More than $4 Million in Domain Names Sold at Moniker's T.R.A.F.F.I.C WEST Live Auction

WhatAreDomains.com

POMPANO BEACH, Fla., March 9 /PRNewswire/ -- $4.3 million of premium domain names were purchased during Moniker's T.R.A.F.F.I.C WEST Live Auction on Wednesday, March 7 at The Venetian Resort, Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas.

In total, 155 domains, or 67 percent of the domains offered for bid by Moniker, were successfully sold. The average buyer spent over $77,000 during the three hour event. Individual investors and domain focused companies purchased various premium domains, including these top sales:

- Families.com $650,000 - Greeting.com $350,000 - Blogster.com $275,000 - ET.com $225,000 - Settlement.com $200,000 - OL.com $150,000 - PX.com $120,000 - HomeForeclosures.com $90,000 - RealEstate.mobi $85,000 - Mozambique.com $82,500

"Domainers and businesses alike are realizing the value of premium domain names as real investment opportunities," said Monte Cahn, co-founder and CEO of Moniker.com. "Wednesday's auction proved that individuals and companies are willing to pay significant sums of money to help manage and grow their online brand reputation. Moniker's sale percentage was more than double what it has averaged at previous auctions. We look forward to the next domain auctions at the Casino Affiliate Convention in Amsterdam in May, T.R.A.F.F.I.C New York in June, Internext in Hollywood, Fla. in August, and T.R.A.F.F.I.C East in Hollywood, Fla. in October, among others scheduled in 2007."

All the top-level domain extensions, including .mobi, .net, and .org. had good representation and sales at the auction. RealEstate.mobi was the highest grossing .mobi domain fetching $85,000, while Model.net sold for $50,000 and We.org sold for $36,500.

Silent Auction Continues at Moniker.com

The bidding is not over yet as T.R.A.F.F.I.C. attendees and proxy bidders continue to bid on over 3,500 domain names during Moniker's Silent Auction. The silent auction will run online until March 14, 2007 and provides additional opportunities to purchase premium domain names strategic to overall portfolios. Individuals can access the Silent Auction by visiting http://www.moniker.com/silentauction/index.jsp

Next Live Auction at Inaugural T.R.A.F.F.I.C. New York

Moniker's next Live Auction of domain names will be during T.R.A.F.F.I.C. New York on June 19-22, 2007 at the Grand Hyatt Hotel. Domain owners interested in selling their names at auction may contact Moniker at sales@moniker.com.

About Moniker

Moniker is the first and only provider of Domain Asset Management(TM), a complete set of business services that provide companies a single-point-of- access to help manage and maximize the value of their domains. These services include name creation, registration, acquisition, portfolio management, appraisal and escrow services, traffic monetization and after-market sales - all backed by unsurpassed customer service and security.

With more than a decade of experience, Moniker is a top 10 domain registrar, holds the industry's highest customer retention rate and pioneered the industry's first domain appraisal formula. It is considered the industry's premier marketplace to buy and sell domain names.

Customers include savvy investors, Web entrepreneurs and forward-thinking global companies, including Marchex, Nokta, Future Media Architects, AOL, Yahoo, the National Hockey League, Major League Baseball, Lions Gate Films, Bank of America, Microsoft, Jupitermedia, Geosigns, Mainstream Advertising and many others.

Moniker, with headquarters in Pompano Beach, Florida, is an operating unit of Seevast Corporation, a company of marketing services firms that drive sales, build brands and leverage core assets for their clients.

International domain names succeed in testing

Internationalized domain names have moved a step closer to reality, following ICANN's announcement that it had successfully completed testing.

Currently, domain names can be composed of just 37 core symbols, including numbers, letters from the Latin alphabet and the hyphen.

Many countries whose languages use other characters--such as Chinese or Arabic--have long been demanding the ability to use internationalized domain names (IDNs) based on those characters. Advocates see this development as crucial to retaining a single global Internet.

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers--the organization that administers domain names--commissioned a laboratory test of IDNs in October 2006. The test was designed to establish whether the use of encoded internationalized characters would "have any impact on the operations of the root name servers providing delegations or the iterative mode resolvers."

ICANN announced the results on Wednesday. "No impact at all could be detected," wrote tester Lars-Johan Liman. "All involved systems behaved exactly as expected."

All details of the test setup and design are available on ICANN's Web site so that it can be replicated if desired.

However, the test did not include the "end-user perspective" or a live root test. It instead concentrated on "replicating the root server environment." This suggests that significant further testing needs to be done before IDNs are allowed.



