Geodomain

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The term geodomain refers to domain names that are exact matches [1] in spelling to geographic locations, such as cities and countries. They are unrelated to the ccTLDs such as the .us country code domain. Examples of geodomains are Atlanta.com, LosAngeles.com, Texas.com and LongIsland.com. Since geographical names are limited in number, and have good name recognition, geodomains are valuable, with the .com extension valued the most. Geodomains tend to provide a virtual representation of the locations they serve—for example, Hawaii.com is heavily tourism focused, while Syracuse.com and Madison.com have more local content. Collectively, geographic domain names are estimated to represent approximately over 500 million dollars a year in gross hotel bookings alone. [ citation needed ]

Contents

Seizure of France.com

Unlike United States law, GEO domains and trademark rights may be treated differently around the world as in 2018 the European Country of France successfully seized France.com from its owner, a Miami, Florida resident, [2] who according to a lawsuit filed in California [3] had lawfully owned and used the domain name in commerce since 1994. This was an unprecedented occurrence where the registrar, Network Solutions (Web.com), was intimidated by a French Court Order, despite the lack of jurisdiction, and transferred the domain name to the complainant without notifying the owner of France.com, Jean-Noel Frydman, who is suing and will likely take years to sort out. [4]

Industry conferences

Highest reported sales

Many geodomains were reported to be sold for high amounts. Among them:

DomainSale priceSale dateSource
China.com$11,700,0002013 [7]
Korea.com$5,000,0002000 [8]
California.com$3,000,0002019 [9]
England.com$2,000,0001999 [10]
Russia.com$1,500,0002009 [11]
Melbourne.com$700,0002007 [12]
Macau.com$550,0002006 [13]
NewZealand.com$500,0002003 [14]
Longisland.com$370,0002010 [15]
Pensacola.com$150,0002018 [16]

See also

Related Research Articles

In the Internet, a domain name is a string that identifies a realm of administrative autonomy, authority or control. Domain names are often used to identify services provided through the Internet, such as websites, email services and more. As of 2017, 330.6 million domain names had been registered. Domain names are used in various networking contexts and for application-specific naming and addressing purposes. In general, a domain name identifies a network domain or an Internet Protocol (IP) resource, such as a personal computer used to access the Internet, or a server computer.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">.org</span> Generic top-level domain

The domain name .org is a generic top-level domain (gTLD) of the Domain Name System (DNS) used on the Internet. The name is truncated from 'organization'. It was one of the original domains established in 1985, and has been operated by the Public Interest Registry since 2003. The domain was originally "intended as the miscellaneous TLD for organizations that didn't fit anywhere else." It is commonly used by non-profit organizations, open-source projects, and communities, but is an open domain that can be used by anyone. The number of registered domains in .org has increased from fewer than one million in the 1990s, to ten million in 2012, and held steady between ten and eleven million since then.

Domain name scams are types of Intellectual property scams or confidence scams in which unscrupulous domain name registrars attempt to generate revenue by tricking businesses into buying, selling, listing or converting a domain name. The Office of Fair Trading in the United Kingdom has outlined two types of domain name scams which are "Domain name registration scams" and "Domain name renewal scams".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">.us</span> Internet country code top-level domain for the United States

.us is the Internet country code top-level domain (ccTLD) for the United States. It was established in early 1985. Registrants of .us domains must be U.S. citizens, residents, or organizations – or foreign entities with a presence in the United States or any territory of the United States. Most registrants in the U.S. have registered for .com, .net, .org and other gTLDs, instead of .us, which has primarily been used by state and local governments, even though private entities may also register .us domains.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">.uk</span> Internet country code top-level domain for the United Kingdom

.uk is the Internet country code top-level domain (ccTLD) for the United Kingdom. It was first registered in July 1985, seven months after the original generic top-level domains such as .com and the first country code after .us.

Domain name speculation, popular as domaining in professional jargon, is the practice of identifying and registering or acquiring generic Internet domain names as an investment with the intent of selling them later for a profit.

A country code top-level domain (ccTLD) is an Internet top-level domain generally used or reserved for a country, sovereign state, or dependent territory identified with a country code. All ASCII ccTLD identifiers are two letters long, and all two-letter top-level domains are ccTLDs.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">.cc</span> Internet country-code top level domain for the Cocos Islands

On the Internet, .cc is the country code top-level domain (ccTLD) for the Cocos (Keeling) Islands, an Australian territory. It is administered by a United States company, VeriSign, through a subsidiary company, eNIC, which promotes it for international registration as "the next .com". The .cc domain was originally assigned to eNIC in October 1997 by the IANA; eNIC manages the TLD alongside SamsDirect Internet.

