I answered that government action or over reaction to attempt to deal with trademark infringement issues was the biggest issue we face as an industry.

Looking toward 2008 I believe that the trademark issues still are the biggest threat.

Here are some domains that are dropping today which already have multiple backorders at namejet.com:

bankofamericanonline.com

geraldrford.com

dienychannel.com

directvoffer.com

jessicasimpsen.com

sprintbill.com

verizonaccount.com

disenchannel.com

diseychannal.com

forbsmagazine.com

hondarepairs.com

nbadunks.com

nbarosters.com

armaniaexchange.com

atvhonda.com

briteneyspears.com

countrywidemorgtages.com

directtvemployment.com

customercountrywidebank.com

You have to be kidding me.

Completely indefensible, ridiculous, just lawsuits waiting to happen.

According to Ron Jackson’s Publication the 20th biggest sale of last week was

Wikipeadia.com with a sales price of $9,400 at pool.com

Horrible for the industry

Keep doing it and you will see what congress and the courts do. It won’t be pretty and it won’t just effect what we would consider the obvious abusive names. In 2007 an organization was formed by trademark holders “dedicated to ending the systemic domain name abuse”. They are well funded. They will be relentless in getting something done in 2008.

What is going to be there approach, no guesswork here, it states it right on their site:

“Lobby the relevant agencies of jurisdiction in the United States government, and actively communicate with members of Congress”.

What we as an industry need to do:

1. Do NOT register, backorder, or participate in any auction containing these types of domains.

They are poison.

Not just to you, but everyone in this industry.

2. The drop services have to stop taking backorders for these obvious trademark infringing names.

Pool.com, and Namejet, not only take the orders, they basically advertise them on the front of their sites everyday, as one of the most active backorders.

Pool.com send out an e-mail with these types on names on it inviting further backordering.

Shame on those who backorder them.

Same on those who allow it to happen, and facilitate the transfer of these infringing domains.

3. Stop domain tasting.

It’s a loser. It’s an industry killer. It’s taking the short money in a long term business.

We have never domain tasted. I don’t think we have ever used the five day grace period for any domain.

There is enough money to be made in this business without engaging in this conduct.…

If never ceases to amaze me that Madison Avenue doesn’t get the fact that web advertising can be the most well tracked advertising they can buy, much more so than television and radio.

On the face of it I’m a television advertisers dream. I watch 5-6 hours of television every day. In actuality I’m an advertiser’s nightmare. I haven’t seen a commercial in three years. I have DirecTV, Hi Def, and TiVo System. I don’t watch any shows live (except for football, usually flipping around there too), and fast forward through all the commercials. Even if I’m home at 8pm and want to watch a show, I wait until 8:15 to start so I can get through the show without seeing any commercials.

Here’s the best part, within the past two years we were selected and served as a Nielsen Household. So “American Idol” got credit for us watching, so did “24″, so did “Desperate Housewives”, as did all the shows we watch. But we never watched a commercial. Not a one.

How much value did the advertisers get from us? Nothing, None, Zip, Zero.

They paid for our eyeballs but we weren’t watching

How about all the people that go to the bathroom or get a snack or make a quick call during the commercials. How about people that actually have a conversation with someone in the room about what they just saw, or get up to have a smoke.

How many people just keep the television on for noise, barely paying attention to the program much less the commercials?

What percentage of the viewers of a particular show actually sees the commercials? No one knows that. They certainly can’t tell you have many people bought a Ford because of the ad someone just saw or went to a dealer showroom to even look.

How about radio, they try to measure how many people are listening to a radio station. One common method is for selected listener’s to keep a log of what they listen to, when and for how long each day.…

There’s a lot of domains out there.

Here’s the math:

Today according to pool.com there are 56,250 domains dropping.

Over at Namejet.com there are over 7,000 names in pre-release for Networksolutions.com, Enom.com and its registrar partners. Backorder a name, if your the only one who does, you get it for $70.

At Snapnames.com there are 8,697 domains exclusive to Snapnames going, starting at $59 and up to $99 if your the only one who orders the name you get it.

At TDNAM.com there are approximately 10,000 expired domains registered by the Godaddy.com group of registrars, going at auction, starting at $10, plus registration fees.

That is 86,000 expired and dropping names TODAY.

Don’t like any of those, tomorrow there will be another set of approximately the same amount. Then the next day and the day after that. Everyday including Christmas and New Years 365 days a year.  TDNAM.com has almost 115,000 expired names in the next ten days.

Our company used to go through the dropping domains list every day. 365 days a year for years and years.

Today we no longer have the time to do it (or the energy).

I know we are not alone. Many of the big domain owners stopped going through these lists a while ago.

That leaves room for you. A lot of room.

Go to work …

The sites of Various, have a combined membership of 250 million people and 1.2 million paid members. The combined revenue for 2007 is expected to be $340 million.…