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Registerfly goes offline

The web site for troubled domain registrar RegisterFly went offline early Tuesday and remains unavailable. The downtime follows weeks of problems with the registerfly.com site, with domain name owners saying they have been unable to manage or transfer their domains. Amid growing concern about the status of domains at RegisterFly, ICANN has asked a California court to force RegisterFly to turn over its database of domain data and compel an emergency audit of its books and records.

ICANN has also reached out to central domain registries to protect domain owners. "Last Friday, ICANN convened a telephone conference among those needed to implement a plan that will help cease unintended deletions," ICANN said on its blog. "This will prevent names from being deleted from the registry and becoming available for re-registration by others."



A dynamically updating chart of RegisterFly's web site performance is available. Netcraft offers a web site performance monitoring service that provides similar charts, along with e-mail alerts when an outage occurs.

RegisterFly's operations descended into chaos last week amid allegations that the former president and CEO misused company funds. As the company's principals battle one another, thousands of domain names have been caught in the crossfire. RegisterFly says that at least 75,000 customer domains expired as a direct result of the company's financial and management problems. A lawsuit filed by RegisterFly's parent company, Unified Names, blames the meltdown on misuse of company funds by President and CEO Kevin Medina, who was fired by the company's board.

ICANN has taken heat from RegisterFly customers, who say the group should have acted sooner. "ICANN is not a regulator," the unsigned blog post stated. "We rely mainly on contract law. We do not condone in any way whatsoever RegisterFly’s business practice and behaviour." While it has taken steps to prevent domain deletions, ICANN offered little solace to domain owners hoping to transfer their names to another registrar: "The options for customers to transfer their names to another registrar at this stage are limited. We will advise if we have more information on this point."

120M Domains Registered

www.whataredomains.com

Domain name registrations reached 120 million in the fourth quarter of 2006, representing a 32 percent increase over the previous year, and an eight percent rise over the previous quarter.

According to the Domain Name Industry Brief for the fourth quarter of 2006 released by VeriSign today more than 11.6 million new domain names were registered in the quarter.

This figure represents a three percent increase year on year with an average of 10.1 million new domain names registered each quarter in 2006, compared to an average of 8.7 million in 2005. Country Code Top Level Domain Names (ccTLDs) increased 31 percent year over year to 43.7 million, and 10 percent from the previous quarter with more than four million registrations. China added more than 500,000 domains in the fourth quarter alone, a 43 percent increase over last quarter. The base of .com and .net domain names grew to 65 million domain names by the close of 2006. New .com and .net registrations were added at an average of 2.1 million per month in the fourth quarter of 2006 for a total of 6.2 million new registrations in the quarter. VeriSign processed an average of 24 billion queries per day in operating the Internet infrastructure for .com and .net.

VeriSign chief security officer, Ken Silva, said with the number of global DNS queries increasing, the infrastructure has to be ready to respond.

"The network is changing, and with new services like voice and video migrating to the Internet, and the proliferation of Internet-enabled devices, it's important that the security and capacity requirements keep pace," he said. VeriSign recently announced Project Titan, a major initiative to increase capacity of its Internet infrastructure ten-fold by 2010 to accommodate future growth.

Information on the project is available at www.verisign.com/titan. Copies of the 2006 fourth quarter Domain Name Industry Brief, as well as previous reports, can be obtained at www.verisign.com/domainbrief.


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Domain name industry continues to grow.

VeriSign, Inc. (NASDAQ: VRSN), the leading provider of digital infrastructure for the networked world, today released the VeriSign® Domain Name Industry Brief for the fourth quarter of 2006. According to the report, which highlights key industry data for worldwide domain name activity, total domain name registrations reached 120 million, representing a 32 percent increase over the previous year, and an eight percent increase over the third quarter of 2006.


The domain name industry continued to experience strong growth in the fourth quarter of 2006, with more than 11.6 million new registered domain names. This figure represents a three percent increase year over year and a 23 percent increase from the third quarter. There was an average of 10.1 million new domain names registered each quarter in 2006, compared to an average of 8.7 million new domain names registered each quarter in 2005.

Country Code Top Level Domain Names (ccTLDs) increased 31 percent year over year to 43.7 million, and 10 percent from the previous quarter with more than four million registrations. China added more than 500,000 domains in the fourth quarter alone, a 43 percent increase over last quarter.

The base of .com and .net domain names grew to 65 million domain names by the close of 2006, representing a six percent increase in the fourth quarter compared to the third quarter of 2006, and a 30 percent increase year over year. New .com and .net registrations were added at an average of 2.1 million per month in the fourth quarter of 2006 for a total of 6.2 million new registrations in the quarter.

Increasing Usage

VeriSign processed an average of 24 billion queries per day in operating the Internet infrastructure for .com and .net during the fourth quarter of 2006. The VeriSign Domain Name System (DNS) continued to maintain operational accuracy and stability for 100 percent of the time during the fourth quarter of 2006.

