Tucows’ reseller network now has over 100 additional domains to choose from.
One of the key reasons Tucows bought domain name registrar EPAG back in August was to bolster its offering of country code domain names (ccTLD).
Today it announced the first phase of its integration of ccTLDs carried by EPAG, adding over 100 new ccTLDs to its OpenSRS reseller platform. It will add more next year.
A lot of registrars I talk to tell me they see an immediate registration lift when they add new ccTLDs but the one-by-one integration is a pain. Tucows has “bought” and easier way of integrating.
ccTLDs have a multitude of policies around expiration, residency, etc. OpenSRS has published a very helpful chart comparing each top level domain.
Simple and effective integration of domains for sale.
A lot of large domain name registrars offer Afternic‘s “Premium” inventory to customers. Each registrar integrates it differently and some do it better than others.
I just checked out Hover.com’s integration and I really like it. Hover is owned by Tucows, which is Afternic’s latest top 10 domain registrar partner.
Hover is known for its simplicity and this carries through to premium domains. It manages to integrate premium domains with simplicity but also make them standout.
As you can see, premium domains are denoted with a star. If you mouseover the star there’s a brief description and a link to a detailed description. The detailed description even includes a video explanation.
The video explains that domain pricing reverts to regular pricing for subsequent years. Hover’s shopping cart also handles multi-year registrations of premium domains.
This is one of the better implementations I’ve seen and should be a model for other domain name registrars.
Tucows has won another domain name that is part of its “Personal Names Service”.
Tucows acquired the domain name Primm.com when it bought Mailbank (NetIdentity) in 2006. NetIdentity registered the domain name in 1996.
The case was filed by Herbst Gaming, LLC with the help of Greenberg Traurig, LLP. Greenberg Traurig is no stranger to UDRP filings, having represented over 400 UDRP cases.
This makes the arguments presented in the case very puzzling.
First of all, anyone experienced with UDRP and Tucows’ Personal Names portfolio knows the company won’t give up a fight on them. Tucows has only lost 3 UDRP cases and has “won” each case after appealing to the courts.
Second, check out this accusation from the Greenberg Traurig attorney:
The domain name was first registered in February 1997 by Melbourne IT, a company that is widely known for its cybersquatting activities. Melbourne IT owned the domain name until sometime in 2006, when it was acquired by Respondent.
Hmm. Melbourne IT wasn’t the registrant of this domain name. Mailbank merely registered the domain name through Melbourne IT as the registrar. Also, since when is Melbourne IT known for its cybersquatting activities?
Despite these amazing insertions, the panel declined to find reverse domain name hijacking.
Registrar defends domain name from attack by lighting company.
Domain name registrar Tucows has successfully defended the domain name hinkley.com, which is part of its expansive portfolio of surnames, from lighting company Hinkley Lighting, Inc in a UDRP.
The domain name was registered in 1996 and came as part of Tucows’ acquisition of NetIdentity.
The panel ruled that Hinkley Lighting failed to show that Tucows lacked rights or legitimate interests in the domain name and failed to prove that the domain was registered and used in bad faith.
In a win for domain name investors, the panel considered the length of time it took the lighting company to file the case (laches) and referred to an earlier case involving Frank Schilling:
In particular Complainant secured the domain name hinkleylighting.com in 1996 just months prior to the time that Respondent secured the disputed domain name hinkley.com. Complainant was thus aware of the domain name registration process but for whatever reasons chose not to contact Respondent for a period in excess of fifteen years regarding the disputed domain name while the Respondent conducted its business. Although laches is not expressly stated as an affirmative defense under the UDRP it is an equitable remedy in civil proceedings and the UDRP by nature can only offer equitable relief. Laches has been recognized as a proper defense in some UDRP proceedings where the facts are particularly supportive such as when a Complainant knows or should know of the existence of the Respondent and the Respondent’s bona fide use of the corresponding disputed domain name for a substantial period of time prior to seeking to have that domain name transferred. See The New York Times Company v. Name Administration Inc… The Panel feels that this case exemplifies the type of situation where laches is properly considered as a defense.
