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Update: My participation rights have now been eliminated at ICANN working groups

Just to followup on the earlier blog post of today, I received the following email from Keith Drazek (GNSO Council Chair),

Dear Mr. Kirikos,

Receipt of your letter is acknowledged.

We note and regret that you have elected to not accept and agree to abide by ICANN’s Expected Standards of Behavior (ESOB).

As such, per the notice provided in the Council Leadership Team’s letter of 29 March, you will be placed in observer status in the RPM PDP WG and any other GNSO-related forum until such time we receive the necessary communication confirming acceptance of the ESOB, or until such time the ICANN Ombuds rules that you may return to member status following any appeal.

Sincerely,

Keith Drazek
GNSO Chair (on behalf of the GNSO Council Leadership Team)

So, unless I “bend the knee” and “swear an oath of fealty” (or unless the ICANN Ombudsman says I can return), I’m forever banished. Is that reasonable and proportionate?

And, this affects participation for all working groups (not just the RPM PDP), even though there’s no issue in the IGO PDP!

 

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ICANN Threatens to Restrict Participation Rights of critic George Kirikos

ICANN, in an affront to free speech and due process, has threatened to restrict my participation on important domain name policy issues, and I think it’s crucial that these topics be brought before the public for debate. Continue reading “ICANN Threatens to Restrict Participation Rights of critic George Kirikos”

AI-generated Audio Podcast about ICANN IGO Issues and Domain Disputes

(if you’re having trouble using the media player, the MP3 is here)

In January 2023, I submitted extensive comments to ICANN, regarding IGO Issues and domain name disputes. There were 3 quite detailed PDFs in that submission (as there were other comment periods over the years), that many may not have read.

Using the NotebookLM AI tool I mentioned in an earlier post today, that generated an excellent podcast regarding domain name transfer policy, I figured I’d let the AI summarize my IGO-related submissions. The result is the embedded audio in this blog post. It did a fairly good job of explaining things at a high-level, although it missed an important detail, namely that IGOs are able to assert immunity when they’re the defendant, and thus the “role reversal” gives them a big advantage (especially if they’re no longer agreeing to the mutual jurisdiction clause). I hope this piques the interest of those who’ve not followed this important issue, and causes them to dive deeper into the PDFs (which have more detailed arguments).

 

 

Push system for domain name transfers already in place for .co.uk!

Theo Develegas, the author of DomainGang, has a personal blog. He wrote about a .co.uk transfer today:

https://acro.net/blog/enom-end-of-an-era-the-fastest-domain-transfer-ever/

which noted:

What surprised me was the way .co.uk domains are transferred to another registrar, in this case Spaceship. After unlocking the domain, I went to Spaceship to begin the transfer out which required to copy an IPS tag into the domain’s record.

What is an IPS tag for domains, you may ask. It’s like a reverse authentication code: You get it from the registrar you move your .co.uk domain to and provide it to the registrar where the domain sits at.

The moment the IPS tag was updated at eNom the domain was no longer there. It was an instant change of registrar! All I had to do next was complete the transfer at Spaceship by submitting the request. The domain appeared in my account, once again instantly.

That’s the kind of “push” system  for domain name transfers that I’ve been advocating for more than 2 years at ICANN, for gTLD domain names like .com. It’s already in production. There’s no excuse now for ICANN not to adopt this, at least as a pilot project, for gTLD domain names.

 

AI-generated Audio Podcast about ICANN Transfer Policy

Prepare to be blown away! 

As regular readers of this blog will be aware, I’ve written extensively about proposed changes to the ICANN Transfer Policy.  Last week, I blogged about my 2024 submission to ICANN. It also mentioned my previous extensive submissions in 2022.

Today, I read about an interesting AI tool created by Google called NotebookLM which is able to summarize documents and even create audio podcasts. So, as an experiment, I uploaded my 2024 and 2022 ICANN submissions into NotebookLM, and here’s the result (7 minutes and 41 seconds in length).

