Termination of RegisterFly.com Registrar Accreditation Agreement

ICANN today issued a formal notice of termination of RegisterFly.com's Registration Accreditation Agreement (RAA).

ICANN has issued a letter to RegisterFly [PDF, 902K] indicating that it will cease operating as an ICANN-Accredited Registrar on March 31, 2007. Under the terms of the Registrar Accreditation Agreement (RAA), ICANN must provide 15 days written notice to RegisterFly of its intention to terminate.

Effective immediately ICANN has terminated RegisterFly's right to use the ICANN Accredited Registrar logo on its website.

Between now and 31 March RegisterFly is required to unlock and provide all necessary Authinfo codes to allow domain name transfers to occur. Any and all registrants wishing to transfer away from RegisterFly during this period should be allowed to do so efficiently and expeditiously.

"Terminating accreditation is the strongest measure ICANN is able to take against RegisterFly under its powers," Dr. Paul Twomey, President and CEO of ICANN said today.

"ICANN has been frustrated and distressed by recent management confusion inside RegisterFly," Dr. Twomey, President said. "I completely understand the greater frustration and enormous difficulty that this has created for registrants."

When the Agreement is terminated, ICANN can approve a bulk transfer of all current RegisterFly domain names to another ICANN accredited Registrar.

"Of course, RegisterFly does not have to wait till then. They can request ICANN to approve a bulk transfer immediately. I call on RegisterFly to act in the interests of registrants and seek such a transfer from us straight away," Dr. Twomey said.

ICANN intends to hold a forum to discuss the reform of the Accreditation policy and process at its Lisbon meeting in a week's time*.

A set of questions and points to inform the discussion will be made public prior to the Lisbon meeting.

* The Lisbon meeting is one of three meetings held a year by ICANN to meet with global stakeholders. It will take place from 26-30 March 2007.

Domain Roundtable 2007

The Domain Roundtable Executive Committee is pleased to announce the 3rd Annual event running August 13 - 15, 2007 in beautiful Seattle, Washington. This year, we're going to crush the tired old formulas of cookie-cutter domain conferences and bring together the domain industry with the most exciting breakthrough topics and attendees ever presented. The potential will be there for you to experience incredible deal-making, domain sales and networking opportunities like never before.

The Domain Roundtable Conference 2007 will introduce domainers and domain companies to industry-changing innovations, more valuable discussions, incredible networking systems and a more diverse demographic of domain-interested attendees never offered at a domain conference.

The theme of our event is "Domains Breaking into the Open Market of the Business Community". The Domain Roundtable Conference 2007 will provide domainers a path for domain sales outside the confines of the domain industry. Industry insiders and the outside business community will converge to provide a platform for expanding the wisdom of domain values to brand managers and developers in other industries. This is the new and needed direction for the domain industry to take and the Domain Roundtable Conference 2007 will be the first in pioneering access to the business community at large as a fully proactive domain market.

To strengthen the complete program, we will introduce a new technology to network in profound ways with professionals there who share your interests. Every attendee will be in tune with meeting who they want, have a chance to sell their domains, and learn new strategies in profiting from their domain portfolio.

Don't miss this unprecedented event. Stay tuned for frequent updates by signing up for our newsletter and RSS feed.

The Domain Roundtable Conference 2007 - "Stay tuned, sign up, get rich."

More information at:
http://www.domainroundtable.com/

What are the best payment methods when selling domain names?

There are MANY different types of payment methods.

I personally use Paypal for any transaction under $10,000. Before the buyer and I come to an agreement I make him/her aware that I will require that he/she pay the paypal fees. A great tool for calculating paypal fees can be found at www.PPcalc.com. There are some downfalls to using paypal. If a buyer does a chargeback on their credit card or even disputes the transaction with paypal you will have a hard time winning. I suggest that you only use paypal with people that you know you can trust.

Escrow.com also provides a service for domain names. There is also a fee involved with this and usually the buyer will pay the fees or the buyer and seller will split the fees. Make sure to work this out before you initiate the Escrow transaction. Escrow is one of the best ways for a transaction, though the downfall is that there is no time limit on the transaction. The domain name will not be released to the buyer until all of the funds have been received.

A bank wire is another option. This is a great risk to the buyer since he will be sending the money to your bank account and relying on you to push him the domain name once you receive the funds. Usually the funds are available within 2-3 business days from the day of the wire, though it all depends on your bank. You will need to provide the buyer with your name, bank account number, routing number, bank name, address, and phone number. More information on bank wires can be found here.

