Domain Name Panelists MeetingOctober 16
II. The Domain Name Industry Today
M. Scott [email protected]
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Domain Name Panelists Meeting, October 16, 2006
• Registration for purpose of selling• Registration so that mark owner is
blocked from registering• Registration by a competitor of the mark
holder to disrupt• Registration to attract users looking for
mark owner to web site for profit
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Domain Name Panelists Meeting, October 16, 2006
• Search engines (Google, Yahoo/Overture,etc.) now serve as de facto Internetdirectory
• 90% of searches today through searchengine, only 10% browser searches
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Domain Name Panelists Meeting, October 16, 2006
• Value of Browser Search marketestimated to be US$550 million
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Domain Name Panelists Meeting, October 16, 2006
• More than 80 million DNs now registered
• Over 1,000 active “domainers” (DNsprimary or sole source of income)
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Domain Name Panelists Meeting, October 16, 2006
• More than 25,000 reported DN sales from10/03 to 1/06
• Average price for oneword.com DNs =US$48,997
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Domain Name Panelists Meeting, October 16, 2006
• Publicly traded companies acquiring DNportfolios, buying/selling DNs, ParkingDNs
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Domain Name Panelists Meeting, October 16, 2006
• Publicly traded companies include:Internet REIT – 400,000 DN portfolio. 30employees. HQ Houston, offices in NY and SF.Investors include Perot Investments, MalveronLLC, Jacobson Family Investors
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Domain Name Panelists Meeting, October 16, 2006
• Valueclick• Fox Time Warner• Marchex• Daum
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Domain Name Panelists Meeting, October 16, 2006
• Sites on which links to other sites areorganized, indexed, and made searchable
• Linked sites pay per click (PPC). Revenueis shared between DN registrant andparking service
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Domain Name Panelists Meeting, October 16, 2006
• Google, Yahoo/Overture
• Sedo, Skenzo, moniker.com,TrafficClub.com, Hostex, Fabulous.com,ParkingDots.com
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Domain Name Panelists Meeting, October 16, 2006
• Google and Yahoo are being sued by PPCadvertisers who pay premiums to getsearch directed click throughs
• Suits allege that many click throughs arefrom parking sites and are the result oftyposquatted DNs that bring traffic toparking sites
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Domain Name Panelists Meeting, October 16, 2006
• Specialist registrarsLaw firms register and manage domain namesfor their clients – Ladas & Parry LLP & LadasDomains LLCFor corporations, registration and managementof DN portfolios
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Domain Name Panelists Meeting, October 16, 2006
• Corporation Service Company,Wilmington, Delaware
• International Data Group, Boston
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Domain Name Panelists Meeting, October 16, 2006
• In April 2006, 35 million DNs registered.Of these, 32.7 million were used, but neverpermanently registered
• Used during 5 day grace period, allowedto lapse, then registered again, startingnew grace period
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Domain Name Panelists Meeting, October 16, 2006
• “Tasting” done by registrars. Makedeposit with registry
Example: Verisign charges $6 per year for .comDNs
• Registrar registers 50,000 DNs forUS$300,000 deposit
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Domain Name Panelists Meeting, October 16, 2006
• DNs parked on PPC web site
• 5 day grace period used to cancelregistration without obligation
• Names immediately reregistered andparked
• Eventually drop unproductive DNs andpermanently register those generatingsignificant traffic
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Domain Name Panelists Meeting, October 16, 2006
• Registrar Dotster being sued by NeimanMarcus and Bergdorf Goodman fortyposquatting
• Dotster employee allegedly offered to sellbergmangoodman.com for $1,000
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Domain Name Panelists Meeting, October 16, 2006
Full Service Registrar• Registers DNs, manages portfolios,
operates parking service, brokers DNs
• Fabulous.com – owns 550 thousand DNsfor own account
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Domain Name Panelists Meeting, October 16, 2006
• Some recent examplesgames.com, US$10.5 milliongolf.com, (by Time Inc.), rumored price US$25million
morgage.com, US$250,000
irs.com, US$11 million
sex.net, US$450,000
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Domain Name Panelists Meeting, October 16, 2006
• Online media cover the DN industryexclusively, reporting on legaldevelopments, sales, parking revenuetrends, ICANN, etc.
• DN Journal (www.dnjournal.com), DNForum (www.dnforum.com), CircleID(www.circleid.com)