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As first reported by DNN, Keydrive bough Monikter and Snapnames from Oversee.net. The official Press Release was published today and can be found after the jump.

KeyDrive S.A. Acquires Moniker and SnapNames from Oversee.net

Luxembourg and Los Angeles, Calif. (February 1, 2012). KeyDrive S.A., an internet solutions holding company with subsidiaries providing domain registration, monetization and aftermarket services, announced today that it has acquired the Moniker and SnapNames business units of Oversee.net, a leader in online performance marketing.

Moniker® and SnapNames® offer businesses and individuals an array of services for domain name registration, acquisition, brokerage and sales. Moniker introduced the live domain name auction concept. SnapNames operates the largest online auction of expired and deleting domain names, giving its customers access to valuable names.

“The purchase of these two leaders in the domain aftermarket perfectly fits our global growth strategy”, said Alexander Siffrin, Chairman of the KeyDrive S.A., and CEO and founder of Key-Systems®. “We now have the opportunity to extend our global outreach, target a broader customer base and cross-sell our services. Furthermore, our European clients will gain access to US buyers and sellers of domain names. We’re delighted to welcome the Moniker and SnapNames teams to KeyDrive S.A.”

“The sale of these assets allows us to focus more on our core monetization and vertical markets divisions which are the fundamental building blocks of our global performance marketing network,” noted Debra Domeyer, Co-CEO of Oversee. “As the domain industry landscape changes, it is essential that we invest in new technologies that leverage our existing platform and unlock the potential of domain traffic. Our focus is on developing new monetization alternatives for both publishers and advertisers. We also want to thank Craig Snyder and the Moniker and SnapNames teams for their years of dedicated service. ”

Oversee was advised in the sale process by Petsky Prunier LLC.

(c) 2011 DomainNameNews.com (4)

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According to industry sources, Keydrive S.A. will announce this morning that they have purchased Moniker & Snapnames from Oversee.net. Information about the sale has already been posted on the companies website and was also added to ICANNWiki yesterday.

KeyDrive S.A./Luxembourg includes the Key-Systems Group in St. Ingbert/Saarland (Germany), the NameDrive Group (Luxembourg/USA) as well as Moniker and SnapNames (Florida and Oregon/USA) with more than 160 employees.

After the takeover of Moniker in January 2012 the group ranks among the TOP 10 biggest ICANN registrars in 6th place; the group currently administers a total of more than 5.4 million domains.

Rumors about a potential sale of Moniker & Snapnames had been circulating for  a while. DNN expects an official announcement to be published shortly and will update this post accordingly. Keydrive was created by merging KeySystems and Namedrive.

(c) 2011 DomainNameNews.com (2)

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As announced via email by Ovesee.net today, the company has laid off 13% of its workforce. The official announcement sent to DNN in an email says:

As part of its plan to address new growth opportunities, Oversee.net has realigned its work force resulting in a staff reduction of 13 percent. These moves, along with pending new hires, will allow the company to leverage core assets to innovate more effectively, improve competitive positioning and achieve growth.

When question about the areas of reduction, the company stated they would not provide details, but stated that ”the workforce reduction was across all functions”.

(c) 2011 DomainNameNews.com (4)

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DomainSponsor, the domain name monetization unit of Oversee.net and organizer of the DOMAINfest series of conferences, has announced it will return to the Fairmont Miramar Hotel in Santa Monica for their annual DOMAINfest Global event from January 31 to February 2, 2012.

As in past years, the entire Fairmont Miramar Hotel has been reserved exclusively for DOMAINfest Global in order to provide attendees with an intimate, distraction-free environment that maximizes networking opportunities.

Highlights from the February 2011 conference included a standing-room-only keynote address from legendary Go Daddy CEO Bob Parsons, plus an entertaining fireside chat with Ben Mezrich, author of The Accidental Billionaires: The Founding of Facebook. More than 700 domain name investors, online marketing professionals, and service providers from 30 countries attended the conference. A party at they event also made it into the main stream media through a mysterious illness that about 1/4 of the attendees.

Registration for the event will opens September 1st with an early bird registration fee of $995, which includes all sessions, meals and official evening parties, will apply from September 1 through September 30.  From October 1 through December 31 the standard discounted rate will be $1,195 per attendee.  Beginning on January 1, the regular pre-conference rate of $1,295 will apply. Discounted hotel room rates at the Fairmont Miramar hotel are available.

The company is also holding a New York Meet-Up event on August 23 from 7:00-10:00 p.m.  at the Mad46 Rooftop Lounge, on the 19th floor of the Roosevelt Hotel at Madison Avenue and 46th Street. Attendees will enjoy speed networking, dinner and cocktails. Registration is $150 and is available online. Last year the NYC meeting was a “power networking day”, but for this year it has been transformed into an evening meeting, the price was lowered by $25.

I just received the following email from Mason Cole, Oversee.net VP of Communications & Industry Relations. I am confirming the departure of Jeff Kupietzky from his executive role with Oversee at the end of August.  After five years with the company and the last two and a half years as CEO and President, Jeff has elected for [...]

According to a post on Domain Name Wire and tweet by the new monetization company Rook Media, long time domain industry veteran Joe Higgins joined the company. Rook Media was founded by former NameDrive managers (Ash Rahimi, Ed Russell, Daniel Law, Martin Andersson) after the company changed ownership and restructured earlier this year. Joe Higgins left DomainSponsor earlier this year, where he had been a senior account manager for 6 1/2 years. Last year he helped to establish DomainSponsors’ European operations.

The Swiss based company is accepting applications to test their new parking system. According to DailyChanges they currently host over 120,000 domains on their DNS.

(c) 2011 DomainNameNews.com (9)

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DNN received an unconfirmed report today that Oversee.net had let go of several of it’s key executives, including President and CEO Jeff Kupietzky. It was also believed that because of these changes that the board had taken over.

When questioned about the topic Oversee’s Mason Cole confirmed with us over the phone that four three executives were leaving, but he would provide no further comments about HR matters.  Cole informed us that Kupietzky was staying with the company.

We’ll keep you posted as we learn more.

UPDATE and CORRECTION : Mason Cole gave DNN notice that he incorrectly stated that 4 executives were leaving.  He has since corrected his statement. Only 3 executives had “departed in an executive realignment”.  Cole also confirmed our information that the executives departing were veteran Oversee staff  members Ryan Berryman, SVP and General Manager, Emerging Businesses, Jack Nelson VP of Human Resources and Peter Celeste, SVP and GM, Monetization Services Division.

According to an email just sent out by SnapNames the pricing for backordering deletion domain names will increase from $59 to $69 starting tomorrow.

See the full text of the email below:

On February 15, SnapNames will raise the starting bid for backorders for all deleting domain names from $59 to $69. This starting bid increase applies only to orders for names that are deleted from their respective registries (not the expiring or privately held names listed from registrar partners or sellers).

This change applies exclusively to new orders—any previously placed deleting domain name backorders will be grandfathered in and remain at a starting bid amount of $59; thus, $59 will be the opening bid if the name enters our system. (Note, if you are the only bidder in this scenario, like today you will be the buyer at $59. If another party backorders the same name after February 15, that party’s opening bid will be at $69 and the system will alert you to raise your bid if you so elect.)

As is the case today, all non-deleting domain names will enter our system at the starting bid price specified by the listing party. Opening bids for those names will stay at the amounts originally set.

There is no change to auction procedures. If there is only one bidder for a name at the time of its availability, the name will be awarded to that bidder. For names with more than one interested party, the names will go to auction and the highest bid at or above the starting bid amount will prevail.

Questions can be directed to the SnapNames support team:

E-mail: support@snapnames.com
Web: http://support.oversee.net/login.php

(c) 2011 DomainNameNews.com (8)

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Update: Los Angeles County Department of Public Health Sends out Survey to Conference Attendees

Just like Adam and myself a number of other attendees (over 75 according to DNN’s own count) have fallen ill after attending last week’s DOMAINfest in Santa Monica with a variety of diagnosis and treatments. Tonight a spokeperson for DOMAINfest Organizer Domainsponsor and its parent company Oversee.net issued the following statement:

DomainSponsor, the organizer of the DOMAINfest Global conference, and its parent company, Oversee.net, have been made aware that several people in attendance at DOMAINfest and various evening events during the week became ill during the conference or after it concluded.

There has been significant speculation about this situation, but as of now, not many actual facts are known. Only medical authorities are qualified to identify this illness and investigate its ultimate source, so toward the improvement and protection of everyone’s health, it’s important not to speculate or make unfounded assumptions. Of course, should you have a concern about your health, please seek the advice of a doctor.

The health and safety of DOMAINfest attendees is our first priority, and thankfully, most attendees and staff did not become ill, and those that did appear now to be feeling better. Even so, in order to accurately identify the health concern and prevent its further possible communication, we have consulted with Los Angeles County health authorities and at their request have provided them a comprehensive list of places we know gatherings were held (either organized by DOMAINfest or by others) during each day and night. We also have notified our vendors and service providers of the situation, and have encouraged them to cooperate with authorities and take any steps they believe necessary.

Medical authorities have further requested, and Oversee has provided, a list of all attendees and their e-mail addresses. You may already have received a link to a survey asking for more information. It is important that ALL attendees complete the survey, whether you were ill or not. This will help authorities narrow down the range of possible causes and sources. Only health authorities will have access to this data—neither Oversee nor any other party will be able to see it, so please do your part to help.

Oversee will continue to work with health authorities, though at this stage, work is best left in their hands. If there’s more we’re in a position to share about the situation, we will do so.

DOMAINfest was a great event—our best ever with more than 700 attendees—and it’s regrettable that this has cast a shadow over an otherwise good week. We’re very encouraged that most everyone is in improving health (including those on our staff), and look forward to seeing many of you in Barcelona in June.

(c) 2011 DomainNameNews.com (5)

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As announced in a press release this morning, Oversee.net has acquired ShopWiki to expand its portfolio of websites that help consumers make informed purchase decisions.

ShopWiki is a international internet shopping comparison search engine which was founded in 2005 and was majority owned by the growth equity firm Generation Partners. The company currently serves 11 countries in North America, Europe and Australia. The sites jointly list nearly half a billion consumer offerings. The acquisition is the first in the consumer retail space for Oversee’s expanding Vertical Markets division, which is further developing the company’s contextual search and comparative results capabilities to create site experiences that help consumers make purchase decisions.

Oversee, which operates successful comparison sites in the travel and financial services sectors like LowFares.com™ and CreditCards.org, was attracted to ShopWiki because of its potential to serve as a cornerstone of Oversee’s retail presence. “ShopWiki is the most comprehensive shopping search engine in the market,” said Oversee CEO and President Jeff Kupietzky. “The acquisition is a perfect fit with our ability to apply our expertise in acquiring and managing Internet traffic to improve comparison and buying decisions for consumers.”

ShopWiki CEO Rory Cumming was attracted to Oversee for similar reasons. “Oversee provides services for over 10 million domain names and has unique insight into consumer preferences and Internet traffic,” he said. “Through contextual search, consumers who navigate through Oversee’s network of names will see relevant offers more often with ShopWiki.” Cumming will serve as Oversee’s General Manager, Retail, and will continue to run the property from New York as a wholly-owned subsidiary of Oversee.

(c) 2011 DomainNameNews.com (9)

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