"With the number of global DNS queries increasing, the infrastructure has to be ready to respond," said Ken Silva, chief security officer, VeriSign. "The network is changing, and with new services like voice and video migrating to the Internet, and the proliferation of Internet-enabled devices, it’s important that the security and capacity requirements keep pace.”

VeriSign recently announced Project Titan, a major initiative to increase capacity of its Internet infrastructure ten-fold by 2010 to accommodate the continued growth of the Internet. More information on VeriSign's Project Titan may be obtained at www.verisign.com/titan.

VeriSign publishes the Domain Name Industry Brief to provide Internet users throughout the world with significant statistical and analytical research and data on the domain name industry and the Internet as a whole. Copies of the 2006 fourth quarter Domain Name Industry Brief, as well as previous reports, can be obtained at www.verisign.com/domainbrief.

About VeriSign

VeriSign, Inc. (NASDAQ: VRSN), operates digital infrastructure services that enable and protect billions of interactions every day across the world’s voice and data networks. Additional news and information about the company is available at www.verisign.com.au

Contacts

VeriSign Media Relations: Emma Keen, ekeen@verisign.com.au, +61 2 9236 0572

Statements in this announcement other than historical data and information constitute forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. These statements involve risks and uncertainties that could cause VeriSign's actual results to differ materially from those stated or implied by such forward-looking statements. The potential risks and uncertainties include, among others, the uncertainty of future revenue and profitability and potential fluctuations in quarterly operating results due to such factors as the inability of VeriSign to successfully deploy and expand the technology referenced herein, to successfully develop and market new products and services, and customer acceptance of any new products or services; the possibility that VeriSign’s services and announced new services and technology may not result in additional customers, profits or revenues; and increased competition and pricing pressures. More information about potential factors that could affect the company's business and financial results is included in VeriSign's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including in the company's Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2005 and quarterly reports on Form 10-Q. VeriSign undertakes no obligation to update any of the forward-looking statements after the date of this press release.

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Finally, some hope for Regfly customers.

ICANN locks down at-risk Registerfly domains

ICANN plans to sue scandal-hit domain name registrar Registerfly.com tomorrow, saying the company is putting its customers' estimated 2 million domain names at risk.

And in an unprecedented move, ICANN has persuaded the four major generic top-level domain registries to lock down all Registerfly's customers' domains for a month, so they cannot expire and then be hijacked by speculators or domain traffic monetization firms.

ICANN said in a letter to Registerfly Friday that Registerfly is refusing to hand over data about its customers' domains, as required by its registrar accreditation agreement, and that it will enforce the contract in court by filing suit on Tuesday.

Registerfly is over two weeks into a bitter coup d'etat in which now-CEO John Naruszewicz ousted former CEO Kevin Medina and sued him, claiming Medina had been siphoning off customers' money to pay for expensive escorts, a penthouse apartment and cosmetic surgery.

The customer web site Registerflies.com, which has been the social hub and occasional customer support channel for aggrieved and panicky Registerfly customers for the past weeks, also contains allegations of a criminal nature against Medina, which we were unable to verify.

Customers say they have been losing their domains, and thus their web sites, email addresses and in some cases livelihoods, as they have been unable to renew expiring domains or transfer them to another registrar. In some cases they say they have paid multiple times and lost domains anyway.

Nowadays, when a domain registration expires it is almost always re-registered immediately by automated systems run by domain speculators and/or domain parking firms. The original registrant often has to pay a premium to get their former property back.

ICANN, the de facto regulator of the domain name industry, stepped in over a week ago -- customers say that was a year too late -- threatening to cut off Registerfly's accreditation if the problems were not resolved within 15 business days.

It also demanded Registerfly hand over copies of its customer data, so that registration rights could be protected if the company was in fact in terminal decline. Registerfly refused to hand over the data, according to correspondence published by ICANN yesterday.

The ICANN letters claim two more breaches of the registrar agreement, and a promise to sue.

Not able to get its hands on the data, ICANN has got VeriSign, NeuStar and Afilias, which run the .com, .net, .biz and .info namespaces, to lock all pending-expiration Registerfly domains into a "Server-Delete-Prohibited" status.

"This will prevent them from being deleted from the registry and becoming available for re-registration by others," ICANN said.

What domain names do you have for sale?

Normally you can find my domain names listed on the right ---------->
but I will post a list. If interested, please contact me at whois@dr.com or godfrey90sf@aol.com.


Considering offers on the following. BIN prices are listed.

