Each day Domain Radar selects a News of the Day item from the domain name industry. Here is the archive of this feature.

In order to combat spam, yet another domain extension may be born. The proposed extension,  .mail, would be one of the strongest assaults on dreaded spammers yet. The extension is being backed by a major force in the spam filter industry, the Spamhaus Project.What would allow this new extension the ability to fight spam? Spammers will no longer be able to mask their email addresses with those of legitimate companies and people. Spam filtering software would also be added to shore up defenses.

4-03-2004
The domain name forum industry just got a new 800-pound gorilla in town, DomainNameTalk. Maybe not the best name in the world because of its length, but that does not matter in this case. What makes DomainNameTalk.com an instant major player in Domain Forums is the fact that it is owned by iNet Interactive. iNet Interactive is the owner of such other industry leading forums and websites such as WebhostingTalk.com, HotScripts.com, DeletedDomains.com, and yaXay.com. How big will DNT get? It all depends on how much this new forum is advertised on iNet’s other sites.

3-31-2004
Hmmm, looks like one of the Pool bids for BlogHosting.com was retracted for some reason. Instead of showing 5 bids for $26,000, the BlogHosting.com auction now says 4 bids for a top bid of $20,500. The question is did a bidder just get cold feet and was able to get Pool to remove the bid or was there something funny about the bid in the first place. Either way, Pool.com bids are not supposed to be removed.

3-29-2004
Today the top story in the domain industry had to be BlogHosting.com rocketing up to $26,000 in only a few hours on Pool. A few of the major domain forums were even surprised by this extremely quick price ascension. Also surprising is that there have only been 5 bids so far. Thus, it appears that all the bidders mean business. I would not be surprised one bit if at least two of those bidders were industry heavyweights like BuyDomains.com, Name Admin, and Ultimate Search.

3-26-2004
Gay and lesbians now have their own domain name extensions. Both .gay and .lesbian have already been launched and are currently free. Anybody interested can go to dotworlds.net to get one of their free “personality” domain names. However, don’t expect to find much, if any, resell value with these names.

3-24-2004
Soon both webmasters and domainers will have a new measurement to worry about, WebRank by Yahoo. Yes, Yahoo with have toolbar (currently in beta) similar to Google but it will be WebRank instead of Google’s all-important PageRank. Basically, WebRank works just like PageRank. Both work on a scale of 1 to 10 and both gage link popularity. Thus far, WebRank appears to be a “me too” move by Yahoo against Google.

3-23-2004
Want to hold on to one of your domains for 100 years? Well, Network Solutions will make that possible by offering century-long registrations at $999 a pop. That would mean that you would finally be getting reasonable registration prices from Network Solutions at $9.99 per year.

3-22-2004
GameRanking.com’s closing bid of $1,250 at Pool.com showed that game domains can command huge premiums like the adult and hosting industries. However, this particular name is very interesting because it is actually a “typo” of major game site, GameRankings.com. That is definitely one of the best typos I have ever seen because GameRanking.com is a great domain in its own right.

3-21-2004
The biggest domain forum, DNForum.com, just had its first live auction in months. After several kinks in the system, the auction finally started two hours later than planed. However, those problems have no been fixed for next week’s auction. The auction itself was not that active as only 12 out of 233 domain names were actually bid on.

The problem is that people can set the starting bid at whatever they want like $1000 for one name. Its this writer’s opinion, that each name should start at the same price in the $1 to $10 to bring in demand. Well, what about premium domains? Either don’t list them or trust greedy bidders to give you a price you could be satisfied with. That way, people will flock to the auction every Sunday.

3-19-2004
A total of nine new domain extensions have been applied for recently. According to Matthew Fordahl of the Associated Press, each application cost $45,000 and the extensions being applied for are .mobi for mobile services, .xxx for adult, .asia, .cat, .jobs, .mail, .post, .tel, and .travel.

3-18-2004
GoDaddy continues to broaden its product offerings. This popular domain registrar already looks like a spam convention with its numerous offers during a single domain purchase. Now it will offer 128 bit SSL web server certificates for 89.95 per year. Hopefully, an extra page will not be added during the registration just for this.

3-17-2004
Getting confused by all the domain extensions floating around now? Well, it’s going to get worse as more extensions such as .travel, .union, and .health may be added into the mix. Could this be a move to drive out domain dealers by flooding the market with enough supply to squash demand? Hopefully, that is not the case but it makes a person wonder.

