iEstates.com » Up to the Minute

Most Wanted Domains to report domain sales in realtime, buys mwd.com

Frank Michlick — Thu, 17 May 2012 22:03:07 +0000

According to a post on Most Wanted Domains newly launched Facebook page and a corresponding tweet, Michael Berken’s company is going to be reporting information on their domain sales through social media in real time, starting next week. It also appears that the company bought mwd.com for an undisclosed price – the domain currently redirects to MostWantedDomains.com. The domain used to host a blog called “Mixed Web Data”.

HEXONET announces more than 1 Million domains under management

mcohen — Thu, 17 May 2012 17:18:23 +0000

German based HEXONET, a domain technology solutions provider, recently announced that they are now managing over a million domains for clients, resellers and partners. The one millionth domain milestone is a goal that many registrars strive for and HEXONET reached this goal last month.

The company empowers resellers to privately brand many unique internet services, including domain names available in hundreds of ccTLD’s via an API and web at wholesale prices. This is all done through 1API, an ICANN accredited registrar operated by HEXONET. Today thousands of resellers, startups, and service providers world-wide make HEXONET their solution provider of choice when it comes to registering domains, web hosting, private label dns services and ssl certificates.

HEXONET is headquartered in Homburg, Germany and has a North American subsidiary, HEXONET Services Inc. based out of Vancouver, Canada. It was in February of 2009 when Robert Birkner founded HEXONET Services Inc., the North American arm of HEXONET GmbH with former Key-Systems CEO and founder Jens Wagner.

Before joining HEXONET, Robert held important posts throughout the domain industry including General Manager of Hostway Canada, General Manager of Domainpeople Inc., Director of Global Domains at Hostway Corporation, and Director of Sales and International Business at Key-Systems GmbH.

Robert is known throughout the domain industry for his expertise on the industry’s business policy, market insight, product development, and especially for understanding the needs of end users and registrars. Robert also consulted on the re-launch of the .ME domain registry in 2008.

In recent years, the company has had a strong presence in domain conferences such as Domainfest and DNCruise, as well as ICANN meetings. Getting some big domain investment companies and professional domainers to come on board and use HEXONET’s platform has surely helped the company reach the 1 millionth milestone much faster than they probably expected.

After the jump you can find some of the highlights from the recent blog post announcement by Robert Birkner, Chief Strategy Officer at HEXONET Global, and founder & president of HEXONET Services Inc. in Vancouver, Canada.

A Hard Journey to 1 Million Domains:

1. Like any expanding company we have seen growing pains when it came to our employees. Looking back on both the good and the bad, HEXONET has definitely seen the benefit of bringing in new ideas and minds into our organization. New blood in the company exposed areas we were weak and helped us identify where we could improve. Today the team is as talented and as strong as ever. And we are now looking to add even more amazing people to our team. Many lessons learned and many issues overcome.

2. Handling security as we grow has been a challenge, but we are on top of it. Our biggest attack was about a year ago when HEXONET was hit with a massive DDOS. The attack was on a unprecedented scale with over 2 million queries per second on all our servers generating over 80 Gbits of bandwidth. This DDOS even saturated our upstream provider’s datacenter, one of Europe’s largest Internet hubs. We are happy to announce that through proactive measures and procedures no DDOS attacks has affected HEXONET since this last incident.

Many Successes Along the Way:

1. Our reseller and partner network is growing exponentially. Hosting companies, registrar service providers, domain resellers, domainers, and small businesses are now realizing the strength of HEXONET’s advanced and PROVEN technology platform. In our opinion, for TLDs and especially ccTLDs, no other platform or service compares.

More than a decade ago, nearly all companies designed their systems for a handful of dominant TLDs (COM/NET), HEXONET on the contrary believed that eventually hundreds if not thousands of TLDs would be the norm. So today, while others struggle and even hack every new TLD into their in-congruent systems, HEXONET seamlessly adds new TLDs, as our platform was designed to scale from the very beginning. Even more important is the many years of engineering and operational knowledge held by our staff and engineers. We can answer questions about the smallest operational and architectural nuisances for TLDs, a skill that only reveals itself when working with a registry system for years and years.

2. Our Registrar Operations Center platform (RegistrarOC), has also been garnering a lot of interest as well as clients among large corporate customers. These clients with their own accreditations and a large number of domains now realize that there is a huge cost (time and salaries) to update and maintain their own registrar platform. This is where RegistrarOC steps in and not only saves these companies money, but eliminates a huge operational and engineering burden. Interestingly enough, prominent law firms are now becoming ICANN accredited to manage their clients domains. Since law firms are typically not technical, many have turned to RegistrarOC and HEXONET to manage their accreditations.