Tucows was defended by Bret A. Fausett of AlvaradoSmith, APC.
Will the new TLD application process finally get approved next month?
For a while it looked assured that the new top level domain name applicant guidebook would get the green light at ICANN’s meeting in Singapore this June.
But then Lawrence Strickling, head of the NTIA, said he didn’t think this was possible unless ICANN got on board with government demands.
So what does Tucows CEO Elliot Noss think the chances are?
BMO Capital Markets analyst Thanos Moschopoulos asked Noss on yesterday’s earnings conference call:
I guess regarding the new TLDs it sounds like that process is sort of kind of politically, any thoughts there in terms of whether that moves ahead or what the outlook is in that front?
Noss responded:
Yeah, I think that everybody is still hopeful. I think we’re watching the political process play out. And really the Singapore meeting is going to be extremely important. So, I think you could see anything from the Singapore meeting starting gun goes off, and the process is initiated to what I would call indeterminate delays. But, I will say that the Singapore meeting is really the first meeting where there is a material chance that we get this whole process started. And I’m certainly hopeful.
OK, so he’s not placing a bet on whether or not it will happen next month. (He’s smarter than that.) But I think he does a good job summarizing the possibility.
Last April I paid what I believe to be a domainer record for a cookie: $127.50.
But this wasn’t just any cookie. It was a sugar cookie commemorating Tucows’ 10 millionth domain name registered. This is a limited edition cookie to be sure. And the proceeds from the cookie auction went to some Canadian charity that (I’m told) had nothing to do with ice hockey or Molson.
The cookie has been sitting in my office for the past 9 months. I wanted to eat it to see what $20-a-bite-cookie tastes like, but I had been hoodwinked.
You see, the back of the cookie package has a notice:
Not for Consumption
When I saw that notice I got the same feeling you get when you buy a domain name that supposedly earns $100/week only to find out it really doesn’t earn that much.
Now the two rules to flipping a domain name are 1) make sure no one knows how much you paid for it and 2) don’t let people know if you have damaged goods.
It’s too late for those.
But at the end of the day you aren’t really bidding on just a cookie. You’re helping out people in need as well.
I’m going to donate 100% of the proceeds from this cookie sale to Cheti School, an NGO in Tanzania.
Many of you met my new employee Mary Klingensmith at DOMAINfest. Prior to working with me she volunteered at Cheti School.
To give you an idea of how far your money goes at Cheti, consider these costs:
- $355 to send a child to Cheti for a year
- $100 feeds an entire class for a week
- $50 buys English books for a class
If a non-Tucows employee wins the auction, Tucows will chip in some branded swag. If a Tucows employee wins and still wants the branded swag, you can still get it. But expect Elliot to deduct the cost from your next paycheck.
The winning bidder will also get publicity on Domain Name Wire.
Domain name registrars cannot be held responsible for spammers who hide behind Whois privacy services, a California appeals court has ruled.
Plaintiff Daniel L Balsam had won a $1.125 million default judgment against a spammer after receiving over 1,000 pieces of pornographic spam.
Unable to recover the money, he found that the spammer had hidden his identity behind Tucows’ Whois privacy, so he sued the registrar for the cash instead.
He argued that he was a third party beneficiary of the ICANN Registrar Accreditation Agreement, the contract that Tucows and all other registrars must sign.
Part of the RAA, section 3.7.7.3, requires registrars to ensure registrants who license their domains to others are still liable for how they are used.
Balsam argued that this meant Tucows’ privacy service, under which its own contact details are entered in the Whois, was liable for the actions of the spammers who use it.
But in a ruling (pdf) handed down yesterday, Judge Margaret McKeown of the ninth circuit Court of Appeals opined that while Tucows the “registrar” is bound by the RAA, Tucows the “registrant” is not.