3-16-2004
The auction for recent Top Drop, HostingReviews.com, closed today at a staggering $2,700. I went after this domain myself, but had to pull my reigns in at the $500 mark. The winner of this auction may not be able to get back their huge investment on this name anytime soon by reselling it, but they probably would by putting a quality site on it.

3-15-2004
It looks like the domain name industry is going to get a little cleaner after it was announced that a pornographer is giving WhiteHouseKids.com to the government. This same pornographer is looking to sell one of the most controversial domain names ever, WhiteHouse.com. He is reportedly looking for at least $2 million!

3-13-2004
For anybody wondering if there are scams in the domain name industry, look no further than Cool.com “selling” for $1000 on Afternic. Of course, this sale was a phony. The reason this name did not go above this price was because most domainers know that the real owner of Cool.com never sales his domains. Thus, the old saying “If its too good to be true, it usually is” holds true here.

3-12-2004
Well, if “Tobacco is Whacko” as the anti-smoking TV commercial goes, then the person or company who paid $325,000 for Smoking.com is insane. Here is yet another example of the domain name industry regaining some of its lost luster from the aftermath of the infamous dot com bubble bursting.

3-11-2004
According to Globes Online, technology giant Mercury Interactive bought Mercury.com for a total of $1.1 million! Wow, not exactly the type of domain that you would automatically think would sell for that much. This is a definite sign that the domain name market is on the rebound.

3-10-2004
According to CNET, a few large technology companies such as Microsoft and Nokia are vying to create a domain name system specifically for cell phones and other wireless devices. The reasoning behind this move is to make accessing the Internet easier via mobile devices. If ICANN approves the domain name system for cell phones, look for the domains  to be available some time next year.

3-09-2004
According to a press release, the registrar known as Tucows has surpassed the 4 million mark in terms on domain names under management. Before this, only Network Solutions had at least this many domain names under management. This makes Tucows the biggest ICANN-accredited wholesale domain registrar in the industry.

3-08-2004
Just had a personal experience today that explains why some domainers are backing WLS. Today was the final day of the auction for HostingLinks.com and I thought I would get it for under $100 because there was only one bidder with less than 30 minutes to go. However, two bidders popped in the last twenty minutes and sent the bid over $100 in a hurry. Did it stop there? No, I had to battle one of those bidders up several hundred more dollars. I finally had to call it quits at $400! That is just too high a price for normal domainers to pay. Thus, this auction model has turned many domainers off.

3-07-2004
More details on WLS: it still requires approval by the Department of Commerce and will be given 90 days to be implemented in order to give notice to registrars. However, don’t be surprised if more lawsuits pop up to try to delay it.

3-06-2004
Well, this is definitely a monumental day in the domain name industry. To some registrars and drop catchers, the day of evil has finally arrived. WLS (Waiting List Service) by Versign has been approved by ICANN in Rome. This decision will likely kill most domain catchers, especially those that are fully dependent on .com and .net domains. .Org and .info continue to rise in popularity, but the .com names are by far the biggest drops in terms of money spent. Look for more news on WLS in the coming days.

3-05-2004
According to theregister.co.uk, the demand for .de domains with German characters  has been substantially above expectations with over 600,000 applications already received. I wonder if this influx of demand for special domains will replace German domainers’ thirst for .infos. Only time will tell.

3-04-2004
Even though quite a few 3 letter .coms have sold in the low to mid $x,xxx range recently, it is still shocking that uqj.com is already close to $10,000 on Pool.com with over 2 days left. Look up UQJ on AcronymFinder.com and you wont get any known uses for those 3 letters. The begs the question as to why this domain has commanded such a high premium.

3-03-2004
Popular registrar GoDaddy (review) has now thrown its hat in the ring with the battle involving ICANN and Verisign over SiteFinder. Of course, GoDaddy is firmly behind ICANN instead of its bitter rival. According to CNET News.com, GoDaddy has volunteered to pay up to $100,000 in legal expenses to help out ICANN.

3-02-2004
Versign is now suing ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) for forcing Versign to suspend its controversial SiteFinder service. Basically, SiteFinder allowed Verisign to profit from the traffic of available domain names in the .com and .net extensions.

3-01-2004
After a lightening quick start, the auction for XXXPics.com at Pool.com has slowed down to a crawl. The high bid for this premium adult name has only moved from $31,000 to $32,000 in the past two days. The auction for this name will end in less than four hours.

