For the fourth time in the past five weeks, .org held the upper hand on our Global Contenders chart. The extension claimed the top two spots and shared the third with a trio of domains that included that blockbuster $50,249 sale of Boats.org at SnapNames (the highest .org sale reported so far in 2006). You've already seen the top three .orgs on our all-extension leader board. Overall, .org has six names on the new GC list including #6 Registration.org at $7,877.

This was also .info's best week of the year. That TLD racked up 7 chart entries, including Detroit.info at $10,000 (tied for 3rd) and #7 Manhattan.info at $5,356. This is the third time Manhattan.info has changed hands in the past 12 months. The domain first sold for $1,300 at Sedo in September 2005. In December 2005, it was resold for $4,500 (also at Sedo). The latest transaction was handled by Moniker.com/DomainSystems.com. 

.Net also had 7 charted domains this week, led by #5 VQ.net, sold for $8,008 at Moniker. 

The non .com global TLDs have enjoyed good health this year, but a grave threat is hanging over the .org, .info and .biz extensions. In the face of overwhelming opposition during a 30-day public comment period that ended August 28, ICANN is considering extremely dangerous new contracts for those TLDs that would eliminate all price protection for registrants. These reckless one-sided deals would allow registries to charge any price they want for registrations and renewals - including different prices for different domains if they so choose.

If the contracts are approved when ICANN meets to make a decision Thursday (Sept. 7), we believe people will stop developing .org, .info and .biz domains because any work they do could very well be lost due to exorbitant renewal fees. Due to ICANN's failure to negotiate a price to be paid for services rendered monopoly registries could be given the power to determine whether or not your Internet enterprise will have a future. 

No sane businessman would sign a store lease that allowed the landlord to charge anything they wanted for rent, but that is exactly what ICANN proposes to allow here. In the short term new registrants can, and almost certainly will, avoid .org, .info and .biz, but that will be just a "quick fix". You can bet that if this is allowed to stand, Verisign will demand the same "privileges" the next time the .com and .net contracts come up for renewal. 

Though time is growing short, Americans can still make their voice heard by going to Congress.org where you can enter you zip code in the box in the upper left corner. This will bring up direct email links to your Congressmen so you can let them know you want them to take action to prevent this debacle . We also urge domain owners around the world to take a moment to sign the online petition to the entire U.S. Congress at BadForBusiness.org. Your online future is literally on the line.

Now back to more pleasant matters. Here's the complete Global Contenders chart for the week ending September 3:

There were 13 more four-figure sales off the chart and SnapNames accounted for nearly half of those. They sold Jeukmic.org and FOF.org for $1,310 each and Bitheway.org for $1,250. IUMS2005.org added $1,076, while StudentAspirations.org and InteractiveHQ.org generated $1,050 each.

At Sedo, HandbagHeaven.net notched $1,288, Committee.info captured €1,000 ($1,282), DLife.org drew $1,200 and CommercialMortgage.org banked $1,000. At Afternic, Ambitions.biz brought $1,250 while Skins.net and HMM.info fetched $1,200 each.

Country Codes

Poland (.pl) and Russia (.ru) form an unlikely pair that sits on top of this week's Country Code chart. Girl.pl reigns at #1 after attracting €6,500 ($8,332) at Sedo. Soup.ru tied for the runner-up slot after slurping down €5,000 ($6,409) at the same venue. Internet-Poker.de shared the #2 position and helped Germany's country rack up five chart entries, more than any other country.

The European Union's .eu and Great Britain's .co.uk each had two charted domains. Senioren.eu ("seniors" in German) led the way for the European Union, going for €4,100 ($5,255) at Sedo, a venue that accounted for all but one of the sales on this week's ccTLD leader board. The top British domain was SuperModel.co.uk, sold for $2,093 at Moniker/DomainSystems.

Here's a look at the complete Country Code chart for the week ending September 3:

Now that you're up to date on what happened over the past week, check out how the leaders stand year to date in all categories by visiting our Year To Date Charts page.

*****

As always, we welcome all verifiable sales reports from companies, private sellers or individuals with knowledge of an important sale made through any channel. To contribute information and help make this column better,  just drop a note to [email protected].

We truly appreciate the industry leading companies who share their sales information with us to help everyone in the business get a handle on current domain values. Richard Meyer of DotCom Group, LLC also provides invaluable help in collecting data for these sales reports each week.

Every Tuesday we publish the highest reported domain name sales for the previous week. On Monday our contributors send us their sales data for the previous 7 days. We then compile that information and write this report for Tuesday night publication to give you the freshest sales report in the industry. 

Editor's Note: If you wish to review previous Domain Sales columns, they are available in our Archive.