.SAARLAND Gets Set To Launch… A Little Differently

Another geographical gTLD is set to launch in the coming months with a slightly different Landrush period. Some gTLDs are open to everyone (.berlin) or everyone after preferences are given to businesses and individuals in the Landrush (.london) while others are restricted to businesses and individuals within the city (.nyc).

But .saarland, the gTLD for the Saarland region in south west Germany, has done things a little different. First is the typical Sunrise period (17 July to 15 September) that will include Sunrise A for those registered with the Trademark Clearinghouse and Sunrise B for officially registered companies, associations and statutory corporations in Saarland. Starting at the same time, but for a shorter period, will be a Founders Programme (17 July to 16 August) where businesses and individuals with innovative ideas can apply for their preferred domain. More details are to come but the idea is that the registry operator wants registrants to think a little differently on how they use their .saarland domain. The applications for domain names will be judged by an independent panel chosen by the dotSaarland e.V.

Following the Founders Programme is the Landrush (23 September to 22 October) that allows priority registrations for individuals and legal entities that have no brand, but still want an early, preferred access to a particular domain. During the Landrush applications from the Saarland are favoured in order to further promote the regional character of the TLD. The Landrush will be created as an application process and not carried out according to the “first come, first served” principle: In case of multiple, valid applications for the same domain name, there will be a closed auction between the applicants.

Then from 30 October will be the General Availability on 30 October where .saarland domains will become available for registration by all interested parties in accordance with the “first come, first served” principle. Non-binding and free for pre-orders for .SAARLAND domains can already be submitted with several registrars.

All .SAARLAND registration applications in the Sunrise, Landrush and General Availability must be submitted through an .SAARLAND accredited registrar. Applications for registrations in the Founders Program will be submitted directly to the dotSaarland GmbH. For further information about the launch phases of .SAARLAND, please visit: www.nic.saarland/en/domain/launch-phases.

Fashion.TV Sells for $125,000

Fashion Television Media seems to have acquired the domain name Fashion.tv for $125,000. Ammar from Legacy Fund made the announcement.

It seems that Cyber Tavern also sold Fun.tv and Play.tv.

According to whois records, Fashion.tv was first registered in 2001.Fun.tv was also registered in 2001, while Play.tv was registered in 2000.

At the time of writing this article, Fashion.tv is up and running.

Congratulations to both the seller and the buyer.

Live.tv Sells for $500,000

According to namepros, Live.tv was sold for $500,000. This is the biggest .TV sale reported so far.

According to whois records, the domain name was first registered in 2001.

You can read the announcement after the jump:

” I have been alluding that there would be some major news about .tv in my last posts. Cybertavern has informed me that they have sold Live.tv for $500,000. The new owner could have been leasing the domain name for a while. Premium renewal fee seems to be $25-50/yr.

FCI Inc out of Seattle, Washington seems to be the new buyer. Doing some research on the current DNS servers of FlyingCroc.net, you will see the company , is ICF Technology, which their root domain is ICFTechnology.com. You can learn more about them by visiting their URL.

Regarding the actual sale, Cybertavern has agreed to help provide documentation to Ron at DN Journal. Ron has been out of town, but we working to get this on the board.

I appreciate all the effort and am grateful to Ted of Cybertavern for providing to show more transparency and disclose this massive sale.

Kind Regards,

A”

SIDN Approaching 5,5 Million Domain Name Registrations under .NL

Sidn, the company behind .NL domain extension, is approaching 5,5 million domain name registrations under .NL. The company achieved the 5 million milestone in July, 2012.

.NL is one of the most popular extensions in the world.Individuals are allowed to register .NL domain names for 11 years ,since 2003.

The .NL ccTLD of the Netherlands is the third largest ccTLD in the world after .DE with 15 million registrations and .CO.UK with 10 million registrations.

21% of households in the Netherlands own at least one .NL domain name and 83% of firms in the contry own a website.

At the time of writing this article there are 5,459,040 registered .NL domain names.

Check out EuroDNS here to register your .NL domain name.