Generic top-level domains (gTLDs) are one of the categories of top-level domains (TLDs) maintained by the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) for use in the Domain Name System of the Internet. A top-level domain is the last level of every fully qualified domain name. They are called generic for historical reasons; initially, they were contrasted with country-specific TLDs in RFC 920.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">.co</span> Internet country-code top level domain for Colombia

.co is the Internet country code top-level domain (ccTLD) assigned to Colombia.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">.io</span> Internet country-code top level domain for the British Indian Ocean Territory

The Internet country code top-level domain (ccTLD) .io is nominally assigned to the British Indian Ocean Territory. The domain is operated commercially by Afilias, a domain name registry subsidiary of Ethos Capital.

In the Domain Name System (DNS) hierarchy, a second-level domain is a domain that is directly below a top-level domain (TLD). For example, in example.com, example is the second-level domain of the .com TLD.

Single-letter second-level domains are domains in which the second-level domain of the domain name consists of only one letter, such as X.com. In 1993, the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) explicitly reserved all single-letter and single-digit second-level domains under the top-level domains com, net, and org, and grandfathered those that had already been assigned. In December 2005, ICANN considered auctioning these domain names.

A domain hack is a domain name that suggests a word, phrase, or name when concatenating two or more adjacent levels of that domain. For example, bir.ds and examp.le, using the fictitious country-code domains .ds and .le, suggest the words birds and example respectively. In this context, the word hack denotes a clever trick, not an exploit or break-in.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Domain name auction</span>

A domain name auction facilitates the buying and selling of currently registered domain names, enabling individuals to purchase a previously registered domain that suits their needs from an owner wishing to sell. A Drop registrar offers sales of expiring domains; but with a domain auction there is no need to wait until a current owner allows the registration to lapse before purchasing the domain you most want to own. Domain auction sites allow users to search multiple domain names that are listed for sale by owner, and to place bids on the names they want to purchase. As in any auction, the highest bidder wins. The more desirable a domain name, the higher the winning bid, and auction sites often provide links to escrow agents to facilitate the safe transfer of funds and domain properties between the auctioning parties.

The Domain Name System of the Internet consists of a set of top-level domains that constitute the root domain of the hierarchical name space and database. In the growth of the Internet, it became desirable to expand the initial set of six generic top-level domains in 1984. As a result, new top-level domain names have been proposed for implementation by ICANN. Such proposals included a variety of models ranging from adoption of policies for unrestricted gTLDs that could be registered by anyone for any purpose, to chartered gTLDs for specialized uses by specialized organizations. In October 2000, ICANN published a list of proposals for top-level domain strings it had received.

A geographic top-level domain is any of an unofficial group of top-level domains in the Domain Name System of the Internet using the name of or invoking an association with a geographical, geopolitical, ethnic, linguistic or cultural community. The IANA does not recognize these domains as their own group within the Root Zone Database, rather classifying them as generic top-level domains.

A landrush period is the time during which domain names are available for registration, usually to a closed group, to entities that do not own a trademark in the name they wish to register, for example generic terms like loan or car, and thus would not qualify for registration during the sunrise period. Orders may or may not be treated on a first-come-first-served basis. This period follows the sunrise period just after the launch of a new top-level domain or second-level domain during which, for example, owners of trademarks may register a domain name containing the owned mark, but a landrush period precedes a period of general availability, when any qualifying entity can register any name on a first come first-served basis.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">.online</span>

.online is a generic top-level domain (gTLD) of the Domain Name System (DNS) used in the Internet.

References

  1. From Brandable to Exact-Match Geo Domain Making $1.5M Per Year – With John Colascione
  2. France Seized France.com. This Miami Man Is Suing To Get It Back
  3. This Man Is Taking France to Court to Win Back France.com
  4. Insane: France Seizes Geographic Domain Name France.com with Help from Web.com
  5. 2008 GeoDomain expo coverage story
  6. 2010 GeoDomain expo coverage story
  7. China.com sold for $11.7 million – HongKong.com also sold
  8. BusinessInsider.com.au
  9. Mark Thomas Closes Biggest GeoDomain Sale We've Ever Reported - California.com Goes for Millions
  10. BusinessInsider.com.au
  11. Sedo Brokers Industry's Second Largest Geo Domain Sale Russia.com Sold for $1.5 Million by Leading Geo Domain Developer Paley Media
  12. High-profile Australian web domains up for sale
  13. Macau.com sells for $550,000
  14. New Zealand Government Pays $500,000 for newzealand.com
  15. Commack company owns longisland.com domain name
  16. Herrholz owned Pensacola.com domain name