It appears that .CN is the first registry to officially recognize domain investors in their registry regulations. Since China applies different rules to registrants in their country as the ones for registrants outside China, it will be interesting to see if both set of rules will change. So far I cannot see any announcement on it in the English news on their website.

China Alters Definition of Cybersquatting

China will narrow the meaning of “cybersquatters” and will now only use the term to refer to those who register Internet domain names and sell them to rivals of a company that owns the rights to the name.According to the latest definition offered by the China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC), the country’s .CN domain name administrator, cybersquatters will no longer be referred to those who register a domain name “for the purpose of selling or renting it”. It now refers to those who actually “sell or rent it to competitors of a company whose rights are infringed upon.”

Just received this reminder in an email, and thought I should share:

Name Intelligence and the Domain Roundtable Executive Committee would like to take the opportunity to formally invite you to the 2nd Annual Domain Roundtable Conference, coming to you April 19th – 21st in Bellevue, Washington.

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As the Names@Work blog recently reported it’s now official:

James M. Woods joins Names@Work as Chief Operating Officer

Great things happening! Looking forward to hearing more what you are up to

whois.sc was renamed to DomainTools

 Our goal is to increase visitors perception of what we do. To more effectively communicate that ‘Domain Tools’ is a place for every type of diagnostic widget related to domains.

There are different ways to earn money of a domain, starting from ‘parking’ the domain with a PPC service to an actual developed site. This is an attempt to show different examples for development and to break down which levels of development may exist. Of course there are in-between levels for all of these – I am looking forward to hearing from you (via email or in the comments), which model works best for you. While the list is sorted by the amount of effort (less to more) that is required to maintain and build a site, this may of course vary on a individual basis.

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The neverending story of the sex.com domain, which started in 1994, will be published in book form. Kieren McCarthy has found a publisher. The first book about one domain?
KierenMcCarthy.co.uk :: Sex.com book is go! go! go!

[Thanks Sal]

As reported earlier the domainers and investment communities met in Santa Clara at the Targeted Traffic conference. For those of us who were not able to attend, Ron Jackson of DN Journal has got the story for us:
Domain Business Moves Into the Fast Lane After T.R.A.F.F.I.C. Stop in Silicon Valley

Some quick facts from the article:

• Jan 30th to Feb 2nd
• 325 attendees
• reception at Google
• Dan Warner of Fabulous shared amazing statistics (as always)
• selling and buying portfolios was one of the major topics
• domains as an investment strategy
• Sedo is buying main stream business print advertising in order to increase awareness of the market
• Lou Doctor of Arbor Advisors cautioned against holding on to the names for too long and against just PPC-parking your names
• a panel on domain development took place

And those were just some points for the first day. For more information, read the full DN Journal report.

The Telegraph’s business section has discovered domains as an investment:
Owning the right domain is the name of the game

The article features CFIT, Google, ICANN, IReit, Marchex, sex.com, Traffic, WADND, Yahoo! It’s a quick summary of part of ‘the industry’.

While it seems like a good summary, it looks like the author, Luke Johnson, has used some old data in his research:

Since 2001 Icann has delegated the task of registering web names to Network Solutions, a subsidiary of VeriSign, a web “infrastructure” conglomerate.

This seems slightly outdated here, considering that VeriSign sold the majority of Network Solutions (which was the registrar side of the business) to Pivotal Private Equity in 2003 (press release). The registry is still a division of VeriSign today.

Tucows Inc. (AMEX:TCX, TSX:TC) today announced the beta release of Domain Name Auction and Parked Pages, the first two in a suite of services expected to generate new revenue from the growing secondary market for domain names. [...]

Domain Name Auction is a white-labeled service. Service providers can offer potential new registrants the ability to bid on expiring domains via links from the service provider’s website. The first auctions are expected to begin February 13, 2006. Buyers of domain names will be able to find out information on how to participate in the auctions at www.tucowsauctions.com. Registrants maintain their right to renew and keep their domain throughout the auction process. Tucows’ Parked Pages service will generate revenue from pay-per-click advertising for both expired and unexpired domain names. This revenue will be shared with service providers. [...]

Press Release

(Disclaimer: I am currently employed by Tucows.)

BuyDomains (http://www.buydomains.com), a division of YesDirect, Inc., today [Jan 23rd] announced the acquisition of 32,000 “.com” domain names, increasing the company’s industry leading portfolio size to greater than 600,000 high performance domain names.

The acquired one and two word domains are concentrated in the lucrative advertising verticals of finance, travel, education, and recruitment. Additionally, the 32,000 domain addition consists exclusively of coveted one and two word “.com” domains.

Original release

At the end of last year, YesDirect had also announced a new partnership with GoDaddy’s TDNAM. They already had similar agreements with Sedo and Afternic in place.