Verizon to Sell and Release Up To 100,000 Domains

2008 November 4
by MHB

According ot FariWinds Partners Press Release,  FairWinds Partners, a member of CADNA, has been working with Verizon Communications to develop and implement an innovative approach to optimizing Verizon’s domain portfolio.

“”"”Verizon’s domain name portfolio strategy has enabled cuts of over $1.1million in unnecessary spending while at the same time increasing incoming revenue and the overall strength of the brand. Verizon and FairWinds worked together to halt the wasteful registration of domains which offered little or no value to the company. It is estimated that it would have cost Verizon$725,000 over the next two years to maintain the unproductive domain names it cut from its portfolio.”"”"

“”"”In the past, domains that generated little traffic, including some that were hugely expensive to maintain over time, were added to the portfolio”"”" said Sarah Deutsch, Vice President & Associate General Counsel of Verizon Communications.

“”"Moving forward, we are making a concerted effort to be vigilant in our efforts to create a targeted and effective portfolio.”"”

In addition to the cuts made to the portfolio, the two companies together identified unbranded domains owned by Verizon that were not critical to Verizon’s online strategy and may be desirable to other companies. As a result of these efforts, Verizon can now broker these unneeded domains to third parties to produce as much as $2 million in new cash which can be applied to other areas of the business or returned to shareholders.

These savings highlight important ways in which other companies can retool their domain name program to increase brand visibility, cut wasteful expenditures and identify new sources of revenue. Verizon will be able to bring in approximately 3 million new visitors for its Web sites with its new strategy, often by redirecting domains in order to provide customers with expected content.

“We want to make sure that our customers get to where they want to be on the first try,” said Brian Price, Executive Director of Verizon’s Online Center of Excellence. This provides a better experience for customers and benefits the company as well. “The top ten domains that we redirected have garnered a quarter of a million visitors and over 1K sales in the last six weeks alone.”

Interesting that a company like Verizon, another member of CADNA, need help to anaylsis what domains they need to keep.

Verizon did not say how they plan on selling these domains.

Based of its “savings” of $725,000 we can assume that they are selling or releasing 100,000 domains or if they are paying top dollar for their domains of $35 per year, they would be selling or releasing over 20,000 domains.

Anyway you look at it, that is a lot of domains

Also I wonder if any “trademark” infringing” domains, are going to be released in the cost savings measure and if so I further question whether the legal costs of then regaining those domains, that make no money but which Verizon will chase down has been taken into account.

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21 Responses leave one →
  1. 2008 November 4

    Thank you MHB this is definitely one to watch rather than snipe at. Will this define the real value of the cream in the tsunami of milk ?

  2. 2008 November 4
    MHB permalink

    Trying to find out more details

  3. 2008 November 4
    jim joystone permalink

    Yeah right. After stealing them from domainers under the guise of TM violations, they are now going to sell. CADNA and Fairwinds two-faced whores with ONE agenda.

  4. 2008 November 4

    100k domains?? must be a typo… I didn’t even know they owned so many…WOW!

  5. 2008 November 4

    …er, um…perchance Tucows could sell them for Verizon…well; except for the ones they decide to keep for themselves, of course…

  6. 2008 November 4
    MHB permalink

    Mike

    Not a typo.

    They said they are saving $725K so my math that is around 100,000 domains at normal renewal fees but I pointed out It could be as low as 20,000 domains if they are paying $35 a year.

  7. 2008 November 4

    Lets see what domain names they are on about.

    LOL

  8. 2008 November 5
    Dma permalink

    How did VZ get all these names? They can;t all be from trademark lawsuits, can they? Selling them dilutes their trademark and letting them go will add on legal bills as soon as someone else registers them

  9. 2008 November 5

    Sounds like it is a load of gerbil shit.

  10. 2008 November 5

    What I think is hilarious is that if they release these domains, and do so in such a public manner, what US court would ever allow them to win a case in which they knowingly sold a domain to someone then sued them to get it back?

  11. 2008 November 5
    MHB permalink

    Chart

    I believe there are many cases where a former owner of a domain, lost the domain, and sued to get it back under a WIPO action and the panel gave it to the TM.

  12. 2008 November 5
    joe permalink

    They’re probably going to drop their own trademarked domains and just sue anyone that registers them. These bigger brands don’t want to have to register thier trademarked terms in every new tld when one comes out.

    Or, they are going to create .ver or .vzn, or something like that. That’s my bet.

  13. 2008 November 5

    This is a great opportunity to pick up a couple premium domains. Let’s not be negative and bad mouth large corporations, instead lets take full advantage of this opportunity. How do we obtain the list of domains?

    Best,

    Jacob N. Nojoumi
    http://www.edendomains.com

  14. 2008 November 5
    MHB permalink

    Jacob

    I have requested the list

  15. 2008 November 5
    MHB permalink

    UPDATE

    Having talked to Fairwinds they said there are not 100,000 domains being released or sold.

    There is a significant number but well lower than 100,000 due to their higher registration costs.

    They also confirmed that they will not be dropping any “trademark infringing domains”.

    They do have some good generic domains available and I am working on getting a list of these.

  16. 2008 November 5

    I would be interested in this list as well.

  17. 2008 November 5
    MHB permalink

    To all

    If and when I get the list I will publish it

  18. 2008 November 5

    Thanks MHB for keeping us on top of it. This is going to be very interesting!!!
    Thanks again!!!

  19. 2008 November 5

    Can anyone find more info on this:
    http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122583938093998683.html

    thanks..

  20. 2008 November 6

    MHB-

    Thank you for your reply and for looking into this list. I think there should be more than enough to go around for everyone. I can’t wait to hear back…

    I have been trying to negotiate on premium domains, but people aren’t willing to negotiate price point. Domainers need to realize that they should NOT be emotionally attached to domains. It’s business not personal.

    Thanks again,

    Jacob N. Nojoumi
    http://www.edendomains.com

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