empower.com Suit

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The Empower.com lawsuit is important for reasons that go beyond a single domain name. In this litigation, you have a company that used Empower in its branding long before the Plaintiff’s Empower brand existed. Despite the history of the Empower.com domain name, the Plaintiff filed a cybersquatting lawsuit to wrest control of the valuable one word .com domain name from the longtime registrant, Empower Geographics.

I believe a victory by the Plaintiff in this litigation could pose significant harm to the domain name aftermarket. In my opinion, it would become more risky to own valuable one word or short acronym domain names if a company would be able to use the legal system to get control of a domain name that has been rightfully owned by another entity for years before that brand was even created.

Facebook Rebrands as Meta; Using Meta.com

A little over a week ago, I read that Facebook was planning to rebrand in a fashion similar to the Google / Alphabet rebrand. The idea behind the rebrand was Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s promise to plan to turn the company into a metaverse-focused business. The news, as I understand, was first reported by The Verge.

Soon after the article was published in The Verge, speculation began to mount about what Facebook – or perhaps a parent entity would be called. Because a Mark Zuckerberg related entity owned Meta.com already, it would be pretty easy for Facebook to rebrand as Meta. At the time of publication, Meta.com was forwarding to Meta.org, the website for a project called Meta from the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative.

Suggestions to Improve GoDaddy / Afternic Sale Process

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GoDaddy and Afternic operate the largest domain name sales network, partnering with more than 100 other domain name registrars and platforms to sell customer-owned domain names. A customer that lists a domain name for sale via Afternic will have their listings shown on the purchase pages at registrars like Namecheap, Google, Name.com, and many others when a prospective buyer searches for that domain name.

GoDaddy’s Fast Transfer network makes it relatively easy for domain investors to sell their domain names. When a buyer at Namecheap, for example, purchases a domain name listed for sale via GoDaddy/Afternic on the Fast Transfer network, the domain name will automatically transfer to the buyer without the seller having to take action. Once listed and approved, the seller doesn’t play much of a role in selling domain names via this channel.

The GoDaddy / Afternic network should and does make it easier for domain investors to sell domain names to people they may have never reached, but it is not without its issues. There are pain points that I deal with when selling via GoDaddy and Afternic, and I want to offer some suggestions to improve the process.