Pics.info (X,XXX offers)
Man.info (X,XXX offers)
Jens.info (X,XXX offers)
Book.biz (X,XXX offers)
Guns.info (X,XXX offers)
Liquors.org $5,000
Wines.org $40,000
Collectable.net $2,000
Australians.net $9,000
Australians.org $7,500
Wineries.org $11,000
Wineries.tv $5,000
LakeOntario.info $500
Viajando.info $600 (Traveling in Spanish; .com sold for $90,000 in 2005)
Jolene.info $300
Dockets.info $400
Virgos.info $500
Accommodation.net $40,000
EthanolStation.org $2,000
EthanolPlant.net $2,000
Registrations.org $15,000
458.net $1,200
481.net $1,000
Benji.info $300
Nadeau.info $300
HybridDrives.org $500
Savana.info $400
Little-Rock.net $500
usacasino.info $300
disneychannel.info $300
papillion.info $450 (city in Nebraska)
northplatte.info $450 (city in Nebraska)

Considering offers on:

franchises.org
honeymoons.net
centrefolds.org
chateaux.org
grandstand.net
tax-returns.net
winesearch.net
ladyluck.org
financialplanner.net

What is .tel?

ICANN just announced the addition of .tel to the DNS root zone, making it the 15th top level domain under contract with ICANN on the Internet.

What is .tel all about?

According to Telnic, the domain registry in charge of .tel, individuals and companies will be able to use the .tel domain to publish and update their contact information directly in their domain's DNS records, allowing them to decide, in real time, by what means their friends, colleagues and clients will be able to reach them. This could include: VoIP, conventional telephony (fixed or wireless), email, SMS, Skype, AIM and many more. (PDF file)

Apparently, .tel isn't a domain in the traditional sense. It will not be competing with .mobi, which was introduced last year and is all about "making the Internet mobile".

Instead, .tel plans to become a cutting edge, decentralized, globally accessible and privacy-enhanced contact directory:


Here's how it could work…

Imagine you want to call your friend Hank Magellan, who is stored in your phone directory as hankmagellan.tel. Your phone or computer connects to hankmagellan.tel and receives a response with all contact options that Hank has decided to offer at the current time. This might include phone:hankmagellan.tel, skype:hankmagellan.tel, cell:hankmagellan.tel, aim:hankmagellan.tel, and email:hankmagellan.tel.

You decide which of these contact method you want to use. In case you go for Skype, your phone launches the Skype application and sends out a request for skype:hankmagellan.tel. The DNS server responds with whatever Skype username Hank has told it that he is using at the moment. Your phone uses that username to call Hank on Skype.

But what if Hank wants to be left alone? He could instantly deactivate all records except email:hankmagellan.tel and voicemail:hankmagellan.tel. You realize that he doesn't want to be disturbed, so you send him an email from your device to whatever address Hank is currently using.

All of this is completely transparent. You don't have to memorize or store all of the numerous contact options of each of your friends and associates. All you need is yourfriend.tel and you're set.

First come, first served…

In an email to the Daily Domainer, a Telnic representative confirmed that .tel domains will be issued on a first come first served basis. So, for all the Adam Smiths out there, the first one to buy adamsmith.tel gets it. Everyone else will need to get asmith.tel, adams.tel and eventually asmith123.tel or some other combination. Adam may already have another online username (with Skype, AOL, MSN, Yahoo, Google, Hotmail, etc…) that he may choose to use, for example: wealthofnations.tel.

In order to avoid confusion when searching for a person within the .tel domain, Telnic will allow domain name owners to add keywords to the domains to help distinguish themselves in a search. For example, a search for Adam Smith might turn up several results, but when the searcher sees the key words, "London, Scuba instructor, nickname: Smithy" he will know he found the right one.

What about privacy?

Telnic will allow owners of .tel domains to restrict access to particular pieces of information to certain people (very much like a buddy list). For example, a domain owner could choose to make his work number public and accessible to everyone, whereas he could restrict access to my cell phone number to just his family and his lawyer.

Privacy features to defeat spam

By using the privacy features, .tel owners will be able to prevent access to sensitive contact details including emails, home or mobile telephone numbers or any other means they find confidential. Preventing unsolicited communication is an issue which the user can easily manage, and in fact is already being done today. With a simple click, users can configure their Skype client to only allow contact from people on their contact list (their buddies). The .tel domain will work in the same manner.

The future of telecommunications?

For .tel to reach critical mass it needs to be supported by a large number of devices and applications. To promote this process Telnic plans to release free applications to allow .tel domains to be integrated with the commonly used address books found in computer systems and mobile phones.

Is .tel a stroke of genius that could revolutionize and enhance the way we communicate, or a solution in search of a problem? No matter the answer (post your views below), it is already certain that tens of thousands of individuals and companies will want to be the first in line to register theirname.tel to make sure that nobody else does. Telnic plans to announce the official .tel launch timetable shortly.

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