Fake UDRP notices, .ai domains, and .de’s domain outage were top stories last month. 1. Germany’s .de domain faces outage – A DNSSEC issue caused a brief but notable interruption to the .de namespace. The incident highlighted the importance of robust DNS security practices and the potential impact of configuration or validation problems on national-level … Read more

Complainant mischaracterizes policy’s view on domain investing. A World Intellectual Property Organization panel recently found that Mecalac Construction Equipment UK, a company that sells construction machinery, attempted to reverse domain name hijack the domain fermec.com. The panel’s decision confirms important principles about expired domains and the legitimate practice of domain investing. The domain fermec.com was … Read more

After losing an expired domain auction, man files UDRP against winner. A man who lost an auction on DropCatch and then filed a Uniform Domain-Name Dispute-Resolution Policy (UDRP) complaint has been found to have engaged in reverse domain name hijacking. Daniel Diemers operates a business under the brand SNGLR and owns matching domain names across … Read more

Registry will prohibit direct auctions when domains expire. This post has been updated with additional analysis about why .co might be instituting its policy. The .co domain registry has announced a new policy that will prevent registrars from conducting direct auctions for domains that have expired unless the registry grants explicit authorization. The change, set … Read more

Appraise.software provides valuations without disclosing supporting data, which raises questions about its reliability. This article is part of a review of automated domain appraisal tools. Appraise.software is a generically named domain appraisal service available at Appraise.software. To avoid confusion with similarly named services, this review refers to it specifically as Appraise.software. The tool returns three … Read more

Hear from five attendees at Nordic Domain Days. Nordic Domain Days took place last week in Stockholm, Sweden. It was my first time attending the conference, and the experience proved very valuable. The sessions were informative and relevant, and the networking opportunities were excellent. I met many people I had not encountered before, which made … Read more

New study suggests 10% to 20% of domains are registered for bad purposes, but it might be even higher. Every month, roughly eight to ten million domain names are created. A significant portion of those registrations is used for malicious activity such as phishing, malware distribution, spam, or fraud. Estimates vary, but researchers and industry … Read more

Saw provided reasonable appraisals for some domains but appeared to undervalue many two-word combinations. Saw had difficulty valuing our two-word domains. Saw is a domain marketplace that offers both self-brokerage and full-service brokerage options. Though its technology platform is relatively new, the company is supported by years of industry experience from established brokers. The platform … Read more

NameBio shared statistics from its 290 lease-to-own transactions on Afternic. After a record start to the year, my domain sales dropped sharply in the first half of May. That’s not unusual for a portfolio of this size—some months produce just a handful of sales. I had no purchases until mid-month, when I closed a five-figure … Read more

Barnes & Noble, a travel site, and a ferry-booking business were among the recent buyers of domain names. I was traveling last week, so this week’s end-user domain sales roundup is arriving a bit later than usual. Sedo’s top public sale last week was honeypot.com, which sold for $150,000. It’s a strong brandable name that … Read more