I’m self imposing a cap of 5 percent or less for my own names in my auctions

New York is lovely in October.

When I started out in the domain business I was just like anyone else. I was trying to buy names that would make regular revenue or flip names as quickly as I could for a profit.

My journey has taken another direction over the years. It’s lead me into the center. I’m an infrastructure company now. I supply loans, cash-advances, web design and, of course, auctions.

All of this said, it’s high-time I honor that position and commit to the community as a whole and not give any preferential treatment to my own portfolio.

Therefore, I’m installing a self-imposed cap of no-more-than 5% of any auction’s inventory can be wholly owned, partly owned or even influenced by yours truly.

Part of this has to do with certain competitors saying that my auctions are just designed to sell my own names. While that isn’t true, I won’t lie that it wasn’t a motivating factor getting into the business. It’s just the business is bigger than any one man at this point. It’s time to set the record straight and the playing field even.

Honestly, I probably won’t even use that 5% but I wanted to make sure that people no longer thought that so many of them were mine.

No reserve auction cancelled and CPA Lead Gen auction announced

I’ve been doing some thinking…. Hide the sharp utensils!

Seriously folks, a man has the right to change his mind and the responsibility to admit he’s wrong and explain his decision.

Rather than throw a hastily put together no reserve auction with lousy names that would put up mediocre numbers, we’ve decided to pull it and focus on something bigger and better.

One business that I have a lot of high level contacts in is the CPA / Lead Generation business. It’s also the right time to focus on the industry as PPC revenue is down so much and many domainers are trying various CPA campaigns.

At one point we were going to be holding an online auction in August for nutraceuticals and health care products and one in September for other lead generation things like credit cards, mortgages, insurance and the rest.

We have now decided to scrap everything and combine the efforts of these auctions into one that is worth spending our time on.

We’ll be doing one comprehensive auction August 21st through August 29th for CPA and Lead Generation names. Names related to dieting, cars, credit and the like. All the stuff you get emails about every day!

This allows more time for gathering the submissions and more crucially, more time for us to market the names. I’m dispatching a team to the Affiliate Summit in New York and will put no shortage of effort into this one.

I’ll be putting out more releases on this subject in the coming days but in the meantime, please submit what you have so we can start the evaluation process.

My apologies for changing things on everyone…

Interview with Sabine Dolderer, CEO of DENIC - Germany’s .de ccTLD

Today’s interview is with Sabine Dolderer, the CEO of DENIC which runs Germany’s .de ccTLD.

Most of my readers are well aware that Germany’s extension crushes other ccTLDs in aftermarket sales.

.de names are also the most widely registered ccTLD. .cn names have had a nice run in the last year and might even have more current registrations but they are widely expected to drop in numbers when the renewals come up.

Germany, the 3rd largest economic force in the world behind only The United States and Japan, has over 80 million citizens.

The country has always held a special place in my heart, largely because it just feels more comfortable as an American. Germans show up on time to meetings, eat meat and potatoes and love the Internet. My kind of place!

I’m especially fond of Berlin where the pace of development and business rivals New York City in excitement. This isn’t about me though. It’s about Sabine and the .de ccTLD. Let’s get to it:

RL - Can you please give my readers some background on DENIC? When and how was it formed? How has it changed since then?

Sabine Dolderer - DENIC is the manager of the German top level domain .de. DENIC is a not-for-profit entity conceived and dedicated to serve the interests of its members as well as the German Internet Community.

DENIC in it’s current form as a cooperative was founded in December 1996 as a membership organization by 36 German ISP’s. It was the successor of a loose cooperation of these ISP’s called IV-DENIC (Interessensverbund DENIC) which was established in 1993.

DENIC has now over 15 years of proven, demonstrable experience both operating and growing what has become the one of the largest TLD in the world. DENIC has proven in the .de space an untarnished 100% service delivery record.

Its exceptional technical competence, has gained DENIC great trust and an excellent reputation, not only in Germany but also internationally. With its now more than 250 members, it is strongly involved with the German Internet Community and thus guarantees that it will directly represent the Community’s interests on the national and on the international level.