2-29-2004
.Biz now joins .info as having all of its three letter domains being registered. Wow, the 3 letter mania in the lower extensions has been on fire recently. Looks like .us will be next, so grab them while you can!

2-28-2004
Registrars continue to join together in an attempt to block Verisign’s proposed WLS (Waiting List Service). More have joined the fray recently by filing a lawsuit against both ICANN and Versign.

2-27-2004
With over 2 days and 11 hours left in its auction on Pool.com, XXXPics.com is already up to an astounding $31,000. The question is not whether it deserves this lofty price tag, but how high that it will go before the auction finally ends.

2-26-2004
.MD will be made available to qualified buyers starting on March 1, 2004. As you would imagine, buyers of this extension must be associated with the health care industry in some way. The price is also extremely steep at $200 per domain.

2-25-2004
Joining letter/letter/number .coms on the no longer available list are three letter .infos. This puts .info in the elite company of .com, .net, and .org for having no 3 letter combinations available for manual registration. If you are wondering, there are 17,576 possible three letter combos.

2-24-2004
Three letter .coms continue to sport enormous winning bids at Pool.com. Most, if not all, are now selling in the x,xxx range. For example, ZDZ.com has a few hours left on its auction, but its already bid up to $2,450. The huge bidding for this domain is especially surprising because Z is usually one of the least desirable letters in three letter names.

2-23-2004
Although it sounded like a good idea at the time, the domain extension that is restricted to just kids has definitely been having some major growing pains since June of 2003. In fact, less than 10 active sites can be found on this domain. The problem? For one, the actual extension is .kids.us instead of being a much simpler .kids. Secondly, businesses avoid this extension because of the obvious restrictions. Lastly, the price tag for a .kids.us is definitely not kidlike. Besides domain registrations selling from $60 to $160, a required content review costs $250. I will stick with .coms, .orgs, and .infos, thank you very much.

2-22-2004
It should be noted that the remainder of the letter/letter/number .coms have all been registered. Although still nowhere near the value of letter/letter/letter .coms, this should improve the value of domains like xx1.com. I, myself, sold a letter/letter/number .com in the low xxx range this year, so there has been significant demand in these 3 character names (though not all 3 character combinations) even in the past. Of course, MP3.com is the best letter/letter/number .com of them all.

2-21-2004
Not going to name the suspected culprit or the forum that is the victim of this, but I received a very interesting email yesterday. The scary thing is that the return email address is the forum’s actual domain name. However, this email is so over-the-top that it must be a hoax. Thus, don’t jump to any conclusions if you get this email in the future. Here is the email:

TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN

Dear Friend,

We must inform you that someone is trying to register .net and .org version of your .com name.

DON”T BE A SUCKER! ACT NOW!!!

As the owner you should act right now and join us at
<Forum Named>

If you want to process your order faster please fax us a picture of your credit card (both sides) and your signature.

Our fax number: +————-

If you don’t send us a fax we’ll send this letter every 5 hours.

We also invite you to join our domain forum at
<Forum Named>

Kindest Regards,
<Forum Named>

2-20-2004
The newly free Club Drop by Enom has already hit is first snag. Members no longer have the option of deleting names from trying to be caught. It does not matter if a name is entered by mistake like a typo or you just do not want the name anymore, you will be stuck with it. Why a company like Enom would remove a key feature like this is beyond me.

2-19-2004
Network Solutions is now fighting with German hosting powerhouse Strato over 200,000 .coms, .nets, and .orgs. Strato was acting as reseller of the names for Network Solutions, but now wants to move those domains in-house.

2-18-2004
For resellers, Enom’s expired domain service called Club Drop is now free. Instead of paying a monthly like before, Club Drop members now have to bid amongst themselves like Namewinner and Pool.com.

2-17-2004
Recently, Afternic.com stopped using PayPal for the purchase of domain names due to a change in PayPal’s policy. However, membership fees, auction upgrades, and the company’s Bazaar unit will not be affected by this change.

2-16-2004
Messaging.com, a stellar keyword domain, sold for $27,600 range at Pool.com. Money-making auctions like this one continue to fuel the dominance of Pool in the high-end expired domain business.

2-15-2004
Starting March 16, the .info extension will be able to have German script characters. This is just one of example of the gaining popularity of .info.