3. With HEXONET’s platforms gaining popularity, many newTLDs have even come to us asking for help with running a house registrar of their own. As a result, some .BRAND TLDs have committed to running their own house registrar service through 1API (HEXONET’s house registrar) or through utilizing RegistrarOC.

The Journey Continues – What to Expect:

1. A new and more friendly website launching this summer.

2. A newer and easier to use “orderform” to be progressively released throughout the year. With each release new features will be available for clients.

3. More Control Panel enhancements and upgrades. All these updates are from direct feedback and requests from our clients. Some cool new bulk management features are coming!

4. General public “Domain for Sale” listing service on HEXONET’s domain auction platform PremiumSale.com. The site and auction service at PremiumSale.com has received tremendous feedback and now we are going to opening it up for members to auction off their own domains through the platform.

Even though we surpassed the 1 million domain goal for the company, we are not resting. HEXONET continues to work hard for our customers. Again to all our customers, resellers, and partners, thank you for your support and patronage.

Public Interest Registry (.ORG) Soliciting Nominations For Advisory Council

mcohen — Fri, 11 May 2012 18:25:23 +0000

The operator of the .ORG domain extension, PIR (Public Interest Registry), is looking for nominations to the advisory council to fill seats that are opening up. They are specifically looking for individuals with significant internet leadership experience within the non-profit, non-governmental organization (NGO) and domain name arena’s who represent the broad and geographically diverse spectrum of the global non-commercial communities.

PIR says that the .ORG advisory council has been a valuable global resource for the Public Interest Registry (PIR) management for providing advice on policy, outreach, and new services to improve registry operations and support the noncommercial .ORG community. Currently the council consists of 15 members, with at least 2 from each of the following 6 regions: Asia, Asia Pacific, Africa, Europe, North America and Latin America. The members of the advisory council are selected by the PIR board of directors. All seats are for 3 year terms.

Advisory Council Working Groups

The advisory council has organized into “working groups” for the purpose of providing project-based analysis and input, serving as a resource to both the .ORG staff and board of directors at PIR. Comprised of leaders from a broad spectrum of the non-commercial world, the Advisory Council Working Groups will contribute in four area’s: IDN, Policy, DNSSEC, and Outreach & Awareness.

Interested individuals are encouraged to submit nominations, including self-nominations. A nomination statement of approximately 400 words should include details of the nominee’s experience with the internet, commitment to promoting the non-commercial use of the internet, understanding of the technical or policy issues facing the .ORG registry, and perspectives regarding the needs of the .ORG community. A biography and photo is also needed.

All nominations must be submitted no later than June 15th, 2012. The newly appointed advisory council members will be announced on June 30th, 2012.

.EU domains available for only €0.99 at EuroDNS

mcohen — Thu, 10 May 2012 19:34:39 +0000

Just the other day Luxembourg based EuroDNS.com announced that they are running a special promotion on all newly registered and transferred .eu domains. The prices have been reduced to €0.99 per single domain or $1.30 according to the latest exchange rates. The promo ends on May 22, 2012. Daniel Eisenhut, Chief Sales Officer at EuroDNS said:

“At EuroDNS we are currently offering our customers an excellent promotion on .EU domain names, for the next two weeks all .EU domain names are available for registration and transfer for only €0.99. EuroDNS does more than just register domain names; we also offer a constantly evolving range of solutions and services to assist our customers with all domain requirements. The list includes local presence service, Whois Privacy, and ProDNS which delivers safe and secure DNS services with no risk of data loss…”

To get in on the action you have to visit the EuroDNS website and then enter promo code PREU12C to get the discounted rate. Please note that in order to register .EU domains (ccTLD of the European Union) you have to be located in Europe or have a local presence there.

According to EURid, there are currently 3,568,477 .EU domain names registered. There are typically around 70,000 to 80,000 new .EU domain registrations per month. It will be interesting to see what the number is for May once this promotion wraps up and the .EU domain statistics are updated.

ICANN Offers new gTLD Applicants Refunds

Frank Michlick — Tue, 08 May 2012 18:05:07 +0000

As per an update sent out by ICANN earlier today the California not-for-profit is now offering applicants refunds of all paid fees (about $350M USD in total) if they would like to withdraw their application prior to the publication of the list of all new TLDs that received applications. The TLD Application System (TAS) exposed some of the filenames of applications to other applicants. The board authorized refunds with a resolution during their workshop in Amsterdam on May 6th.

See the full email update from ICANN after the jump.

TAS Interruption – Update (7 May 2012)

Statement by Akram Atallah, COO

7 May 2012

In recognition of the inconvenience caused by the temporary suspension of the TLD application system, ICANN will provide a full refund of the application fees paid by any new gTLD applicant that wishes to withdraw its application prior to publication of the list of applied-for new top-level domain names.

A resolution authorizing full refunds was adopted during a Board of Directors workshop in Amsterdam on Sunday, 6 May 2012.