The story of domain administration in Germany – and hence the story of DENIC – is a story of success. Since the Cooperative was founded in 1996, nearly 13 million domains have been registered, and a stable and fail-proof infrastructure has been set up. Moreover, following a trial phase of some years, DENIC transferred ENUM to production at the beginning of 2006.

DENIC operates and shapes its business environment in close cooperation with its members. In all its efforts it is driven by the ambition to provide an excellent operation its users, to advance the interests of the member and to ensure existing and new foundations for its business. It thus wants to create added value for its members and the German Internet Community.

RL - What is your official title within denic?

Sabine Dolderer - I am the CEO of DENIC and one of the two full-time members of DENIC’s Executive Board. The other full-time member is our CTO Dr. Jörg Schweiger

RL - How many .de names are currently registered?

Sabine Dolderer - 12.865.345 .de-domains are registered. (7 July 2009)

RL - Impressive. During the Targeted TRAFFIC ccTLDs show in Amsterdam this year I asked you a question that we both found fascinating. I had asked you what percentage of .de names contained hyphens/dashes. Can you share with my readers the answer?

Sabine Dolderer - 6.977.259 .de-domains contain a hyphen/dash. (7. July 2009)

RL - It is my understanding that non-German companies and individuals can register .de names but they must appoint a German or someone in Germany to be the administrative contact. Can you share the reasoning behind this policy?

Sabine Dolderer - This rule is directly copied from a similar rule from the German trademark law. The reason is that if trademark or other problems arise a point of contact in Germany exists where third parties – which also are very often in Germany - can go to.

RL - As you surely know, there is a vibrant and active aftermarket for .de names. An official position on the matter would be great but if nothing else, can we have your personal feelings as to the value of premium .de names? Are you happy or proud when you see high-value sales in the press?

Sabine Dolderer - We have seen an active and vital secondary market in Germany since early 2001 and some companies who started their business in Germany are now well-known in that market and good partners to us. As a registry we profit from an active aftermarket as stimulates also the primary registrations and therefore the growth of .de itself.

RL - I’m aware that as a central registry of very sought after names you are fighting a constant battle against drop catchers and automated scripts that hammer your systems relentlessly. I feel for you and respect your position. When we met in Mexico you mentioned various tactics you take to deter these folks and protect the integrity of your systems. Care to share any of that information with us here?

Sabine Dolderer - DENIC’s position to the market and the different player is neutral and our aim is to serve the community as a whole. While we acknowledge that different users of our services have different needs and often a legitimate interest to use our service in different ways we also see some power user - as you mention - who dominate with their usage scenarios a significant part of our services. To protect and maintain the service for “normal” usage scenarios our aim is to find a balance between the different needs. To address the needs of our power user we are currently working on a new service to provide them with extra or additional service through registrars. As we are currently still in the evaluation phase the modalities are not yet set, but we work in close cooperation with our members to find attractive models which benefit the different needs of our users.

RL - Germany, the 3rd largest economic force in the world has recently had its domain extension eclipsed by .cn (China). It’s my opinion that we will see massive droppings of .cn names as they come up for renewal. I believe that the low initial prices resulted in a wave of registrations that can’t be maintained, at least not yet. What are your thoughts?

Sabine Dolderer - Unfortunately I have not enough knowledge and information about the Chinese market to give a serious prediction. But reviewing the results of various price promotions from different registries, I tend to share your analysis that price promotions do not very often result in long term registrations.

RL - You are widely known and respected in the ccTLD community for all you have done over the years and how well the .de registry is run. I thank you for taking the time to talk with me today. Are there any last thoughts you would like to share? Is denic planning on doing anything interesting in the future that we can look forward to?

Sabine Dolderer - We have currently three main issues we are working on. First the implementation of our new transfer policy which is currently underway and will be finished in January 2010, another main issue is a complete rework of our nameserver infrastructure which we started January this year. This project will take us 2 years and the result will be a modern and flexible nameserver infrastructure combined with a significant increase of DNS capacity. And last but not least we have started a testbed for DNSSEC which will give us and our community the chance to test DNSSEC in a production environment.

