WASHINGTON, D.C. – A multi-jurisdictional operation involving the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and several other law enforcement agencies has resulted in several well-known internet domains being seized that were a part of a major cybercrime ring responsible for hacking and stealing credentials from digital marketplaces. As of Wednesday, the Cracked.io and Nulled.to internet forums – long known as havens for threat actors who engaged in password theft, software … [Read more...]
Shopify Snaps Up Pair of Country Code Top Level Domains for Over $500,000
OTTAWA, CA - Shopify Inc., Canada's leading technology company, has acquired the domain names Shop.ca and Shop.us from Toronto-based EMERGE Commerce Ltd. for approximately $500,000. These domains now redirect to Shopify's Shop App website, a marketplace designed as a "digital shopping assistant" that allows users to search for products and brands, make purchases, and track shipments. The original Shop.ca launched in 2011, positioning itself as "Canada’s largest online … [Read more...]
Multiple Domains Used by Vietnamese Cybercrime Group Seized by Microsoft
REDMOND, WA - Multiple domains utilized by a Vietnamese cybercrime group known as “Storm-1152” to sell fraudulent Outlook email accounts have been seized by Microsoft’s Digital Crimes Unit. The domains have been used to cause millions of dollars in damage. Storm-1152 had reportedly used these domains to register over 750 million fake Outlook accounts that they then would sell online to cybercriminals. In addition, the outlaw group also provided numerous other illegal … [Read more...]
Experts: 23andMe Hack Is DNA Catastrophe; Leaked Millions of Genetic Profiles
SAN FRANCISCO, CA - Earlier this week, in a startling revelation, 23andMe conceded that a hack in October was significantly worse than initially reported. Affecting nearly 6.9 million people, the scale of this data breach was shockingly larger than the initially stated figure of 14,000 users. Regrettably, the stolen data contained not only sensitive information such as full names, but genetic profiles. Yet, the severity of the situation was met with indifference by some … [Read more...]
Google Ceases Selling New Domains as Transition to Squarespace Continues
SAN FRANCISCO, CA – Back in July of this year, Google abruptly announced that it would be ending its Google Domains service after nearly 10 years and would be selling the business and all of its assets to Squarespace, a New York-based website building and hosting company. This month, as the transition from one company to another continues, the soon-to-be-shuttered Google Domains quietly revealed that it has ceased the sale of any new domains going … [Read more...]
How Do I Go About Selling Domain Names? Seattle Times News Story on Nov. 16, 2019
PALM BEACH, FL - How do I go about selling domain names? That was the question highlighted in a Seattle Times news story on Nov. 16, 2019 by author Patrick Marshall. While the article mentioned some popular online tools such as Namebio.com and Estibot.com (which help give a ball-park figure on potential value), the author seemed to leave out one of the best options for selling a domain; a domain name broker. The author probably should have mentioned a “domain broker” along … [Read more...]
Panels Consistently Find That “Domain Investing” Is Legitimate Bona Fide Offering
PALM BEACH, FL – Upon reading recent news from “Neus News”, I stumbled onto an interesting find where Howard Neu, a long-time attorney for the domain name industry, was representing a domain owner in a case where Oath Inc. (now Verizon Media), the company that purchased Yahoo! related assets in 2017 for $4.83 billion, claimed the domain name “YMobile.com” was infringing on Yahoo! related trademarks such as “Y”’ and “Y!”, as well as “Y Mobile” (although Y Mobile is only held … [Read more...]
Sedo.com’s Buy, Sell, Park Domains Venue Getting More Competitively Priced?
PALM BEACH - Things at SEDO are usually fairly quiet. Outside of their weekly sales list releases for domain names sold, I hear very little from the sales venue, which acts sort of like an MLS system for domain names. However, the last few weeks has been different. On Tuesday May 7, 2019, Ron Jacksoon's DNJournal.com reported what was characterized as a “major change” at Sedo, which would eliminate the minimum sale fee that takes a big chunk out of proceeds from smaller … [Read more...]
NamesCon 2019 Domain Auction Returns from Explosive Year of $2.4 Million is Sales
PALM BEACH – What do you do when a live and online auction produces lackluster results? Why, you re-run it again a couple of months later (Just kidding - As soon as I saw the title of the email, Back by “Popular Demand”, I thought, yea right – but NUMBERS my friends, do not lie, and those numbers show that Domaining, is indeed very much alive and well; at least at NamesCon it is.) Yesterday, NameJet.com and RightOfTheDot.com announced via email and a formal press release … [Read more...]
Radio Host with Estimated 6.5M Listeners Talks Buying and Selling Domain Names
NEW YORK, NY - Kim Komando, a syndicated radio host to over 435 radio stations in the United States and heard internationally in 177 different countries, is dubbed “America’s Digital Goddess”. Her weekly three-hour call-in show covers anything and everything ‘digital’ from tech-gadgets, websites, smartphone apps, and internet security. According to the United States Patent and Trademark Office her company Komando Corporation and associated owned and operated radio network, … [Read more...]
Digital Advertising Revenue Hits $19.6B in Q1 2017, Highest Q1 Earnings on Record
NEW YORK, NY – The first quarter of 2017 marked the highest ever Q1 earnings for digital advertising in the U.S., hitting $19.6 billion, according to the latest IAB Internet Advertising Revenue Report released today by the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) and prepared by PwC US. Climbing 23 percent, or $3.7 billion, from the same period just a year ago, these earnings represent the second-highest quarter of all time, and follow on the heels the industry’s strongest … [Read more...]
Verisign Still Pushing Hard on .Net Domains; Sales Remain Active; New IDN for Korea
NEW YORK, NY - While at NamesCon, I noticed a television commercial for the .net domain extension pushing it as a leading “trusted extension” and touting its long standing history in the domain space; the .net domain name was created on the same day as the .com in January 1985. (I’m pretty sure the video was part of Verisign’s “Uncommonly Timeless” collection of .net marketing pieces - it looked like one of these on YouTube [one is below].) According to Verisign, the … [Read more...]