The Internet Commerce Association has already filed a detailed objection to the .ORG contract proposal with ICANN (the oversight body that governs the domain name system). To gauge community sentiment on this issue, ICANN opened a public comment period allowing all interest parties to weigh in on the proposal themselves. This is something all 

domain name registrants should do and the ICA has made it easy for you by creating this comment submission form. The key point to be aware of now is that time is of the essence as the comment period ends at 23:59 UTC on Monday, April 29. That is 7:59PM U.S. Eastern Time (4:59PM Pacific).  You can also access the comment form from the ICA's Facebook page, their Twitter feed and their LinkedIn page. 

The first word we got on the auDA decision came in a press release issued by the ICA this morning. It noted that auDA concluded, "the warehousing prohibition appears to disproportionately target domain investors, as the licence portfolios or holdings of trademark and brand owners will be excluded under the Policy Review Panel (PRP) proposal.  

This proposal elevates the rights of trademark and other intellectual property owners over other licence holders in the .au domain, which may give rise to issues of market power and anti-competitive practices. auDA management accordingly does not support the PRP recommendation for a resale and warehousing prohibition."

All domain investors owe a debt of gratitude to the ICA and all others who stood up in opposition to this encroachment on the rights of domain investors and entrepreneurs. They represent a significant portion of  domain registrants worldwide and should have the same standing as anyone else who chooses to invest their faith and money in the long term value of domain names.

Simon Johnson

Veteran Australian entrepreneur and domain investor Simon Johnson, who served as Chairman of the AuDA Board's Security and Risk Committee until resigning in 2017, is among the well-known figures who have taken a firm stand against AuDA's proposal. Johnson told us the Australian Internet industry must be defended and there is still time to act. "Given that Directors need to exercise due care and diligence, for auDA to retrospectively go back and delete domain names from Australian businesses, does more harm than good," Johnson said. "As such, I don’t believe it would be in the interests of the organisation for the auDA Board to accept the recommendations in the PRP report.”

The Internet Commerce Association (ICA) also issued their own strong objections to the AuDA proposal in a nine-page letter sent to AuDA's Policy Review Panel Tuesday (April 9). The letter written by ICA Legal Counsel Zak Muscovitch noted, "Whether in land, a catalogue of Beatles songs,or domain names, investing in assets is a natural by-product of a free and open market. Domain registrants use and risk their own money to lawfully purchase generic and descriptive domain names on a first-come, first-served basis and from prior owners a nd should have the right to do so. Domain name investors range from an at-home mom making a casual investment in a handful of names to professional domain name investors who spend substantial money and efforts on building a portfolio and marketing it to the public. Such business activities involving domain names are entirely legal, expected, and natural. Indeed, Australia is the only country that we are aware of that has such restrictive policies when it comes to domain names."

Muscovitch added, "The attempt to stamp out domain investing will create a multitude of unintended collateral harms. The effort will either be ineffective or will entrap those who are not primarily domain investors in an overly 

ICA Legal Counsel Zak Muscovitch

broad net. The supposed harms the policy is attempting to address are largely illusory while the actual harm created by the proposed policies, if enacted, will be deep and widespread."

The matters he has brought to light left many encouraging him to start his own blog so he would have full control of an important "soap box" and have room for more in-depth commentary that Twitter's 240-character limit allows. Kirikos has finally heeded that call by launching his new blog on one of his marquee domains - one perfect for this application - FreeSpeech.com. In his first post on April 5, 2019, he discussed some of his background and his plans for the new site. 

Not surprisingly, ICANN quickly became the hottest topic on FreeSpeech.com when they banned Kirikos from membership on any of their working groups shortly after his blog was launched (for the past three years, George has been a member of ICANN's RPM PDP working group, which is chartered to review ICANN’s UDRP and other policies that affect domain name registrants). That move came shortly after Kirikos had revealed in an earlier post the same day that his position was being threatened due to his critical commentary.

With respect to value, another interesting point of reference from the media world (this one from just two weeks ago) came from the announcement that the Nexstar Media Group was selling 19 of its local TV stations to Tegna for $1.32 billion - 66 times more than this portfolio of 20 city domain names is being shopped for. Yes, the TV stations are developed businesses but each one broadcasts to a very limited geographic area. Every developed domain has a global reach and can offer all forms of media including print, audio and video at once - making the potential of each property essentially unlimited. Developed city domains also have an excellent track record in producing revenue. This article noted that Boston.com generated over $44 million in digital ad revenue in 2012 alone.