Our NO RESERVE online auction starts Thursday - Room is left for submissions

Summer slow down got you down? It’s hot out there if you are in the northern hemisphere. That’s why we are throwing our domain stimulous package in the form of a no reserve auction.

We are running the best 100 names that get submitted. There won’t be 101 names or more in the auction.

We still have room left, in fact, we’ll have room left up until the very start of the auction. If a better name gets submitted, the worst name drops out.

The auction will last one week and it starts Thursday so submit your names!!

An interview with the people behind .fr AFNIC- France’s ccTLD

I’m proud to have completed an interview with Loic Damilaville of AFNIC the organization behind .fr, France’s ccTLD.

France is the largest country in the European Union and the fifth largest economy in the world as judged by GDP. With a population of over 65 million people it isn’t to be ignored.

More and more we are seeing five digit sales of .fr names reported and occasional six digit sales. The aftermarket has by and large lagged behind its more powerful neighbor .de (Germany) but is poised to give it a run for the money.

It’s my personal belief that we will see rapid growth in sales in this extension in the next year or two.

Let’s get on with the interview.

RL - What is your full name and title with AFNIC?

Loic Damilaville - Loic Damilaville, deputy CEO, in charge of marketing & communication

RL - Can you please give us a brief history of AFNIC? Was it started by a university? Government?

Loic Damilaville - AFNIC was born in December 1997. It was created by the INRIA, aka French National Research Institute on Computer Science, which was running .fr since 1986. AFNIC is a not-for profit, multistakeholder organization. That’s why you find some government representatives in its board, but also registrars representatives and users representatives.

RL - Approximately how many .fr names are registered?

Loic Damilaville - We should reach 1.5 million this summer.

RL - Can IDNs be registered under the .fr extension?

Loic Damilaville - Not for the time being

RL - It’s commonly known in the domain community that the French can be litigious and that lawsuits over trademarks happen more frequently than in other countries. My audience wants to stay out of trouble. Can you please describe AFNIC’s process for disputes?

Loic Damilaville - Our website provides some useful information here:
http://www.afnic.fr/doc/ref_en. .FR registrants are to be “identified” when they are companies, that is to say, AFNIC’s team checks that they are companies registered in France or owning a trademark registered in France. Individuals have to be 18 years old or more and must have a valid postal address in France. AFNIC checks regularly that the whois data are reliable and correct, from its own or if third parties ask it to proceed.

There is basically a “FR DRP” which is called “PARL” and is managed by WIPO. Some requests are also sent to us directly when the trademark owner, for instance, thinks that he may get its domain back thanks to a law passed in February 2007. This is the “PREDEC” process.

RL - What affect, if any, do you think new gTLDs like .france, .paris and the like will have on .fr registrations? Most people in the community expect ICANN to approve extensions like .paris, do you think they will get away with extensions like .france which could be competitive?

Loic Damilaville - I wonder if the french government will allow the creation of a “.france” which would be identical with the country’s name… As for the other geographical TLDs like cityTLDs or regional/cultural TLDs, we at AFNIC think that they will be some new opportunities to communicate on the internet but more allies than foes for .FR. For instance, .FR enjoys a very strong development since 2004, strenghtened in 2006 with the opening to individuals, although .EU has been introduced in April 2006. .EU could have been considered as a competitor for .FR but actualy it has helped the market to grow on a global scale, since french people became more aware about domain names.

RL - How long are .fr names expired for, before they are deleted and available for registration?

Loic Damilaville - .fr remains 30 days on a “redemption” status and are then deleted and available for registration

RL - Does AFNIC publish a list of expiring domains?

Loic Damilaville - No and we do not intend to do that.

RL - What’s involved in transferring a .fr name? Do you use the auth code method or is paperwork required?

Loic Damilaville - We use the auth code method for the online process. If the registrant fails to give his greenlight by email to the transfer then we switch to the paper procedure. (fax)

RL - Most of our audience would love to own premium .fr names. We are aware that a French presence is required. Any plans onvloosening this restriction?

Loic Damilaville - A french presence is not required if you already own a trademark registered in France through INPI. That’s why some 4% of .fr registrants are not based in France. We have no formal plans to loosen this restriction but are considering that the opening of .fr to European companies and individuals may happen in a medium term.