(if you’re having trouble using the media player, the MP3 file is here)

Isn’t that simply incredible?

Continue reading “AI-generated Audio Podcast about ICANN Transfer Policy”

My 2024 Submission To ICANN Regarding Transfer Policy, ahead of September 30 deadline

ICANN has another public comment period regarding transfer policy. The deadline to submit comments is Monday September 30, 2024 at 23:59 UTC time.

My company’s submission can be read here. I focused on the lack of consideration of a “push” system of transfers, and lack of overall consideration of registrants’ input.

This isn’t the first time that ICANN has asked for input on transfer policy. My company submitted substantial comments in 2022 as well, which the captured working group, dominated by registrars, has not incorporated into its latest set of recommendations.

As this is likely the final opportunity to impact the working group’s final recommendations before they’re sent to the GNSO Council (despite being misleadingly labelled as an “Inital Report“, which I called out in my latest comments), now is the time to make a submission on this important topic which affects registrants.

Hopefully my company’s submission of today, and also from 2022, will help stimulate your own thinking, before you submit your own comments.

[For posterity and archival purposes, one can find a PDF version of my submitted comments here.]

 

Domain Literati community on GoodReads

Like many involved in the domain name industry, I like to read books. I decided to organize the non-fiction and fiction books I’ve read and am reading using the GoodReads website and app. GoodReads allows members to create community groups, and I noticed that there wasn’t one associated with the domain name industry, so I decided to create one!

Domain Literati logo
Domain Literati logo

Introducing DomainLiterati.com!

Of course I had to think of a name, and “Domain Literati” seemed appropriate. Even the dot-com was available! Using ChatGPT, I generated a quick logo and and a landing page.

I don’t expect that this will be a very active group, but if others want to read more, see what their peers are reading, or inspire others to read good books, it might be beneficial to join the group on GoodReads.

In March 2024, JMB acquired $8.5 million of intangible assets that included Gold.com’s domain name

From page 29 of the A-MARK PRECIOUS METALS, INC. SEC filing of today:

In March 2024, JMB acquired $8.5 million of intangible assets that included Gold.com’s domain name.

Normally, given the widespread parasitic “journalism” in the domain name industry, I’d have kept this SEC filings research to myself. But, since it was widely known that gold.com had changed hands, it was trivial to setup a RSS feed for the SEC filing, to monitor the upcoming financial statements for this tidbit.

If one scrolls down to page 30 of that same SEC filing, one will note that there’s an entry of $8,515,000 for “domain name”, which appears to correspond to the gold.com transaction.

Gold.com domain transaction documented in SEC filing
Gold.com domain name transaction documented in SEC filing, from page 30 of https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1591588/000095017024057222/amrk-20240331.htm

As per the original press release, the seller was advised by Andrew Miller of Hilco Digital Assets.

Shift.com and Fair.com domains change hands for $1,365,000 and $900,000 respectively in bankruptcy auctions

Happy Good Friday and Easter to those Christians who are celebrating their holiest days of the calendar this long weekend (Greek Orthodox Christians like myself will need to wait until May this year!).

As I’ve noted before, I don’t appreciate parasitic folks who are seeking to steal eyeballs and traffic for themselves, rather than simply retweeting the original posts! So, I continue to be “on strike” in relation to the substantial work I do (and continue to do, but not publicly report) to discover previously undocumented significant domain name transactions through financial statements. I expect those parasites will once again keep on trying to steal eyeballs and traffic for themselves, instead of simply retweeting the original research/tweets,  despite this statement.

That being said up front, today I noticed an interesting tweet/post on Twitter/X by Joshua Schoen, that he made on March 27, 2024 noting that the Shift.com domain name had changed hands in a bankruptcy auction.

It took me but a few moments to look up the public docket of that bankruptcy, which documents transactions for both the elite Shift.com and Fair.com domain names, that were overseen by Hilco Streambank. Given that these transactions were documented in public court filings, it’s unclear why Hilco Steambank didn’t simply report the numbers themselves, to save everyone (i.e. “everyone” meaning diligent folks like me, or rather, just me, since others didn’t actually put in the work to find this – I alone did!) some time and effort.

On page 3 of Docket Entry #555 (filed March 25, 2024), (yes, I like to show my work and process, unlike low-life bottom-feeding parasites who simply show the results, and pretend that they found the numbers themselves!), it notes:

A. The Shift.com domain name assets were acquired by Shift Canada for $1,365,000.00;

and also that:

B. The Fair.com Assets were acquired by Primera for $900,000;

There were also some other lots that are of no interest to those reading this blog, who care about high value transactions. But, let’s dig even further. If we read Docket Entry #445 (filed February 9, 2024), there’s a 200 page declaration which further documents the transactions. Exhibits B and C contain the full details of each transaction, via the executed asset purchase agreements.

The 74th and 75th page of the full PDF (i.e. Schedule  1.3 of Exhibit B) notes that there are additional domain names in the Shift.com transaction (e.g. Shift.co, Shift.cars, Shift.biz, etc.). There were also some social media accounts as part of the deal, as noted a few pages later.

DNJournal.com typically will not chart transactions of multiple domain names, given that one can’t technically attribute the entire value to just a single domain name. That was the case for the $9 million Shoes.com domain name, which I documented in April 2017. But, we know that the buyer was ultimately forced to buy everything (since the bankruptcy auction is structured as lots), and that it was ultimately just after the Shift.com domain name. Most of the rest is of negligible value, or even a liability, rather than an asset (many of those minor domain names should be dropped, as they’re not worth the renewal costs!).

Similarly, for Fair.com,  the list of other domain names included as part of the transaction can be seen in Schedule 1.3 of Exhibit C, on the 106th page of the full PDF, with such “gems” as Fair.fyi and Fair.fail (LOL!). Similarly, a few pages later notes there’s a Twitter account included too.

My comments above in relation to the Shift.com deal would also apply to the Fair.com transaction. We know that the buyer was ultimately forced to buy everything (since it was structured in lots), and that it was ultimately just after the Fair.com domain name.

In conclusion, I would attribute 100% of the two transactions to just the main domain names involved. Thus, as per the headline, I would argue that Shift.com was acquired for $1,365,000 and that Fair.com was acquired for $900,000.

BONUS CONTENT:

But wait, there’s more! In July 2020, I uncovered the fact that the Shift.c0m domain name was acquired for $385,000 in December 2015:

This bankruptcy auction is a reminder that elite domain names are assets. Even if a business fails, these assets can be liquidated, sometimes even for more than they were acquired.

 

Vivid Seats will acquire LasVegas.com deal as part of their Vegas.com transaction

I continue to not disclose new and significant domain name transactions that I’ve discovered via SEC filings research, due to parasites who do not properly cite that research and/or make copycat articles to generate pageviews and eyeballs for themselves. Instead of simply retweeting and linking to the original research itself, so that the original researchers receive the full credit and attention for their work, these parasites want a piece of the action without putting in the hard work themselves.

I continue to invest the time to research for myself, though. While researching other transactions, I stumbled across a tidbit related to an older public transaction, though (which is thus not a “new” transaction).

As some folks might remember, I broke the news about the USD $90 million LasVegas.com deal, tweeting on November 6, 2015:

This was uncovered before I launched this blog, and was written about on TheDomains, DNJournal, and elsewhere.

Fast forward to November 2023, when Vivid Seats announced the acquisition of Vegas.com for USD $240 million. This was widely reported, and of course isn’t a “pure” domain name deal (given that Vegas.com is a developed website) however most people simply focused on Vegas.com, and ignored the fact that LasVegas.com (worth far more than Vegas.com as a domain name name) was part of the deal!

How do I know this? The key tidbit was buried in a SEC filing made by Vivid Seats this week, where they disclosed:

“In 2005, the Company entered into an agreement for use of an internet domain name with an unrelated party. Under the terms of the agreement, the Company is obligated to pay approximately $2,500,000 per year until the agreement expires in 2040. The Company has the option to terminate the agreement at any time, provided they operate the domain for a period of thirty days after termination.” (page 15)

What they’re describing is the ongoing LasVegas.com deal! Here were the terms of that deal as discovered in 2015:

Note 7.
LasVegas.com Purchase Obligation

In June 2005, VEGAS.com, LLC entered into an agreement for the purchase of LasVegas.com. The agreement specified that a $12,000,000, one-time payment be made upon execution of the agreement along with monthly payments of approximately $83,000 for 36 months, $125,000 for the next 60 months, and then $208,000 for the next 36 months. Per the terms of the agreement, after June 30, 2016, following the 132 initial monthly payments, VEGAS.com, LLC in its sole discretion may terminate the agreement and forfeit the domain name. If VEGAS.com, LLC chooses not to terminate the agreement, they will continue making the monthly payments of approximately $208,000 until June 30, 2040, at which time the seller will transfer the domain name to VEGAS.com, LLC without further payment or cost to VEGAS.com, LLC. (from Note 7 on page 13 of SEC filing)

$208,000 per month (the amount of the payments after June 30, 2016) equals $2,496,000 per year, which is “approximately $2,500,000” as per the Vivid Seats filing this week.

Is there any other evidence that shows Vegas.com is still operating LasVegas.com? There sure is! Let’s do some sleuthing, since they don’t make it too obvious from the actual websites themselves:

(a) The “A” record (the IP address where the domain name’s website is hosted) for Vegas.com is (using the Google Admin Toolbox) is 64.12.0.13 for vegas.com and  64.12.0.14 for LasVegas.com, which are nearly identical (same hosting provider, and IP address block).

(b) The “CNAME” records for each domain with a “www” subdomain are:

(i) for www.vegas.com: fp2f9f.wpc.18c9ff.zetacdn.net.
(ii) for www.lasvegas.com: fp2fa0.wpc.18c9ff.zetacdn.net.

indicating that they’re using the same content delivery networks (subdomains of zetacdn.net).

(c) while the visual styles of the two websites are a bit different, their terms of service pages are nearly identical! Using a text comparison tool, one can copy the terms of service from:

https://www.vegas.com/about/terms/

and

https://www.lasvegas.com/about/termsofuse.html

and compare the two. Every “VEGAS.com” was changed to “LasVegas.com”, and the address/contact info was changed too.

(d) Or perhaps most simply, they disclose in Section 19 of the above terms that the “Nevada Seller of Travel Registration No” is 2003-0113, the same registration number on both sites!

(e) Going back to this week’s SEC filing, pages 5 and 7 also mention “LasVegas.com, LLC“. I suppose that makes things definitive!

June 30, 2040 is 16 years and 7 months away. Thus, at $2.5 million/year, Vivid Seats will need to pay approximately $41.5 million over that period in order to finally own the LasVegas.com domain name.  Approximately $48.5 million has already been paid towards the LasVegas.com domain name, far surpassing the $30 million Voice.com deal. Hopefully Ron Jackson of DNJournal will still be with us in 2040 so that he can officially “chart” the $90 million transaction, although I suspect that it might not be the highest public reported domain name deal on that date….we shall see.

If $2.5 million per year is a feasible investment for a company to lease a domain name, for a company worth a mere $240 million, how much can much larger enterprises justify investing to capture the enormous economic benefits that flow from owning elite domain names? Instead of leasing the domain name over 35 years, what’s the value of a lump sum one-time all cash payment? Research the “relief from royalty method” of valuation, and you will find the answer.

In conclusion, elite domain names continue to be extremely valuable, as demonstrated by the ongoing lease of the LasVegas.com domain name, an important piece of the Vegas.com transaction that few have picked up on.

New owner of elite EM.com domain name appears to be Enterprise Holdings (not Exxon Mobil)!

Several weeks ago, I noticed that the elite 2-letter dot-com domain name EM.com had changed hands, with the “WHOIS” information of MarkMonitor’s stealth acquisition unit:

https://twitter.com/GeorgeKirikos/status/1697188222302859628

I’ve been monitoring that domain since that time, and it appears that Exxon Mobil is NOT the new owner of the domain name!

Instead, using the “dig” tool to view the TXT records for the EM.com domain name, I saw that they finally came alive very recently, with values for the SPF records (which relate to email) of:

“v=spf1 ip4:38.133.153.128/26 ip4:216.251.248.18 ip4:208.185.229.40/29 ip4:208.18” “5.235.45 ip4:139.131.76.33 ip4:207.166.92.11 ip4:207.166.95.11 ip4:74.209.251.0/” “24 ip4:199.255.192.0/22 ip4:199.127.232.0/22 ip4:54.240.0.0/18 ip4:213.139.100.4” “8 ip4:207.166.92.11 ip4:207.166.95.11 ip4:216.20.248.25 ip4:216.20.244.25 ip4:19” “9.102.164.25 ip4:35.163.201.1 ip4:35.166.146.0 ip4:35.167.47.63 ip4:18.219.199.1” “49 ip4:35.190.247.0/24 include:_spf.google.com include:sendgrid.net include:mail” “.zendesk.com include:spf.tmes.trendmicro.com ?all”

and the MX records (for delivery of email) have delivery of email to the server:

ehi1.in.tmes.trendmicro.com.

Using the “Reverse MX” tool at WhoisXMLAPI, I noticed that there were only 70 records, and they’re all related to Enterprise Holdings, which owns brands like Alamo, National, and of course Enterprise. According to their website, they’re the 9th largest private company in the USA, with $30 billion in revenue for 2022, and 80,000 global employees.

They own the 3-letter domain name “ehi.com” (which presumably is the “ehi” in “ehi1.in.tmes.trendmicro.com”!!), and it turns out that the SPF records for ehi.com (using the “dig” tool) are:

“v=spf1 ip4:38.133.153.128/26 ip4:216.251.248.18 ip4:208.185.229.40/29 ip4:208.185.235.45 ip4:139.131.76.33 ip4:207.166.92.11″ ” ip4:207.166.95.11 ip4:74.209.251.0/24 ip4:199.255.192.0/22 ip4:199.127.232.0/22 ip4:54.240.0.0/18″ ” ip4:213.139.100.48 ip4:207.166.92.11 ip4:207.166.95.11 ip4:216.20.248.25 ip4:216.20.244.25 ip4:199.102.164.25 ip4:35.163.201.1 ip4:35.166.146.0″ ” ip4:35.167.47.63 ip4:18.219.199.149 ip4:35.190.247.0/24 include:_spf.google.com include:sendgrid.net include:mail.zendesk.com include:spf.tmes.trendmicro.com -all”

which nearly matches those for “em.com”. [It appears someone botched the “copy and paste” of ehi.com’s records, as some values appear to have been split by mistake, e.g. it should be “include:mail.zendesk.com”, as in the one for ehi.com, but instead it was “include:mail” and “.zendesk.com”). Same mistake for some of the IP addresses, e.g “ip4:208.18” “5.235.45” should be “ip4:208.185.235.45”]

Thus, while we wait for a live website to provide absolute confirmation, we can conclude with a high degree of confidence that Enterprise Holdings is the new owner of the em.com domain name. Perhaps this will be used for a rebranding of the company (instead of “Holdings”, the “M” might stand for “Mobility” as they describe themselves as a leader in transportation and mobility).