Uproar Over City Voting – Who Gets .Vegas ?

Las Vegas City Council has voted to support Dot Vegas Inc. to become the registry of a proposed .vegas TLD. This surprisingly clashes with the current owner of vegas.com (The Greenspun Corporation – owner of the Las Vegas Sun).

On a deal voted 4-3, Dot Vegas Inc was supported on the basis that “the city would get 75 cents for each registered name, or 10 percent of the revenue the company generates, whichever is greater.”

The Las Vegas Sun reports that “Voting for the resolution were Mayor Oscar Goodman, Lois Tarkanian, Stavros Anthony and Ricki Barlow, who made the motion to approve. Voting against were Steve Ross, Mayor Pro Tem Gary Reese and Steve Wolfson.”

“Greenspun told the council if it decided to endorse VEGAS.com’s proposal instead of Dot Vegas, he could offer the city $1 per registration. Plus, he said, VEGAS.com, which already has 30 million visitors coming to it’s Web site each year, is in a good position to market the .vegas TDL and make the city more revenue.”

Clark County Wants In On The Action

Its also been reported that Clark County officials have been questioning the city’s right to exclusively benefit from a .vegas domain. This is because the city limits end at Sahara Avenue and don’t include the Strip (which most people recognize as Las Vegas).

Clark County Commissioner Steve Sisolak sent a letter to Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman on Jan. 28 asking the city to postpone any action to allow talks between the city and county on “partnering”.

Sisolak says: “The Strip is in the county, not Las Vegas” “We need more time to think this out, work together.”

After the City Council’s vote, VEGAS.com told Commissioner Steve Sisolak the company would pay $1.50 per domain registration. Sisolak said he plans to have the commission discuss the proposal at its Feb. 16 meeting.

Republican Sends Traffic To Opponents Web Site

NBC (LA) is reporting that the website of Rep. John Campbell has been redirecting traffic for the last 3-4 months to his opponent, Beth Krom.

A typo on Campbells “Join The Resistance” webpage went to CampbellforCongres.com (one “s” and not two), which was paid for by Krom.

Kroms Campaign Manager Melahat Rafiei said she clicked the link daily.

“It’s been directing to our website since Nov. 16,” Rafiei said. “It was hilarious to us. Every day I’d get up in the morning and check  it and see, ‘Oh, it’s still there.’ It was funny to see how long it would take  for them to catch on.”

Comment:

Perhaps Republican Internet expert Ted Stevens should be consulted on the subject?

Facebook Revokes Vanity URL & Gives It Back

Harmon Bajwa woke up one morning to find a message from Facebook stating that his URL had been revoked on allegations of a policy violation.

The revocation came after a message from Bajwa International stating that the company had filed a complaint with Facebook and that they were willing to buy the URL from him. Apparently, even though Facebook holds the right to revoke any custom username, Mr. Bajwa was apparently not breaching any of Facebook’s policies.

Facebook has since apologized for the “overzealous” steps stating that the revocation was done purely on trademark protection grounds and not monetary ones.

Travelocity Goes After Typo Domains – Wins Arbitration

Travelocity.com took DNRecover to the National Arbitration Forum over the typo-domain traveolcity.com stating that it was:

1. Confusingly similar
2. They did not have any rights or legitimate interests
3. They registered the domain name in bad faith

DNRecover didn’t respond, so after taking into consideration the Travelocity mark filed with the USPTO (Reg. No. 2,254,700 issued June 22, 1999) it was “game over”.

Just be crystal clear – I’m not a fan of typos. There is a line to be drawn when it comes to misleading and deceptive conduct and typos are on the other side.

If you are just starting out in Domaining, don’t register them – its just not worth it! Instead, build a sustainable portfolio with quality names you can park or build out.

[Video] Female Golfer Targetted By Cybersquatter

Casie Cathrea became the youngest Monday qualifier for an LPGA event at Blackhawk Country Club. Her official website is Cathrea.com.

Her father, Harry Cathrea tracked down Leonard Meng Lee who registered CasieCathrea.com; he threatened to sue Lee under the Federal Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act.

“It cost him two bucks and he wanted to charge me a thousand dollars”

“And he was also nice enough to say he accepts Paypal.”

Its been reported that Lee has registered more than 1,300 domain names of famous people, including Eldrickwoods.com.

In a statement to ABC7 Lee said “As far as I know, the name is not trademarked and I was legally in the right to register the domain”.