Interview with Hiro Hotta, Director of Corporate Planning for the .jp and .co.jp extensions of Japan’s ccTLD

One of the most successful of the ccTLDs and also the most mysterious is Japan’s .jp.

Japan as the second largest economy in the world seems like quite an opportunity. However, you need to know Japan and preferably Japanese before you jump into the game.

I’ve been there many times and the country to me has always come across as one of the most self-contained societies in the world. According to Wikipedia 98.5% of the people there are in the Japanese ethnic group. That’s amazing considering the amount of business that is done there.

However, as the Asian crisis years back proved their economy is anything but self-contained. They are very much a part of the global web.

They have the money and the entrepreneurial spirit to be buyers of names. If only domainers could figure out how to tap the market. Hopefully, these questions can help demystify it a bit.

RL - Let’s start with the basics. Please share your name and title.

Hiro Hotta - My name is Hiro Hotta and I am the Director of Corporate Planning.

RL - Can you please give us a brief history on the origin of jpnic and the Japan Registry service?

Hiro Hotta - Management and administration of .JP top-level domain was carried out by the public organization JPNIC (Japan Network Information Center), with the recognition of the government ministries, as well as with ICANN (The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers), which globally coordinates Internet resource related activities.

However, regarding the management and administration of the .JP top-level domain, where environmental changes are drastic and the service is expected to be fair and efficient, it became necessary to transfer these responsibilities to a private company, in order to satisfy the needs of customers and maintain competitiveness and openness.

In light of this, at the 11th General Meeting of JPNIC held in December 2000, it was decided to create a new corporation that would succeed management and administration of the .JP top-level domain. Based on this resolution, Japan Registry Services Co., Ltd. (JPRS) was established.

JPRS succeeded the responsibility upon receiving formal recognition from ICANN. After much study and discussion about the transfer, on November 9, 2001, the Memorandum for the Transfer of Management and Administration of the .JP Top Level Domain was executed.

Operations were transferred on April 1, 2002 upon the formal approval of JPRS as an organization responsible for managing and administering .JP top-level domain through the “JP Domain Name Management and Administration Transfer Agreement” executed between JPRS and JPNIC on January 31, 2002 and the “ccTLD Sponsorship Agreement (.jp)” executed on February 27, 2002 between JPRS and ICANN.

RL -  Approximately how many names under .jp are registered including .co.jp and other extensions?

Hiro Hotta - 1,100,000

You can see stats here

RL - Which is more popular in Japan? Is .jp more popular than .co.jp? Do you see this changing in the future?

Hiro Hotta - 700,000 .jp and 330,000 .co.jp. .jp is growing steeper than .co.jp

RL - On a recent trip to Japan I didn’t see very many IDN.jp names on advertisements. Do you think the public is aware that these names are possible to own or type in? What are your thoughts on what can be done to promote them?

Hiro Hotta - Your observation is fair. We seldom see IDNs in ad, while some ads on magazines use IDNs. It seems still many people don’t know IDNs. Our sales persons are trying to attach IDNs to famous goods for IDN promotion

RL - Many domainers expect that IDN.IDN names will be the future in Asian countries. After all, why would a Japanese person want to even enter the .jp in their browser if they don’t need to? What are your thoughts?

Hiro Hotta - Maybe there is a difference between China and Japan. Japanese people see a bunch of ASCII letters in their everyday lives. So, I don’t think .IDN can make much difference in its popularity from .jp  In addition, search engine is very popular in Japan and people seldom types-in URLs in browser address bar. This makes the difference of TLD extension more obsolete.

RL - Is it correct that if the Japan Registry Service gets .日本 (Japan in Japanese) that this new extension will be regulated by ICANN where .jp is currently independent of the organization? Would .日本 technically be a new gTLD extension by ICANN’s guidelines and not a ccTLD at all?

Hiro Hotta - There may be misunderstanding, here. JPRS has a formal agreement with ICANN regarding .jp.  More specifically, JPRS have got a .jp delegation from ICANN based on a formal agreement. Wrt. .日本, it’s going to be a new ccTLD under the framework of “IDN ccTLD Fast Track” being discussed in ICANN arena.

RL - Thanks for explaining that. What’s involved in transferring a .jp name from one owner to another? Do you use the auth code format or is there paperwork required?

Hiro Hotta - We don’t use authcode. A gaining registrar kicks off the transfer scenario by letting JPRS know “owner of domain A wants to move to me.” Then, JPRS asks the losing registrar whether it approves or not. If the losing registrar approves the transfer or keeps silent for a specific while, domain A is transferred. This means, JPRS believes what registrars say - and almost no problems have occurred so far. No paperwork needed in transfer scenario.

RL - Do you publish or support an expiring domains list for people that play the drop market?

Hiro Hotta - No

RL - How long are .jp names expired before you delete them from your system for others to register?

Hiro Hotta - 1 month for .jp and 6 months for .co.jp

Interview with NIC Mexico (.mx/.com.mx) General Director Oscar A Robles-Garay

Over the past year I’ve done increasingly large amounts of business with NIC Mexico. Perhaps its my fondness to the country itself which motivates me. I’d like to think my reasons are more shrewd than that.

The country has over 110 million people in it, predominately under the age of 35. As we all know, it shares a large boarder with the United States.

Speaking of the United States, did you know that it is one of the only countries in the world without an official national language? English is only the de facto language used by government. By 2030 Spanish will be the most dominant language in the country, at which point that southern boarder of ours will start to blur. <–Only that last part is my opinion, the rest is fact.

In my continuing quest to interview executives at all of the world’s ccTLDs I’ve reached out to NIC Mexico’s leader Oscar A Robles-Garay.

I hope you get something out of this. Here we go.

RL - Please tell my readers and I a little bit about the history of nic.mx. When did it start? How did it start?

Oscar A Robles-Garay - NIC Mexico was created on February 1st of 1989, when the Technological Institute of Advanced Studies of Monterrey (ITESM), in Monterrey, Mexico, established direct connection to the network. On October of 1995, ITESM made the official announcement of Network Information Center for México launch. This fact formalized the work that it was being developed since 1989.
Since February 1st of 1989 (date in which the .MX was created), the registration of .MX domain names under the first level were restricted, only to be used by universities and other education institutions. Later on 1996 the registration directly under the .MX TLD was closed. Remaining only available for .MX domain names the following extensions: .COM.MX, GOB.MX, EDU.MX, ORG.MX and .NET.MX.
NIC Mexico along its 20 years of history has been making different efforts to give more users the opportunity to promote their ideas, business and culture, through .MX domain names; in order to fulfill the mission to place the name of Mexico on the Internet. Right now, we are reopening .MX TLD!

RL - What is your official title in the organization?

Oscar A Robles-Garay - General Director of Network Information Center México, S. C. (NIC México)

RL - What restrictions if any do you have on foreigners and foreign companies that want to register names under your extension?

Oscar A Robles-Garay - There are not restrictions for domains .com.mx and .mx (in the later case it will be fully opened after September 1st.)

RL - How many total .com.mx and .mx names do you have registered currently?

Oscar A Robles-Garay - .com.mx 269,647  - .mx 26,089

RL - Recently you launched .mx. In fact, it is still in its sunrise period. How is that going for you so far?

Oscar A Robles-Garay - Right now it’s running the last month of the Sunrise Period. Fortunately, until this moment I can say it has been a great response for domain name registrations directly under .MX. Indeed, we are expecting to have a greater effect in this month.

RL - When we were in Sydney you hinted that you may extend the sunrise period. Have you made a decision on this point yet? If so, can you share why you made that decision?

Oscar A Robles-Garay - We don’t have the final decision yet. But we think it won’t be necessary to modify the original plan for the .MX Reopening Process.

RL - In the past you have offered specials. For instance in June you are offering $11 off of new registrations of .mx names. Can we get any hints to specials that may be offered in the near future?