What’s more, she ruled that because the RAA has a specific “no third-party beneficiaries” clause, Balsam had no basis for his claim.
The ruling may actually go counter to ICANN’s interpretation of the RAA (pdf), which suggested that privacy services could be held liable if they did not hand over the registrants contact details.
As DNW reported last week, registrars including Tucows expressed anger that ICANN’s interpretation of the RAA could lead to “frivolous and vexatious lawsuits”.
Kevin Murphy is a freelance journalist covering domain names and author of Domain Incite.
Domain registrars are fighting off critics of Whois privacy on multiple fronts at the ICANN meeting in Cartagena, Colombia this week.
In the latest example, registrars led by Tucows CEO Elliot Noss today savaged an ICANN draft advisory that would hold affiliated privacy services accountable for cybersquatting customers.
In May, ICANN said that as far as it is concerned proxy/privacy services are liable for how customers use their domains, under the Registrar Accreditation Agreement that all registrars must sign, unless they hand over the details of the true registrant.
The advisory highlighted ongoing tensions between domain registrants, which want privacy, and law enforcement and intellectual property interests, which want to be able to more easily track down cybersquatters and criminals.
But Noss said during a session in Cartagena today that almost every nastygram Tucows receives concerning its privacy services – the company gets one a day – comes from an IP lawyer.
He said that ICANN’s interpretation of the RAA assigns contract rights to third parties that would open up registrars to frivolous lawsuits.
Noss and Mason Cole from Oversee.net, representing ICANN registrars, said they would prefer dialogue with trademark owners and best practices for cooperation.
Tim Ruiz from Go Daddy said ICANN should “kill off” the advisory in its entirety.
But IP lawyers at the meeting, including Fabricio Vayra of Time Warner, said that best practice guidelines would need to be binding for all registrars in order to be effective.
The meeting ending with a vague promise from ICANN to organize further discussions.
Company says .co launch was major contributor to growth on OpenSRS platform.
Yesterday Tucows reported record quarterly revenue for the third quarter. It saw strong growth on its OpenSRS domain reseller platform, and credits .co in part for that growth. Here’s Tucows CEO Elliot Noss on the investor conference call last night:
Again this quarter, OpenSRS domain service saw strong year-over-year growth in transaction volumes. Total transactions grew 16% compared to the third quarter of last year and new registrations grew 25%. Both of which were buoyed by the launch of the new .CO TLD that I discussed last quarter. Net of the .CO launch, new transactions grew a healthy 15%.
It will be interesting to compare this to a broader new top level domain name release that I expect to happen in 2012. .Co had a wildly successful launch and Tucows was one of only 10 accredited registrars for the launch. Still, if we see hundreds of new top level domains introduced in the coming years I suspect that the aggregate will lift registrations at all domain registrars.
As for Tucows’ Yummy Names division, Noss reminded investors that “This quarter’s results should be viewed in the context of last year’s clearing out of excess track navigation inventory and general softness in per page ad revenue in the domain parking sector broadly.”
Noss sees growth opportunities in mobile computing. The company will offering the GoMobi service before the end of the year.
Domain registrar’s business generating cash, but currency changes skew results.
At first glance Tucow’s second quarter earnings announcement today looked bad. The company lost a penny a share for the quarter, compared to earnings of 6 cents a share in the same quarter of 2009.
But then you dig into the details: the company realized a mark to market loss on foreign exchange of $1.9 million in Q2 2010; in the same quarter 2009 it realized a mark to market gain of $1.9 million. Also, last year the company earned $2.0 million related to its sale of interest in domain name registry Afilias.
Overall the company looks to be on an upward trajectory, with its OpenSRS, YummyNames, and Butterscotch units all reporting higher revenues than the same quarter last year. Tucows’ retail registrar, Hover, reported lower revenue but an even steeper drop (percentage wise) in costs of revenue.
Tucows will host its second quarter investor conference call this afternoon at 5 pm EDT.
Last April