We recognize that this represents an increase of only US $5000 over the refund that withdrawing applicants would otherwise receive, but we believe it is an important part of fulfilling our commitment to treat applicants fairly.

We regret the difficulties that we know the temporary suspension of TAS is causing.

DNN’s most popular articles in April 2012

Frank Michlick — Tue, 01 May 2012 06:26:16 +0000

The most popular posts on DNN in April of 2012 by web traffic were:

XXX Goes Live in the Root Servers (04|15|2011)
Joichi Ito Joins Tucows Board (12|15|2008)
Frank Schilling’s InternetTraffic.com now powers 1,500,000+ domains (04|19|2012)
Will Marchex Sell iPanel.com to Apple? (04|05|2012)
First Brannans Domain Auction by Clements brothers yields $34,000 ( 04|09|2012)
Google settles Dispute over gmail.de after 8 years (04|16|2012)
Internet.bs Corp Responds to KnujOn Accusations (04|09|2012)
Keep Playing the Music . . . Really, The Ship’s Not Sinking (02|22|2008)
LeadRefs Announcing New Version of Domain Sales Lead Generation Tool (04|16|2012)
ICANN Issues additional statement regarding new TLD Application System Bug (04|14|2012)

DENIC and Netnod Team Up for Further Name Service Enhancement of .de

Frank Michlick — Thu, 19 Apr 2012 09:20:37 +0000

The operator for the German .DE ccTLD announced that it has entered into a strategic partnership with Swedish based Netnod, adding Netnods 35+ worldwide DNS locations to their own network.

“We have chosen Netnod for their outstanding technical expertise and fully trust their competence to meet the high level demands associated with the operation of our supplementary name service for .de, which is by far the biggest ccTLD worldwide. Also, both Netnod and DENIC are not-for-profit, neutral, and independent basic infrastructure-providing organisations and share similar strategic positions and views. Therefore, this partnership ideally matches with DENIC’s commitment to provide services of utmost reliability, on a self-regulatory basis,” said Dr. Jörg Schweiger, Member of the Board and CTO of DENIC.

See the full press release after the jump.

Effective 19 April 2012, German TLD .de operator DENIC and the Swedish-based Internet infrastructure organisation Netnod have entered into a strategic partnership to further strengthen the .de Name Service. By making use of Netnod’s extensive infrastructure to complement DENIC’s own worldwide DNS network, DENIC’s operation of the domain name system for .de, in its role as a crucial resource of the Internet, will be additionally secured.

The new second foothold will further minimise potential risks for the .de zone by integrating Netnod’s additional 35+ locations worldwide, this way allowing for rapid response in the case of a malicious intent. As a surplus benefit, Netnod’s services will provide a significant capacity upgrade.

“We have chosen Netnod for their outstanding technical expertise and fully trust their competence to meet the high level demands associated with the operation of our supplementary name service for .de, which is by far the biggest ccTLD worldwide. Also, both Netnod and DENIC are not-for-profit, neutral, and independent basic infrastructure-providing organisations and share similar strategic positions and views. Therefore, this partnership ideally matches with DENIC’s commitment to provide services of utmost reliability, on a self-regulatory basis,” said Dr. Jörg Schweiger, Member of the Board and CTO of DENIC.

“Netnod is happy to assist DENIC in enlarging their footprint by offering them the shared use of our widespread multi-site anycast infrastructure for full backup support of .de, and thus for the common good of all Internet users. Of course, we are very proud that after having supported a large variety of European ccTLDs for quite some time now, .de as the No. 1 ccTLD has chosen us to be their strategic DNS partner,” said Kurt Erik Lindqvist, CEO of Netnod.

About DENIC
DENIC is responsible for managing .de, Germany’s top-level Internet domain and the world’s second largest Internet registry with 15,000,000+ domain names. Next to running a 17-site worldwide name server network, DENIC provides all domain database and registration system resources for .de and also operates the German ENUM domain (.9.4.e164.arpa), along with all .de and ENUM related whois lookup services. Since its inception in 1996, as a private, not-for-profit cooperative, DENIC’s mission is to fulfil a public purpose by supporting a fast, secure and reliable access to German Internet pages and e-mail addresses, through the excellence of its extensive name server infrastructure and services, on a 24/7 basis. Today, 280+ registrars from the IT and telecommunications industry in Germany and abroad offer .de registration services and support the independent, self-regulatory approach of the cooperative as active members. DENIC is also committed to be a leading force in shaping the continued development of the open, decentralized and secure Internet, in a close collaborative effort with international Internet bodies including ICANN, RIPE, IETF, and CENTR. Based in Frankfurt am Main, Germany, DENIC employs 120 staff and has an annual turnover of EUR15m.

Website: http://www.denic.de

About Netnod
Netnod is a not-for-profit, neutral and independent Internet infrastructure organisation, based in Sweden and owned by the TU foundation. Netnod provides DNS anycast and unicast slave services to TLDs worldwide through its highly respected and robust DNSNODE product. Netnod is also the proud operator of i.root-servers.net, one of the thirteen logical DNS root name servers in the world – a critical part of the Internet underlying infrastructure. This service is provided as a public service to the Internet community at-large, as part of Netnod’s goal to work for the “Good of the Internet”. Finally, Netnod operates six exchanges in five different cities in Sweden where Internet operators exchange traffic. The Netnod IX has among the highest amount of traffic per peer in Europe and is fully IPv6 enabled.

EnCirca Provides List of .Travel and .PRO Domains that are Expiring/New or in Auction

Frank Michlick — Wed, 18 Apr 2012 20:25:07 +0000

A few days ago the registrar EnCirca released new feeds (available via RSS and HTML) on their site that list new, expiring and auctioned domains in the .Travel and .PRO TLDs. According to EnCirca, News.pro recently sold for $3,600.00; credit.pro sold for $2,400.00 and irki.com sold for $1,200.00.

[via EnCirca]

15 Million .DE Domain Names Registered

Frank Michlick — Wed, 18 Apr 2012 15:54:57 +0000

As per a press release sent out by DENIC, the German .DE registry operator, the 15th million .DE domain was registered today at 12:56pm central European time. The domain was “floristennetzwerk.de” (which translates to FloristNetwork.de).

See the full press release after the jump.

On 18 April 2012 at 12:56 CEST it was registered, the 15 millionth domain
with a .de ending. Its flowery name: floristennetzwerk.de, which means
florists' network. "With my website I want to provide a purchasing portal
for florists to order flowers and plants, avoiding the usual channels via
intermediaries. I am a qualified florist myself and can build on 30 years
of experience.
And since I want to reach the green trade in Germany with my offer, it was
clear to me that I needed a domain under .de. I have the most beautiful
profession in the world. Flowers make people smile and are the only
product that does not really need any marketing." says the domain holder
Alexander Kleerebezem. 

He is not alone with his choice. Every month, an average of about 50,000
.de domains is registered with DENIC. If private persons, medium-sized
businesses or international companies doing business in Germany - a .de
domain is first choice for nearly all of them.

From 0 to 15 million: How it all began …

What started in the year 1986 with .de's registration in the IANA database
has evolved into a real success story and made .de the largest ccTLD in
the world.

In the beginning, the domain names are administered by a network operator
located in the USA. In 1988, administration is transferred to the
University of Dortmund that initially handles it rather informally and
simply records the registrations in a manual list. Starting with only six
.de domains, the list soon commences to grow at a continually increasing
pace. About a decade later, time has come to create a sustainable basis
for domain registration and administration. Early in 1997,  37 German
Internet service providers thus found DENIC eG. At that time, about 50,000
addresses are already registered with DENIC - and there is a clear upward
trend. In April 1999, DENIC records an inventory of 500,000 .de domain
names, and in October 1999 the first million-mark is passed. A period of
sharp continual growth up to one million a year follows.

Interest in .de domains still is immense today: "To have one's own
Internet presence is quite attractive for German citizens. Nearly every
sixth of them has their own .de domain. It has always been our special
concern to underscore the importance of .de as a country code. To this
end, we enabled the use of special characters of the German alphabet like
umlauts or letters with accents and the German eszett in domain names.
This makes it easy to identify oneself with the Top Level Domain .de,"
explains Sabine Dolderer, CEO of DENIC. "And of course it also is the
commitment and great performance of our members who offer first-class
service to the end client that has helped us to become the largest country
code Top Level Domain in the world."

ICANN Says new TLD Application System (TAS) Bug is fixed, QA in progress

Frank Michlick — Tue, 17 Apr 2012 13:21:04 +0000

ICANN emailed another announcement regarding the security issue in the TLD Application System (TAS) has been fixed, but the fix is currently undergoing Quality Assurance testing and ICANN is still gathering the information required to contact the applicants and let them know. The application system will not open today; another announcement regarding the opening date can be expected by April 20th, 2012.

See the full announcement below.

TAS Interruption – Update (16 April 2012)

Statement by Akram Atallah, COO

16 April 2012

The TLD application system, or TAS, was taken offline on Thursday, 12 April due to a technical issue.

We believe that we have fixed the glitch, and we are testing it to make sure.

ICANN is committed to reopening the application system as soon as we can confirm that the problem has been resolved and we have had proper time for testing.

We also want to inform all applicants, before we reopen, whether they have been affected by the glitch. We are still gathering information so we can do that.

Accordingly, the application system will not reopen tomorrow.

We will provide an update on the timing of the reopening no later than Friday, 20 April at 23.59 UTC.

We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused.