Domain Suspension
The following letter was submitted to the Comments section of the ICANN forum to address the lopsided Uniform Rapid Suspension System (URSS) system developed by TM holders without input from domain owners and their interests.

Trademark Abuse
We do not advocate or support TM infringment and suggest stiff penalties for flagrant abuse by a registrant, but this policy goes too far in allowing a complaintant TM holder to shut down a domain without evidence or proper due process. This recommendation only applies to the new gTLDs being proposed but the danger (and recommendation by the IRT) is to extend it reach to current gTLD .com, .net etc.

Why should I care?
This issue may affect anyone who registers a name with a close relation to a standing TM, regardless of infringment. We suggest you read the recommendations and make your public comments by July 6th to ensure that your voice is heard. Thank you.

Link to the ICANN Forum IRT discussion: http://www.icann.org/en/public-comment/#irt-report

Our Comments

Thank you for the opportunity to comment on the IRT recommendations. My concerns are with the URSS and it’s potential for abuse and incorrect application. The complexity of trademark infringement cannot be determined by the simple registration of a domain name. All parties have a right to pursue a name and business opportunities that have a legitimate and non-infringing purpose.

Last Names, First Names, Nicknames, Geographies, Generic Terms (and the list goes on and on) represent marks that are TMed but also have alternate rights/uses. It is the CONTENT and CONTEXT with how that name is used that enables a determination of infringement, NOT the use of the name itself. The onus is on the TM holder to prove infringement and if so proven, exacting a stiff penalty from the abuser. That is why it is called defending and protecting your mark, rather than imposing your mark. It need not be difficult, but it should require a minimum of evidence.

Please reconsider how the URSS is applied, and err on the side of caution rather than alarm. The policy should protect the rights of all, not just companies with lawyers who file preemptively–without PROVEN cause. Also abuse by those who file frivolously should be addressed and dealt with harshly to dissuade. Thank you.

Sincerely,

FreshAvails.com

So it has been a few months after the end of domain tasting as we know it, and we thought it was about time to look back and evaluate the affect this has had on the names that have become available and the state of dropped names in general.

The End of All You Can Eat
The practice of domain tasting all but ended on April 1st of this year after ICANN implemented a rule that capped refunds to registrars who added and then deleted domains during the 5 day Add Grace Period (AGP) to 10% of their total registration volume. Tens of millions of domains were being registered, tested (or tasted as it is known) for traffic and appeal and then dropped before the end of the AGP. This primarily affected the .com and .net TLDs.

Big Players Take Big Bites
The service was dominated by just a few players because it required a high level of liquid capital. The domains actually had to be paid for and then, if dropped, a refund would be issued. Some of the big tasters we registering tens of thousands of names a day, and keeping only a fraction. Just about every name that was dropped was tasted at least once before if fell to the available pool. This had the effect of “shutting out” the little guy from getting a chance to pick these up.

New Recipe for Success
After the widespread tasting of domains was curtailed, a new era of great available domains was soon to follow. Here at FreshAvails.com, we always felt there were and are many gems out there ready for registration, it just required digging and proper analysis to discover them. This change though, was going to make it easier. We welcomed the new opportunity with open …mouths!?!?

Portion Control
What has the effect been to domain availability? After reviewing and filtering 50K or so names a day and a few million since tasting stopped, we can say the outcome has been markedly better. We can only for .com names, but have found the lists we create for our clients are about the same in terms of quality, but 20% or so longer. Where measured, exact search averages in Google are up and the number of domains with Alexa ranking histories has increased as well. One of the downsides of the new policy is that we no longer see good names that were once registered, become available later. We always check our candidate domains for availability, even days and weeks after the fact, and sometimes they would become available, not so much anymore.

