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Create an Emergency Contacts List

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If you own valuable domain names and you have spent a serious amount of money buying domain names, it is important for your significant other or family to know what to do in case something happens to you. Because domain investing is my job, my wife hears about my business every day, and she has a pretty good idea about who I trust, where I do business, and how the business works.

One thing I have done to help my wife and family in the event something unexpected happens to me is I created an emergency contacts list that I update once or twice a year with important contact information. These are the people who can help my wife and family secure control of my business assets and strategize on go-forward operations should something happen to me.

I want to share what types of contacts I have on my list because other investors should consider doing the same thing.

Delete Old Listings on DAN

The majority of my domain names are now listed on DAN.com with buy it now prices. The platform has proven to me that it is helpful to sell names at all price levels, and as a result, I continue to add names to the platform. I have found the most utility from DAN is by setting the nameservers so my domain names resolve to buy it now or make offer pages on the platform.

One area where DAN lacks is its search functionality. If I want to find a list of the one word .com domain names listed for sale via DAN, I would be out of luck. As a buyer, the lack of search functionality is a bit of a bummer. As a seller, this means there is less of a need to delete listings that are no longer valid – domain names that sold elsewhere or domain names that simply expired.

Lawsuit: Evermore.com Was Purchased for $300,000

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Theme Park Insider published an article about a lawsuit involving the owners of a theme park called Evermore and Taylor Swift. According to the article, the owners of the theme park filed the lawsuit “claiming that Swift’s album title, “Evermore,” infringed upon the park’s trademarked name.” While I am sure this is going to be an interesting case for some people to follow, the most interesting aspect of it comes from the section of the lawsuit regarding the theme park’s investment in the Evermore brand.

When to Think Twice About Offering a Payment Plan

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Two years ago, I was presented with a mid six figure cash offer to buy one of my domain names. The catch was that just 10% of this would be paid immediately, and the remainder would be paid in installments over a couple of years. This was a solid offer, especially since the initial payment would not be refundable.

After considering the offer, opted to decline it because the planned usage of the domain name made me uncomfortable. Pierluigi Buccioli, an investor in gambling domain names, shared his thoughts on why he doesn’t like to offer payment plans for his gambling domain names, and his rationale is along the lines of mine:

When GoDaddy Works For You, and When They Don’t

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I list the majority of my domain names for sale on GoDaddy via its Afternic distribution network. These are the easy to replace inventory types of domain names I try to buy and/or sell every day for reasonable prices and returns. Some of my most valuable domain names are not listed for sale via GoDaddy though.

When one of my domain names that is listed for sale on Afternic gets an offer, a broker typically contacts me to let me know how much the prospective buyer is willing to pay. GoDaddy is working on my behalf on this type of negotiation, and they work with the buyer to try and get a deal done at my asking price or close. If a deal is successful, I am responsible to pay the full commission. By way of example, if someone offers $2,000 for my domain name and I take it, I will net about $1,600.

XTM.com UDRP: Complainant Loses

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A UDRP was filed against XTM.com at the National Arbitration Forum (NAF) by a company called XTM International Inc. The domain registrant did not file a response to the UDRP, but the panelist still found in favor of the registrant. The panelist in the case was Terry F. Peppard.

From what I can tell, this valuable 3 letter .com domain name does not infringe on the complainant’s trademarks with its current usage. When I visited the domain name, I could see a pretty simple landing page indicating the domain name is for sale: “[xtm.com] is for sale: