Shows returning to Ice Palace in Miami. Organizers of the NamesCon and CloudFest conferences have revealed that the events will take place November 11-12 this year. The shows are returning to Miami, which is no surprise. But it is a bit surprising that they are holding the event at the same venue as last year: Ice Palace Studios. Many attendees hoped the event would be held in a more traditional venue, at or near the conference hotel.

A Morse code translation site, an indie gaming studio, and an AI-powered video generation tool bought domain names. Sedo has published its sales reports from the holiday break. For this post, I dug into end user sales that were completed by December 21. You can view previous lists like this here. meinOrt.de €25,000 - meinOrt creates local community apps. It forwards this domain to meinOrt.app.

Cases have been nearly flat in the past few years at the largest UDRP service. World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) has published data about its domain name caseload in 2025. The organization is the most popular venue for disputes filed under the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP) and similar country code domain policies. In 2025, WIPO handled 6,282 domain disputes, which was a record.

These three new top level domains and a .com popped out to me. Over the holidays, I saw a lot of non-.com domains in the wild, as well as a great .com domain. Let's start with one I saw while walking around the Capitol Hill area of Seattle: Honestly, if there wasn't a www. in front of it, I might have questioned if this was just cute branding with a dot or an actual domain.

Hong Kong registrar loses its accreditation. Another day, another domain registrar losing its accreditation. Yesterday, ICANN notified (pdf) 0101 Internet, Inc., a Hong Kong-based registrar, that it is being terminated. The notice came a day after ICANN terminated another registrar. The registrar committed several sins, including failing to pay its accreditation fees, failing to escrow domain data, and failing to publish a way for people to submit disclosure requests.

An LLM company, an online Tennis store, and a custom rug business bought domain names. Sedo's weekly sales lists are back! The list below covers the most recent list published by Sedo this week. The top public sale of the week was midnight.com, which broker Mark Ghoriafi sold for $1.15 million. It's not clear who bought the domain. In the coming days, Domain Name Wire will also publish end user lists for sales from the holiday season.

New registrar will offer at-cost domains and commission reductions to customers with at least 100 domains. As it prepares to launch its domain registrar to the public, Atom has announced a new program offering discounts to domain investors. AtomEdge will be available to people who maintain at least 100 domains at Atom's registrar. Benefits include: Commission reductions on domains sold on Atom.

Campaign surpasses €80,000 fundraising goal. A nonprofit that turned to Kickstarter to raise funds for its new top level domain ambitions has met its fundraising goal. dotMeow Foundation, a Belgian nonprofit that aims to promote social inclusion, connection, and the empowerment of the LGBTQIA+ community in Belgium and abroad, plans to apply for the .meow domain during this year's application period.

Domain owner admitted the Complainant was one of the companies that would be interested in its domain, but that there were many others. A World Intellectual Property Organization panel has ordered (pdf) the domain name temco.com transferred to a tool manufacturer called Temco Industrial. It's an interesting case worth digging into. The registrant, domain investor Mira Holdings, acquired the domain for $12,540 in a NameJet auction in 2022.

Two sessions this month will help applicants understand the process. Well, this is the year. For the first time since 2012, entities wishing to control their own top level domain name can apply. The window to apply is tight, however, as applications will be accepted from April 30 to August 12. Applicants need to get all of their ducks in a row, including selecting a back-end registry provider and lining up financing.

Currency swings could influence aftermarket transactions. 2025 was not a good year for the U.S. dollar. Compared to a basket of currencies, it was down nearly 10% last year. This is one reason U.S. residents investing in foreign stocks did well last year; even if the stocks didn't appreciate, they "gained" about 10% in dollar terms. This has interesting implications for the domain name business, which is very international.

NameSilo and Tucows lead gainers; Team Internet and GoDaddy saw steep declines. With 2025 in the books, here's a look at how domain name stocks performed for the year. For reference, the NASDAQ was up about 20% in 2025. NameSilo (OTC: URL.CN): NameSilo's Canadian shares followed up their 141% gain in 2024 with a 196% gain in 2025, nearly tripling in price.

