In a press release earlier today, Afternic announced that they had formed an exclusive partnership with Endurance International Group. Endurance is one of the largest registrars in the world and will be offering Afternic’s extensive domain inventory to their own visitors and clients. This inventory is already searchable from the Endurance main brand, Domain.com, and will be coming to more of the Endurance brand sites over the next few weeks.
Massachusetts-based Endurance International Group manages 2.9 million hosting accounts and almost 10 million domain names, according the press release. The company has grown tremendously since it’s founding in 1997 by focusing on the small to medium size business market. With Afternic also based in Massachusetts, this is a partnership that will also be good for the state in terms of tax revenues.
DomainHoldings.com Brokering Large Portfolio of Premium Domains
Domain Holdings has announced that they will be brokering a large porfolio of over 1,700 domain names for Skip Hoagland of Domains New Media LLC. The majority of the domains are geo based like BuenosAires.com and Uruguay.com, perfect for travel businesses.
Hoagland has been turning over geo domains and sites since 1997 when he purchased and developed MyrtleBeach.com and built it into a $2 million annual business before selling the site for $4.5 million back in 2010. With this current portfolio sale, Hoagland felt that Domain Holdings would enable the domains to be seen by the most potential buyers.
The domains can be bought singly or in bulk. Hoagland has also let it be known that he’d be willing to discuss ideas for joint ventures, partnerships or even lease options if someone has a great idea.
Schilling Wins Another UDRP Case
Frank Schilling, with the help of his attorney John Berryhill, just won another UDRP for the name dataserv.com – even though it was trademarked since 1994. The company that brought the suit, DataServ, LLC of St. Louis had failed to register the trademark at the federal level, choosing to register with the state of Missouri only. This is the main reason why the panel found against the trademark holders.
Schilling had offered to sell the domain to DataServ but the two parties failed to reach an agreement as to selling price. Schilling wanted $56,000 for the domain and the company made several offers but wouldn’t go higher than $20,000.
Directi to Rebrand .PW
Directi, the company that operates the .pw extension, plans to relaunch the extension as a generic TLD standing for ‘professional web’. Up until now, the extension is the country TLD for Palau, a tiny island country in Micronesia. With only about 21,000 people in total population across the approximately 250 tiny islands that make up the country, apparently they’ve determined that a country TLD isn’t really needed.
National Safe Haven Alliance Domain Dispute Denied
National Safe Haven Alliance vs. Bob Floyd/Floyd – Partners: The non-profit group National Safe Haven asked for transfer of six domains from Bob Floyd including 2 using the term ‘baby safe haven’, 2 with the term ‘safe haven alliance’, and 2 with ‘safe haven’. The panel denied the complaint saying that proof of trademark had not been established. The complaint details reveal that Bob Floyd was a founding member of the charity.