MSNBC reports

NEW YORK - Internet addresses ending in “.pdf” or “.mp3″ could appear under a new proposal, while domain name suffixes consisting entirely of numbers would likely be rejected.

Hints about such do’s and don’ts appeared in a new report issued by the Internet’s key oversight agency, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers. The organization is looking for feedback on security and operational issues that may arise from the introduction of new domain names as early as this year.

ICANN said it considered prohibiting suffixes that match common extensions for file names, such as “.exe” for Windows-based executable programs, “.doc” for documents using Microsoft Corp.’s Word software, “.jpg” for photos in the popular JPEG format, “.pdf” for Adobe Systems Inc.’s ubiquitous Portable Document Format and “.mp3″ for music files.But the organization concluded it would be too difficult to keep track of which extensions are popular enough to prohibit, and allowing them shouldn’t confuse major Web browsers, which already assume that an address refers to a Web page rather than a computer file.

ICANN, however, said it would likely bar all-numeric suffixes, such as “.123.” That’s because domain names are merely easy-to-remember substitutes for the numeric Internet Protocol addresses that computers understand and use behind the scenes. Allowing all-numeric suffixes could result in a Web address that also happens to be an IP address, confusing browsers.

Once ICANN finishes crafting its criteria, it will start taking bids from outside companies and groups for new domain names, so a “.pdf” domain would appear only if an applicant comes forward and wins approval.

ICANN has yet to determine how many new names it will accept to join “.com” and more than 250 others already in place.

 

Interesting industry news. New tlds are always a goldrush at the beginning and a complete failure at the end. Just make you reg them first and sell within a couple months.

Only 13.37% .eu Websites Active/Unique - .eu is a disaster zone

from WhoisIreland Review

The latest WhoisIreland.com .eu web survey shows that the .eu ccTLD is in serious trouble. Out of 1723638 websites checked, only 13.37% of sites were active/unique. As a ccTLD for Europe, it is a disaster zone. Brand registrations accounted for 7.78% of registrations. The percentage of duplicate content sites was 6.02%. The percentage of websites that redirected elsewhere was 16.68%. The percentage of PPC/warehoused websites was 14.22%. The percentage of holding page sites was 16.79% (more…)

According to 4-ok.net there are currently 218,443 LLLL.net’s remaining unregistered, out of 456,976, which is 47.8%.

All premium LLLL.net’s were registered not long ago and since then their min prices are up to about twice the reg fee.

Remaining LLLL.net’s by first letter:

A: 5097
B: 7198
C: 5832
D: 6633
E: 7496
F: 8171
G: 7634
H: 6772
I: 7236
J: 9172
K: 9627
L: 7842
M: 6855
N: 7500
O: 8669
P: 8289
Q: 13014
R: 8812
S: 4949
T: 6439
U: 11408
V: 12355
W: 8721
X: 11223
Y: 10706
Z: 10958

CVCV.net’s are picking up as a cheap alternative to CVCV.com that have crossed into $1k.

Recent sales from (more…)

NNNNN.com Available List Posted 8190 Remain Unregistered.

With current trends going on NNNNN.com will be history in 3-5 days.

- All NNNNN.com’s starting with 1,2 and 9 are now gone. In fact there is one 9NNNN.com remaining but don’t expect it be long after this post: 97949.com (added: the winner is RezaS on NP)

- 2-3K NNNNN.com get registered every day for the last 5 days.

Latest available list includes 190 5N’s and can be downloaded for free here

Check out the NNNNN.com guide before registering these, to take the higher quality domains.

domainnamewire reports

Yahoo will stop allowing arbitrage as of this Friday, will affect other major companies as well.

In a major move sure to have ramifications across the online advertising industry, Yahoo (YHOO) has told its advertising partners that it will no longer accept “arbitraged” traffic as of this Friday. Here’s a look at what this means for domainers and even the revenue of big online advertising companies.

That will be a hard blow to many “domainers” who only had a short term strategy of buy and selling clicks. Few months ago several threads poped up in DNF where people claimed to make over $1-2K/day on arbitrage and parked.com officially confirmed that they allow it. But now, as it was expected, the door has closed.

NNNNN.com Countdown Approaching 10k.

Around 11k NNNNN.com’s are currently remaining unregistered. Latest count shows 10, 736 10,681 8,200! They are likely to run out within a week if this trend continues.

According to NNNNN Domains Marchex owns around 60K NNNNN.com, which are valid US zip codes, so that only leaves the other 40K available on the market and thus makes NNNNN even more rare and more valuable.

Everyone obviously ponders on the prices NNNNN.com’s will fetch right after the buyout. Nothing is certain except death and taxes, but from previous buyouts we can expect the price to climb slowly and I predict it will reach $20 within 2 months after the buyout.

With LLLL.com’s we’ve seen the min prices climbing very fast to around $60 currently within 4 months and premium LLLL.net’s were bought out only a week ago, but are already selling at twice the reg fee. Usually the prices go up within weeks after a buyout occurs.

There are two main questions people ask related to numeric domains and NNNNN.com’s:

(more…)

Good news for .ca enthusiasts: BU.ca Closes at $13.5K at Pool!

I remember when snapnames first started auctioning ca domains, about 7 months ago there were a coupe LL.ca in the list, they reached about $2k each and at that time I had a feeling it’s cheap. Now I know it was cheap!

This even beats the recent DNF sale of double letter LL.ca - VV.ca, which sold at $10k quickly. (more…)

13,628 NNNNN.com Remaining from my most recent scan.

Download the list here

Also check out the NNNNN.com Countdown timeline

We are very close to the buyout, so if you want to reg some NNNNN.com’s now is a good time to do so

Moniker.com Brokers Sale of Bored.com for US $4.5 Million

Moniker, an Oversee.net company and the leading provider of Domain Asset Management(TM) services, today announced that it has successfully brokered the sale of Bored.com for US $4 million and an associated portfolio of 170 websites for US $500,000.

Bored.com was established in 1997 and today provides more than two million visitors a month with solutions to the age-old question of what to do when you are bored. The site serves as a portal linking to leading sites in music, humor, gaming, quizzes & trivia, and more.

The sales agreement includes several assets associated with continuing the current business model. The site will remain operational under its new owner, JW Media. Other online properties currently being developed by JW Media include BuyShoes.com and Campout.com. (more…)

I’m preparing to unload a part of my portfolio and I was recently wondering where is the best place to auction them.

While the two main venues are sedo and snanames, to my surprise the replies varied.

Those in favor of sedo are saying that:

• sedo has larger audience
• sedo’s fees are lower - indeed snapnames charges up to 20%, while at sedo it’s only 10% (more…)