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National Car Rental sues over National.com typo – a domain it doesn’t even own

Andrew Allemann — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 23:44:22 +0000

Car rental company demands typo of National.com, a domain it doesn’t even own.

Vanguard Trademark Holdings, which owns the National car rental brand, has filed a cybersquatting lawsuit (pdf) against the domain name Natiional.com.

The company filed a UDRP against the domain name already. It lost that case in June. On the same day it won a similar case for another typo, Nationnal.com.

Part of the reason it lost the Natiional.com case is because the panel ruled it’s OK to own a typo of a generic word.

But what I find most interesting is that the company doesn’t even own National.com. It’s owned by National Semiconductor. So Vanguard is asking a court to hand over a typo of a domain it doesn’t even own!

I also get a kick out of the convoluted way Vanguard found links to car rentals on Natiional.com, basically saying that if you go a few pages into the directory-like parked page you can find links to car rental companies, including National.

Vanguard says that Natiional.com, although protected with a whois privacy service, actually belongs to Kevin Ham’s Vertical Axis.

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BowlingBalls.com domain name sells for $225,000

Andrew Allemann — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 00:13:10 +0000

Chernoff hits a strike with latest domain sale.

Garry Chernoff has completed another big domain name sale, this time selling BowlingBalls.com for $225,000.

The buyer knows a thing or two about bowling balls. Nick Melnikoff has bowled in PBA tours and owns Bowlers Paradise, a web site that sells bowling balls and accessories.

Chernoff told me the deal was brokered by Andrew Hunovice.

I can’t find any notable price comps for domain names about bowling, but this is definitely a premium domain name worthy of a six figure price.

There aren’t many premium bowling domains that aren’t in use, either. Bowling.com and BowlingBall.com already exist as e-commerce stores. Bowler.com is owned by Scott Day’s Digimedia and Bowlers.com is a parked page.

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Sedo clarifies listing levels and a price comparison with Afternic

Andrew Allemann — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 16:02:02 +0000

Sedo publishes fact sheet about its promotion and pricing levels.

I have to admit I’ve been a bit confused by the various listing levels now offered at Sedo, especially when it comes to the SedoMLS system.

Sedo has published a new fact sheet that compares the levels, and it makes more sense to me now.

Here’s the basic gist.

There are three levels: Sedo, SedoMLS Basic, and SedoMLS Premium.

If you list your domains on Sedo, regardless of the options you choose the domains will show up on Sedo.com (and its international sites) as well as select SedoMLS Basic partners. That said, most SedoMLS Basic partners will only display your name if it has a “buy now” price.

If your domain sells on Sedo’s web sites you pay a 15% commission unless the domain is parked with Sedo and has a fixed price, in which case you pay 10%. If the domain sells on a partner site, you pay a 20% commission with no discount for parked domains. There are also minimums.

For maximum exposure you need to list your domains with SedoMLS Premium. This is akin to Afternic DLS Premium. At the premium level you must list a fixed price for your domains. Customers of partner sites can instantly purchase your domain on those sites, so your domain must be registered at a partner registrar. The commission is 20%.

There are a couple notable differences between pricing at Sedo and Afternic.

Afternic offers “DLS Network”, which is fairly similar in concept to SedoMLS Basic. DLS Network charges only a 15% commission compared to Sedo’s 20%, and if you park your domain with Afternic the commission drops to 10%. With Sedo you get similar pricing only if your domain sells on Sedo’s web sites.

Second, at both company’s premium levels the commission rate is 20%. However, with Afternic it’s only 15% if you park your domains with them. Sedo does not offer a parking discount if your domain sells anywhere except its own web sites.

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HostExploit says Oversee.net is improving, making a case study

Andrew Allemann — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 15:18:15 +0000

HostExploit applauds Oversee.net for fixing problems that landed it at top spot at recent “Bad Hosts” list.

HostExploit, a group that compiles a list of what it calls “Bad Hosts”, no longer lists Oversee.net as the #1 bad host.