There are some other smaller payment processors out there including Moneybookers.com and Epassporte.com. I have used both of them and they worked great for me. Both of them work similar to paypal. I recommend Western Union as well..as long as you and the buyer can trust each other. Western Union poses a great risk to the buyer.


WhatAreDomains.com

153% Growth in U.K. Secondary Domain Market

Growth in .co.uk domain value exceeds that of .com

Cologne, Germany, March 13, 2007 – Annual statistics for 2006 compiled by domain marketplace Sedo and DNJournal, the domain industry trade magazine, reveal a surge of 153% in the value of all published .CO.UK domain sales worldwide, in comparison to a growth of 79% in 2005. Already one of the world’s most expensive online addresses with an average sales value of £2,062.15. The increasing scarcity of quality .CO.UK domains, and the continued recovery in the UK online industry, have steadily driven prices higher in the past years.

The percentage share of reported domain sales worldwide for .CO.UK in 2006 has strengthened by 0.5%―in contrast to a slight drop in .COM sales―an indication of the growing importance and market value of .CO.UK domain names. Last year a staggering 84% of the total volume of published .CO.UK domain sales were conducted through Sedo.co.uk, the leading marketplace for buying and selling domain names.

Sedo’s U.K. statistics, which include all domains bought and sold by U.K. entities, have shown a continuous increase in sales prices over the last two years. The highest value transactions involving U.K. entities in 2006 were a confidential .COM domain (£662,315.00) and CRUISES.CO.UK (£95,000.00). In comparison, the top sales for 2005 were a confidential .COM domain (£30,567.80) and a confidential .CO.UK domain (£25,339.90).

For further detailed statistics please refer to the following link: market-statistics 2006.pdf

U.K. market sales statistics for 2006 demonstrate an overall increase in the volume of sales, number of domains sold and of the average selling price. The volume of published sales for both .CO.UK and .COM domains grew by 68% and 185% respectively. The number of .co.uk domain sales increased by 52% and .COM sales grew by 32%. This has lead to an additional upturn in average selling prices of 10% (.CO.UK) and 116% (.COM), signalling the maturity and ongoing development of the .CO.UK domain name market.

Nora Cotter, Sedo’s Director of Operations, United Kingdom, comments, “the number of UK-based Sedo members has increased by 34% in the last year alone; indicative of the growing importance of the U.K. market in general. The prospects for 2007 point towards continued success. We look forward to focusing on, and dedicating additional resources to the U.K. market to welcome more new clients and working to ensure we provide current users with complete customer satisfaction.”

For more information, please contact:
Bianca De Bono
Sedo GmbH, Marketing Associate
Tel: +49 221 34030386
Bianca.debono@sedo.com

Source
WhatAreDomains.com

Reported sales

Usually I list the top sales from DNjournal.com but there are simply too many of them. DNJournal compiled all of the sales from the last two weeks and they were posted last night. I suggest that everyone take a look at them. It's good to see the market steadily gaining speed!

DNJournal.com sales report:
http://dnjournal.com/domainsales.htm

How would you rank tlds?

Well, I feel this is all a matter of opinion. Most people would rank them as follows:

.com
.net
.org
.info
.us
.biz
.ws


I feel that .info values are steadily rising. I have seen more .info sales recently than .net and .org. I would rank them as follows:

.com
.info
.org
.net
.us
.biz
.ws

Again, this is all a matter of opinion. The top 4 will always be valuable if it is a generic term.

Complaints rise last year over domain names

The UN copyright agency that arbitrates more than half the world's cybersquatting cases saw a 25 per cent increase in complaints last year.

The World Intellectual Property Organization received 1,823 complaints in 2006, alleging abusive registrations of trademarks as Internet domain names.

The growing number of professional domain name dealers who use computer software that automatically registers expired domain names or temporarily registers them without paying charges, is of concern to trademark owners, WIPO said.

Most of last year's disputes have been resolved.

Source

WhatAreDomains.com

DNJournal

Several great domain name sales were listed on DNJ tonight..including one from me. I had the only reported .info sale for Six.info on DNjournal.com!

Let's keep up the good work guys!


Here is a link to the screenshot!

King of the Clock

WhatAreDomains.com was recently crowned "King of the Clock."

Visit KingoftheClock.com to purchase the "King" spot for only $10.

Where can I find the legendary "Masters of their domains" article?

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