Another panel finds that Google had common law trademarks shortly after launching Nano Banana AI model. Google has won another cybersquatting dispute involving its Nano Banana image-generation AI, securing the transfer of nanobananapro .com. The company filed two cybersquatting disputes shortly after launching the Nano Banana model in August 2025. It got different results: in one case, the panelist ordered…

In 2025, there was an explosion of UDRP cases filed in bad faith. 2025 was the year of reverse domain name hijacking (RDNH). Before running the calculations, I had a sense that 2025 had many more RDNH findings than years past. I write about most UDRP RDNH cases, and I was writing a lot more about these cases throughout the year.

CDW did not show that registrant was targeting it with domain registration. A World Intellectual Property Organization panelist has found (pdf) that technology company CDW (NASDAQ: CDW) tried to reverse hijack the domain name cdw.au. The case shows the difficulty of winning a UDRP cybersquatting claim for a generic or short brand name. An Australian domain investor with a portfolio heavy in car rental and insurance domains registered the domain.

Artificial intelligence is impacting the domain industry in many ways. AI, AI, AI. You can't open a social media app or visit a news site without reading something about artificial intelligence and how it's changing the world. AI is impacting the domain business, and we will continue to see its impact in the years to come. .AI An obvious impact is what the boom is doing to Anguilla's .AI country code.

Agent Name Service could increase demand for domain names. Could AI agents use the Domain Name System to improve trust and discovery? That's the idea behind Agent Name Service, a proposal from GoDaddy. On today's show, James Bladel explains what it is and how it could become a reality. James, VP of Corporate and Government Affairs at GoDaddy, also discusses his appointment to the Internet Commerce Association's board, as well as the policy issues we should keep an eye on in 2026 and beyond.

Domain registrant acquired domains for a legitimate business. A company that provides water management solutions has been found to have tried reverse domain name hijacking. Suez International filed a UDRP cybersquatting dispute against the domain names SuezDigital.com and Suez.digital. Canadian entrepreneur Zacharias Cymbaluk registered the domains in 2022 and launched a digital consulting business called Suez Digital. The Complainant reached out to Cymbaluk in 2024, demanding that he cease using the domains.

A crypto platform, a vending machine services business, and a company offering an API for football scores bought domain names. Sedo is taking a three-week holiday break from reporting domain sales. That's a long time to wait for an end user sales report. So this week, I took a look back at two weeks in mid-November to look for domains that slipped through the cracks the first time around.

Namecheap among domain company acquisitions/fundings in 2025. The domain name business is a favorite among private equity companies because it's a recurring-revenue business with predictable renewal rates. So it's no surprise that private equity companies made more acquisitions in the domain industry this year. The big private equity transaction in 2025 was domain registrar Namecheap, which CVC Capital acquired at a $1.5 billion valuation.

.Com registry says data shows short sellers were way out of line about impact of AdSense for Domains. Verisign (NASDAQ: VRSN) published a blog post this week stating that data shows short sellers were wrong about the impact AdSense for Domains (AFD) would have on .com registrations. Google effectively shut down its AdSense for Domains program by the end of Q3 this year.

College filed case against a man whose last name is Davidson. Davidson College, a prestigious school in North Carolina, has lost a cybersquatting dispute it filed against the domain name davidson.one. Dominic Davidson, a New Zealand man, registered the domain name and others with his surname in them for his personal and business use. The college was concerned about confusion with Davidson One, a platform for the school's students and faculty.

Google's decision to effectively sunset AdSense for Domains is having a significant impact on the domain industry. Perhaps the writing was on the wall. In 2023 and 2024, Google made several changes to AdSense for Domains (AFD) that curtailed revenue. First, it implemented new consent requirements for visitors from the EU before they'd be presented with parked domain ads. Then, Google added restrictions for how parked page ads could be shown.

Group hopes to raise €80,000 through Kickstarter to help fund .meow top level domain. In what I believe is a first for top level domain names, a potential applicant in the next round has turned to Kickstarter to raise funds for its application. dotMeow Foundation is a Belgian nonprofit that wants to promote social inclusion, connection, and empowerment of the LGBTQIA+ community in Belgium and abroad.

WIPO panelist finds many faults in cybersquatting case. A French banking and credit firm has been found to have tried reverse domain name hijacking. La Banque Populaire Val de France filed a dispute (pdf) against the domain name vdft.com. It claimed that it has common law trademark rights to VDFT because it has marketed a real estate financing program as Val de France Transactions, or VDFT, since 2012.