Well Fed and Happy
The vast majority of quality drops are still being captured buy the drop catching companies, but a few more of the gems are sneaking through. Overall, it has been a positive experience for us at FreshAvails.com AND our own portfolios. We invite you to review our lists and judge for yourself. If you like what you see, why not join our Sneak Peek Program and get your hands on the freshest avails we have. Cheers and as always, Happy Hunting.

A Weakness for the Available
This site was born out of our own desire to find and reg names, so we can understand those afflicted with our same sickness. For those of you not addicted, read our post on the thrill of the hand reg posted a few weeks ago, you can understand what why we are how we are.

A Few New Ones in the Old Portfolio
We had been posting a few of our hand regs on the site but have failed to do so in a few months. A new updated set of names can be found here We hope to show you a little behind our reasons for regging them and see if it jibe with your thoughts. We do not claim to be perfect and are aware that our customers likely get better names than we do. We just love the possibilities each name provides.

Hope you enjoy them and share some of yours with us as well. Cheers and as always Happy Hunting.

Would like to give a credit to Brad Evers of idAssets.com to pointing this out.

Who Is Minding the Store?
In an otherwise typical and generic story about the success and strategy of a large company, MediaPost is able to provide TWO lessons in the online business and publishing enviorment.

The story is about Aldi Grocery Stores. A large chain based out of Germany but with hundreds, if not thousands of stores in the US and elsewhere around the globe. This “Top Story” listed here to the detriment of themselves and their subject.

Two Lessons, Two Disappointments
The primary graphic shows an image of the Aldis.com parked page rather than the company. So dissapointing on two counts.

1) The fact that the publisher/editor did not reveiw the contents of the article (this includes graphics!) Another blemish for online professionals who want to be taken seriously in an environment of casual standards.

2) The lack of foresight by Aldi to not properly protect their online brand. True, they do own their name Aldi.com but they have to understand that the “familiar term” used by their customers is “Aldi’s”. Aldis.com ranks around 1 MM Million sites by Alexa, and recieves 33K exact searches in Google a month. What waste!

It Gets Better

FYI, they also don’t own Adlis.de in their native country tld…

Here is the Graphic in case it has been corrected. (hopefully)

Thought we would test out a new catagory of domains to see if we get a good response on it being useful. These are the domains that expire tomorrow that have valid (for the most part) Alexa rankings. The numbers equate to the number of visitors that site has i.e. is a site has a rank of 200,000 then 1 in 200,000 of internet users is visiting the site …Very High Number FYI. Enjoy and let us know your thoughts and if we should keep posting them. Admin@FreshAvails.com
**********
DOMAIN / ALEXA RANKING
BerserkFactor.com 378,091
AussiePeter.com 552,628
Onatoko.com 569,439
CloakDirect.com 902,730
Maiyam.com 964,096
ChicagoConstruction.com 1,034,165
BiosWebHost.com 1,041,331
XxxPerformers.com 1,098,846
NewRealestAteSales.com 1,165,782
IHwan.com 1,228,179
STaif.com 1,352,467
KeepPrivacy.com 1,378,036
BerserkDirect.com 1,406,096
WebPrxy.com 1,532,539
HomeHacker.com 1,627,545
BerserkInternet.com 1,787,557
BeratedNow.com 1,792,754
PaysVendomois.com 1,873,822
ShockWhat.com 2,013,752
MyFyi.com 2,017,692
TechCloak.com 2,161,050
YouTubeVideoLarim.com 2,190,859
AdsNumbers.com 2,230,727
WowCheatSite.com 2,248,695
Eomm.com 2,301,421
BerserkEpisode.com 2,432,078
AnonymousWebBrowse.com 2,440,093
BerserkGateway.com 2,465,501
WowUnblock.com 2,550,484
DropOfLine.com 2,738,304
NaughtyProxy.com 2,851,762
BerserkProxy.com 2,948,363
HostBypass.com 3,161,033
ContactListing.com 3,173,612
BlacktopDreams.com 3,352,600
JvMotivator.com 3,419,890
JiZhangW.com 3,467,518
MareAndolaPerDiz.com 3,496,402
WowGamesOnline.com 3,560,365
RockHyraxCampingSafaris.com 3,734,015
Weoz.com 3,783,433
Forex1000.com 3,805,044
BrAutoClass.com 3,817,885
HotGamer.com 3,833,737
WowPlayWorld.com 3,885,083
YourMegaSearch.com 3,973,061
JoyIndo.com 4,001,204
MathTrainer.com 4,043,426
GpaBoon.com 4,050,269
SlatonBakery.com 4,096,331