Oscar A Robles-Garay - During July, NIC México Registrar rewards the loyalty of .MX domain name users offering them $7 USD off on new domain name registrations directly under .MX. Beyond this, there aren’t price promotions considered for 2009. We are working closely with our Accredited Registrars, and they are the ones who at the end of the day will be making the price promotions. So we look forward to let you know when one of our more that 170 Registrars starts one offer.

RL - Do you have any plans to offer nic.mx in English? Many think it would get you additional registrations.

Oscar A Robles-Garay - In fact, it’s coming soon the English version of www.registry.mx , and later on www.nic.mx.

RL - Since most of my audience trades names on the aftermarket, can you share your thoughts on more controversial subjects like domain tasting?

Oscar A Robles-Garay - Our systems allow our Registrar’s customers to do domain tasting, it is up to each registrar to implement this practice or not. In any case we aim to prevent abuse in the domain tasting use, so we ask our registrars to pay a minimum amount of requested registrations.

RL - What does nic.mx do with expired domains? Do you just let them delete? Any plans to publish a list?

Oscar A Robles-Garay - Currently expired domains are eliminated. We have the intention to publish them pretty soon on www.registry.mx, but there is no due date to start it.

RL - Thanks for taking the time to answer these questions. If you have any closing thoughts, say them here.

Oscar A Robles-Garay - Just to emphasize that domain name registrations directly under .MX will be available for general public as of September 1st, 2009.

The .CM auction is here and now - Inventory with reserves inside. Auction ends in a few days

Atlanta, Georgia USA – July 8, 2009 – The Rick Latona Auctions premium .cm domain name sale has started.  The final list of 46 domain names includes names with reserve prices as low as 1,000 USD.  These names are not included in the regular landrush or open registration and are only available at this auction.  Register now at www.proxibid.com/ricklatona.

Bidding will will end on July 14 at 8:00pm EDT/ 5:00pm PDT.  The dates and times of this auction coincide with the Netcom.cm landrush.  The second that this auction is over, the Netcom.cm Sarl landrush starts.  For more details, the official site for the launch is http://register.cm.

Some details of the landrush directly from the Netcom.cm Sarl website: The sunrise period will be followed by a landrush period starting on 15th July 2009, 0:00:01 UTC and ending on 31st July 2009, 0:00:01 UTC. There are no special requirements for the landrush period. In case there is more than one application per domain, the domain will go into an auction system. The auctions will be held shortly after the end of the landrush period. Further details about the auction system will be available shortly at http://register.cm.  Minimum registration during landrush period is 2 years.

These are the 46 domain names being offered at auction starting today and ending on July 14:
Domain Names with reserves:
cars.cm
$20,000
casino.cm
$20,000
poker.cm
$20,000
creditcards.cm
$10,000
jobs.cm
$10,000
drugs.cm
$5,000
drugstore.cm
$5,000
forex.cm
$5,000
games.cm
$5,000
jeux.cm
$5,000
juegos.cm
$5,000
loan.cm
$5,000
shopping.cm
$5,000
401k.cm
$1,000
aaa.cm
$1,000
abc.cm
$1,000
academy.cm
$1,000
ae.cm
$1,000
apartmentguide.cm
$1,000
australia.cm
$1,000
billboard.cm
$1,000
bodybuilding.cm
$1,000
boston.cm
$1,000
budget.cm
$1,000
buy.cm
$1,000
canada.cm
$1,000
coach.cm
$1,000
cupid.cm
$1,000
date.cm
$1,000
digitalcameras.cm
$1,000
elsalvador.cm
$1,000
fling.cm
$1,000
forrent.cm
$1,000
gap.cm
$1,000
gateway.cm
$1,000
guess.cm
$1,000
gunbroker.cm
$1,000
king.cm
$1,000
lasvegas.cm
$1,000
launch.cm
$1,000
maps.cm
$1,000
musica.cm
$1,000
nick.cm
$1,000
playboy.cm
$1,000
switchboard.cm
$1,000
virgin.cm
$1,000

Register now at www.proxibid.com/ricklatona.  Bidding has already started.

All registration and technical questions regarding Proxibid registration and bidding can be answered by calling toll free 877.505.7770 from inside the US or +1.402.505.7770 from outside the US.