Apple Wins 16 Domain Names via UDRP

Apple has won 16 domains from Daniel Bijan, including macbookpro.com. This is by far the most domain names I’ve ever seen awarded to Apple in one hit.

Here is the official list:

blueipod.com
iphonecheap.com
iphonetoys.com
ipodaccessories.info
ipodkits.com
ipodsbaratos.com
macbookpro.biz
macbookpro.com
macbookpro.net
macbookpro.org
macfriend.com
redipods.com
macbook.us
macbookpro.us
macbooks.us
macpro.us

Claim Numbers: FA0911001294886 and FA0911001295941.

Google Loses Domain Arbitration To Canadian Start-Up

Announced today, the National Arbitration Forum has dismissed Google’s complaint that it was entitled to the domain name, Groovle.com.

Young Canadian entrepreneurs Jacob Fuller and Ryan Fitzgibbon, launched the web site in 2007, to provide users the ability to upload photos and customize their Internet start page.

Jacob Fuller stated “Google never had anything to fear from our web site. The arbitrators’ decision that the two domain names are sufficiently different should put Google at ease and we look forward to a renewed positive relationship with Google.”

auDA Puts Domain In Pending Delete & Goes On Holidays

On the afternoon of Thu 17th, 2009 SAPIA Pty Ltd registered the domain name “stephenconroy.com.au” as a satirical platform on which to air grievances and promote debate about the Australian governments proposed mandatory Internet filtering scheme. By 5pm the next day, the website was forcibly taken offline by auDA.

SAPIA was given merely 3 hours to issue a response which is an unusually short period of time for domain eligibility complaints to be arbitrated. A request for additional time was denied personally by auDA’s CEO shortly before the domain was taken offline.

The domain name stephenconroy.com.au is now in PendingDelete and the auDA office is closed for the holiday season – Merry Christmas.

Meanwhile, Electronic Frontiers Australia has expressed its surprise and concern:

“This incident reflects worrying concerns about the power that private domain
name regulators have to silence critical political speech without going
through legitimate legal channels.”

SAPIA Pty Ltd appears to have re-established the site (out of the range of auDA’s jurisdiction / claws) at stephen-conroy.com (no more .au).

Just in case you don’t know what the fuss is all about regarding Internet censorship in Australia, have a look at this video:

More information is available at: PRWeb, Open Letters & EFA.

How Domainers Can Profit From Companies That Go Bust!

In my opinion, the GFC presents us with an opportunity to make some serious money. Consequently, when I came across this “text book case” of Joe’s Sports, Outdoor & More – I just had to share it.

Bricks and Mortar Goes Bankrupt

The Oregon retail outlet “Joe’s Sports & Outdoor” filed for Chapter 11 around March 2009. The company listed both assets and debt ranging from $100 million to $500 million. It apparently owed its 30 largest unsecured creditors a total of $12.8 million.

Domains Acquired

Alberta-based UFA Co-operative Ltd acquired the domain names JoesSports.com and GIJoes.com. They outsourced the fulfillment to GSI Commerce – the same company that did it for the old bricks’n'mortar Joe’s. Essentially all that UFA Co-operative Ltd does now is sit back and earn a commission from all the sales.

A great story – very smart.

Sources: Oregon Live and Oregon Business News.

Halvarez Registrant Of Parked Domains – Who’s Getting The Ad Revenue?

Given Snapnames opened up their auction history, I decided to login and take a look at some auctions where I’d encountered Halverez – there were quite a few. It was like a trip down memory lane…. I remember back in 2005 when I bid on ….

While plowing through the results, a few things came to mind when I reviewed this auction below:

Question #1

Should people be compensated by Snapnames when they lose the auction to Halverez? In other words, Halverez ends up with the domain name they were bidding on?

Snapnames has stated they ” will offer a rebate, with 5.22% interest” but that’s only to those whose bids were inflated by the fake auction bids.

Question #2

What is Snapnames going to do about domain names that are currently registered to Halverez? The current whois record for this name that I lost at auction, has known contact details for Halverez. The creation date matches up perfectly to the auction date.

Question #3

Who is receiving the revenue from domain names that Halverez “won” at auction? For example, the domain name I lost to Halverez above is currently parked:

Who has been making money from this domain? How many other domains are there like this? In terms of compensation, how do you put a price on lost opportunity cost, revenue from parking/development and revenue from domain sales?

This is starting to take shape now that there appears to be a Class Action Lawsuit filed.

Tell us what you think! Have you have lost to Halverez? What happened?