We have put it off long enough and are making updates on Twitter. Follow us, FreshAvails to get the latest and greatest on when we update lists and other breaking news. Cheers.

Storms a’Brewing
There is a dark cloud hanging over a lot of folks these days. The economy in the tank, we have rising unemployment and there is a dearth of investment dollars out there to keep many small businesses afloat. This sentiment has reached the domain name industry and the prospects for hand regging in particular. In fact, this feeling has been building for years. The advent of new systems, tools, and software is taking the fun out of hand registering names. The whole process if just too complicated and your efforts are futile. There are many domainers out there who wouldn’t even consider looking at an available domain list because they are convinced it is more trouble that it’s worth.

The Thrill Of the Chase
We disagree. It is not getting more complicated; It is just getting more competitive! As more people enter the market, the tougher it is to find that true gem at a bargain price. The influx of all the tools that have evolved is a testament to that. They are designed to give you and edge over others looking for the same thing. Besides there are tools and sites out there that do a lot of the heavy lifting for you. FreshAvails.com is a perfect example of that. We do the work so you don’t have to. Our Sneak Peek customers will attest to that.

Huge Opportunities
Now we are biased. We are addicted to hand registering domains. It doesn’t matter if it is a generic, keyword based, niche, adult, brandable; we love them all. We are just looking for opportunities. Where else can you buy the rights virtual real estate with the potential to house a multi-million (Billion) dollar enterprise for under $10 a year?

Pure Excitement
When looking at hand registering domains, the true question you need to ask yourself is, Are you enjoying it? For those of us who do, the answer is quite clear. Who doesn’t love scrambling to register that gem you discover while scanning available names with your various filters. The anticipation you feel waiting to make sure it is still available, the sense of victory when it is and you get it. The disappointment you feel when it is not. Quickly checking to see who grabbed it and if it is a familiar foe. Cursing yourself for not reviewing your list sooner and vowing to get up earlier and never letting this happen again. You want to be the “foe” to all the others out there.

Do you share the love? Tell us your story. Enjoy and as always, Happy hunting.

Big, Overpriced and Out of Touch
That has been the knock on some of the early players in the domain industry. Network Solutions, Register.com are hemorrhaging domains to the lower cost providers because they are stuck at a higher price point, ($35) that is 4-5 time higher than what is available out there. The conventional reasoning is that because they were the first, they happen to now manage the bulk of the larger corporate organizations domain names and they have no issue with $35 as long as the domain is safe and sound. To lower their price would be to instantly remove renewal dollars from their compan’s bottom line. Makes no sense.

What is Their Role?
They don’t want to get involved in a price war with GoDaddy and all the other low-cost providers out there. They have good thing going and “It’s Hard Out Here for a Pimp” when your trying to get money for the rent. Remember they are positioning themselves as providers to businesses not domainers. Not that businesses are not looking for savings but this is still chump change. They may change their policy, but they shouldn’t. Lets take a quick look at some potential numbers.

GoDaddy 35MM Domains x Avg $9 renewal Fee – $7 in ICANN/Verisign costs = $70MM margin.
NetworkSolutions 5MM Domains x Avg $35 renewal fee – $7 in ICANN/Verisign Costs = $140MM margin

1/7th the number of domains, 2X profit. Pretty compelling, No? Now these are just for illustrative purposes but you get the point.