In its fourth quarter report, the group says Oversee.net is now ranked as the #12 bad host.

Why? It’s kind of hard to tell. Last quarter I reached out to both Oversee.net and HostExploit about the ranking. I heard back from neither so I guess I’m on my own to interpret the results.

But HostExploit applauds Oversee.net in its latest report, stating:

For a responsible host, the shock of finding they are ranked unusually high, or even worse in the #1 position, can be enough to prompt immediate remedial action.

Take, for example, the Q3 2011 #1 overall Bad Host (#1 for both Badware and Infected sites) AS33626 Oversee.net. This customer oriented reseller swiftly investigated the causes behind its undesired status. The introduction of a clean-up program and new procedures promptly reversed the trend. (More on this in a future case study.)

The clean-up for Oversee.net progresses with an added confidence that their high ranking will drop further and take them off the #1 spot for badware.

Indeed, Oversee.net is still ranked #1 for badware. But the report notes that it continues to work on negating false positives for badware on parked domains. (Oversee.net is parent company of domain parking company DomainSponsor.)

Sedo is also on the overall “bad” list at #39. Google is ranked #43.

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Insurance company claims rights to AutoOwner.com and others

Andrew Allemann — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 03:09:54 +0000

Insurance company says it should get AutoOwner.com. Is it generic?

Auto-Owners Insurance has filed UDRP cases against the owners of four domain names that it thinks infringe its intellectual property rights, including AutoOwner.com.

The insurance company’s web site is www.auto-owners.com.

The other domains in dispute are

autoownersinsurance.com
autoownersinsurance.org
autoowners-insurance.com

Although “auto owner” is certainly a generic term, I’m sure the company will argue that the many insurance links on the parked page at AutoOwner.com are incriminating. One of the links reads “Auto Owners Insurance Co”.

Autoownersinsurance.com is in bad shape, too. Some of the links on that parked page are “Pay Bill @ Auto Owners” and “Auto-Owners Insurance Company”.

The other two domains are interesting, though. They both lead to insurance related web sites.

What do you think?

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After UDRP and lawsuit, FirstQuote.com given to insurance company

Andrew Allemann — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 16:33:10 +0000

VeriSign transferred domain last week as result of court order.

In June 2010 a UDRP panel found in favor of the respondent for the domain name FirstQuote.com.

The owner, who lives in China, paid thousands of dollars for the domain and thousands to defend it in the UDRP.

But then in December 2010, the complainant decided to take the matter to court. Because the owner was in China, Aspen Holdings, Inc decided to file an en rem case against the domain name itself.

Aspen won the case in a default judgment shortly thereafter. The court entered an order in October 2011 demanding that the domain name be transferred to Aspen Holdings. The domain finally transferred Aspen Holdings last week.

The (previous) domain owner is obviously furious, and sent me a note about the case.

He said they weren’t able to file a response in time given their location and that the Virginia court wouldn’t accept electronic filings.

I can imagine that having to defend yourself in a foreign court over a domain dispute you already won once must be extremely frustrating. How much money do you sink into defending one domain name?

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How to import your Parked account into DomainApps

Andrew Allemann — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 14:59:06 +0000

Manage your old Parked.com and WhyPark accounts in one interface.

Earlier this month WhyPark announced it was changing its name to DomainApps. The name change made since, especially since the company had been acquired by Parked.com a couple years ago. WhyPark is kind of a derogatory term to parking companies, after all.

But Parked.com clients were surprised to see Parked.com basically disappear yesterday.

Sure, the face of the company — Donny Simonton — had left. But now Parked is gone?

It’s gone, sort of. Parked customers can now manage and park their domains in the DomainApps interface.

After you login to DomainApps.com with your WhyPark credentials, you complete a multi-step transition process. Step two of the process is importing any domains that were part of your Parked account.

Don’t worry — all of your parking stats are migrated into the new account and you don’t lose anything.

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