Fred Mercaldo, CEO and Founder of Scottsdale-based Geocentric Media, told us, “This portfolio gives a buyer an incredible footprint of digital assets on much sought-after pure City branded domain names. These domains provide an unprecedented opportunity to acquire a portfolio of this breadth and magnitude. As the future of news, travel and tourism bookings, real estate, and content goes digital at breakneck speed, this portfolio represents a unique opportunity to acquire a significant group of domain names in one single acquisition."

Mercaldo added, “The high value of local and hyper-local news and content that each City .com can generate has been long described as ‘oceanfront real estate’ because these pure City brands in each marketplace can be positioned to serve large audiences for future generations to come. The credibility, natural type-in traffic and the allure of residents to ‘support and buy local’, combined

Fred Mercaldo
CEO & Founder
Geocentric MEdia

with the travel and tourism potential as well as the potential for Real Estate transactions makes this portfolio a very attractive acquisition target for a savvy buyer. As the inevitable transition to digital news and media is happening, whoever has the best brand names will prove to be the big winners." 

The cities in this portfolio represent the following cumulative demographics, population, tourism dollars, real estate market size, and immediate, organic reach: 

• Population:  81,000,000

• Annual Tourists:  300,000,000

• Annual Tourism Financial Impact:  $90,000,000,000

• Residential Real Estate Sales:  $2,000,000,000,000+  (Trillion)

Mercaldo, a widely-known domain investor/developer who also founded Scottsdale.com, cited two other successful domain industry veterans, Peter Niederman of Denver.com (and former owner of Kentwood Real Estate in Denver) and Ammar Kubba, (Thought Convergence, afterTHOUGHT and DomainTools.com) for their advice and support in putting this portfolio together and bringing it to market. 

Niederman noted, “These City brands in the right hands are invaluable, and this portfolio is really priceless.  I experienced first hand what Denver.com could produce.  Fred has assembled this portfolio at the right time, place, and price point.” 

Kubba added, "This portfolio that Fred has assembled is unprecedented in terms of the reach and influence afforded by these domain assets. For the right buyer with vision and ambition, this acquisition will be a game changer, forming a compelling foundation for a future media powerhouse. The value of domains has proven undeniable, and the power of this collection is irrefutable"

Interested parties can learn more about this opportunity by contacting Mercaldo directly at: [email protected]. 

Image from Bigstock 

"NorthDakota.com came onto my radar for three reasons," Colascione said. "#1 - it was being sold by domain broker Mark Thomas of VIP Brokerage who has become a good friend through the years of attending domain name events. We always manage to have a good time at the events we attend together, especially NamesCon and sometimes get together outside of domaining circles. Mark was representing the seller and has other premium GEO domain names for sale."

"#2 - the price; although I do not want to release the exact number the domain was purchased for, it was relatively 

inexpensive - under six figures, and represents a geographic area of the country which is growing rapidly with jobs due to its agriculture and oil riches. My ownership interest will be assigned when the business has earned back its initial purchase price that was provided by an investor that I have already done several successful projects with. At that point I’ll immediately acquire a third of the business."

"#3 - after exiting LongIsland.com and moving off of Long Island, I wanted to remain in the geo domain business since I have so much experience in it and this time, I found interest in doing an entire State, instead of a region, city or town," John said.

Colascione wasted no time getting a new site online. We asked him about what is there now and what he has planned for it in the year ahead? 

"I trashed the old site which was built on a platform was old and I was unfamiliar with, transitioning the site to Wordpress, which is very easy to use," John noted. "While I do love Wordpress, I’m not sure how it will work for a geo domain, but I chose it to control cost and installed a Wordpress plugin for a business directory. I then obtained a CSV file of all of the businesses located in North Dakota and stuffed that data into the database immediately creating over 100,000 listings which creates 100,000 pages of the site. Search engines will index these pages and the site can then receive search engine traffic for these listings and will likely lead to increased interest in adding additional listings which can be purchased and upgraded. As far as the future, I’m not completely sold on the logo, or the theme/design, so those may change as time allows and I may look to implementing features and functions for both real estate and travel which is appropriate for a geo domain."

Screenshot from the new NorthDakota.com

Regarding the distance between his location and the subject of the site, we had to ask how difficult is it developing a geo site that is not in one's immediate locale compared to doing it with something closer to home as LongIsland.com was for him?

"I anticipate it will be much more difficult as I will not have the same familiarity with the area and will lead to more of a learning curve in developing its content and core purpose," Colascione allowed. "I’ll have to see how it goes for now but I would like to find a local person to act as a single sales person for the entire site much like LongIsland.com had in the beginning, and they can then reach out to local business owners to find a happy medium between cost and ROI for advertising on the site which is will be very inexpensive as the site needs to grow and mature with time."