Do They Need to Do Anything to Stay Relevant?
That gravy train cannot last for ever and they need to expand their options and their customer base. They need to develop or buy a better wholesale/generic label registrar than they have now, to attract bottom feeders (us) and experiment with pricing and products before they roll it up to their retail clients.

Why do We Need to Thank Them?
Register, Enom Retail and NetSol are doing us all favors by keeping their price high. It buoys the value of domain names to the retail/end-user market. The worst thing WE can do to domains is make commodities out of them. You need to remember that EVERY domain is an asset. You need to value domains based on their potential and opportunity not their current performance. We all believe domains are not just URLs but online real estate. That real estate has the potential to house a multi-billion dollar enterprise. That is powerful.

Online Advertising and Domains
Lets take online advertising. We have seen different customers who buy ad space in the exact same space and area with the exact same traffic and visitors. Some of those ads generate a 4+% click through rate and high sales conversion. Some ads do .01% click through –a tiny fraction of the first. The performance depends on–The company and product in the ad, the offer/graphic, and promotion and support behind that ad. When talking to potential advertisers, how should you calculate the value of that space? Use the top performer as a potential baseline and put the onus on the advertiser to try and match that performance. We are talking about the same traffic, visitors and space after all. Domains (to an extent) are similar.

The End Game
Granted, some domains are better than others but all have the potential. People pay $100 a month for their cell phone with only a fraction of the functionality of a domain. We need to keep that in mind and we have a responsibility to the public to demonstrate that value. That way we will be able to make a nice profit on our own portfolios and retire early!!! Now go forth and prosper and thank Register.com Network Solutions for holding firm!

I am not that upset over this, I just thought I would comment on it as another negative thing that shines an ugly, unprofessional light on out industry. We need more polish if we expect to shine!

Unwelcome Spam…Phishing?
Not that these are that uncommon, I just did not expect it from a company this size. Got a spam message regarding one of my domains today. They wanted to give me a friendly reminder that my domain is expiring in 42 days. “Well thank you.” They also went into detail that my domain was registered with “A different registrar,” not HostMonster and would need to contact them. Unless of course I would like them to handle it and they provided convenient links for transfer.

Understand the Strategy, Slimy Tactics
I recognize that this can be a legitimate marketing tactic, the WhoIs data, where my info was harvested from, is out there and public info. I don’t have a huge problem with using it to get customers. What I do have a problem with is the fear language they used and the steps they took to hide identities/coding in the email itself. From the body of the email:

Please note that if your domain name expires, your website, email addresses and other important services that HostMonster.Com provides for you WILL NO LONGER WORK PROPERLY.

Shame on them. For someone who doesn’t know any better, this is an attempt to scare and get transfers to them. (More helpful TRANSFER links and phone numbers provided as well) They also addressed the email to some random gmail account (not mine) in the address bar but had my email address all through the actual code. I see this as either lazy programming or another attempt to hide behind a “mistaken” email sent, trying to around spam laws if challenged. Just be upfront if you are going to send and email and say, “We see your name is expiring and want to offer an incentive to get you to switch to us.” They just lost a potential customer for life because there are too many others out there who don’t do this kind of thing.

Attention To Detail
It is also a red flag that they do not pay attention to the little details, something critical if you want to run a hosting company. Footer—“© 2005 Hostmonster.com. All rights reserved.” 4 years and no update? Really?

Starting to sound like a broken record. This is at least the 7th time in the last two weeks. Serious issues with the erver I am sure. THey replaced at least one the other day. maybe it is in need of an overhaul. I guess the reason why I am obsessing is because I use the site and it’s resources so much. “You don’t know what you have until it’s gone” Will try and keep on top of this. If you have any info for us, please provide a comment. Cheers all and Happy hunting. (Reg a few off our lists while you are waiting)

EDIT: The site is back up as of 6:22pm. Was not up an hour ago so out at least 8 hours.