Apartments.com Sells for $585 Million
CoStar announced that it has acquired the online apartment rentals company Apartments.com from Classified Ventures for a whopping $585 million .
According to whois records, the domain name was first registered in 1996.
You can read the press release after the jump :
“Classified Ventures, LLC (“CV”), a leading provider of digital marketing solutions in the automotive and apartment rental categories, announced today that it has entered into an agreement to sell its Apartments.com business for $585 million in cash to CoStar Group, Inc., a leading provider of commercial real estate research and information services. The sale follows a September 2013 announcement that the Company and its Board of Directors would explore strategic alternatives for Apartments.com. CV was advised by Moelis & Company and Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom. The transaction is expected to close in the second quarter of 2014.
The Apartments.com business includes category-leading sites such as Apartments.com, RentalHomesPlus.com, and ApartmentHomeLiving.com.
CV CEO Dan Jauernig shared: “This was a very thorough process, and we are confident that the sale to CoStar will allow Apartments.com to continue to grow and flourish. CoStar has demonstrated an understanding of the value of Apartments.com and a commitment to its growth. We look forward to working with them to consummate the sale.”
This sale will not impact CV’s Cars.com business.
About Classified Ventures, LLC
Classified Ventures, LLC helps shoppers find the perfect apartment or car through its award-winning websites, including Cars.com and Apartments.com. A strategic joint venture among five media companies including A. H. Belo Corp. (NYSE: AHC), Gannett Co. Inc. (NYSE: GCI), The McClatchy Co. (NYSE: MNI), Tribune Co. and Graham Holdings Company (NYSE: GHC), Classified Ventures seeks to capitalize on revenue growth in online advertising in the automotive and rental categories. For more information, please visit www.classifiedventures.com.”
ICANN: IDN Variant TLDs – LGR Procedure Implementation – Maximal Starting Repertoire Version 1 is Now Open for Public Comment
Purpose (Brief): ICANN is releasing for public comment version 1 of the Maximal Starting Repertoire (MSR-1). The MSR is the first deliverable under the “Procedure to Develop and Maintain Label Generation Rules for the Root Zone With Respect to IDN Labels” [PDF, 772 KB] (the Procedure). Community members and specifically those working on Internationalized Domain Names, including IDN ccTLD and new gTLD applicants, as well as experts working on the development of Label Generation Rules are kindly asked to provide feedback. As first deliverable under the “Procedure to Develop and Maintain Label Generation Rules for the Root Zone With Respect to IDN Labels” [PDF, 772 KB] (the Procedure), ICANN is releasing for public comment version 1 of the Maximal Starting Repertoire (MSR-1). The contents of MSR-1 and the detailed rationale behind its development are described in “Maximal Starting Repertoire – MSR-1-Overview and Rationale” [PDF, 393 KB].
Instructions for Reviewers
The MSR is a subset of IDNA 2008 PVALID code points for Unicode 6.3 (latest version of the Unicode Standard). As stated in the Procedure, the code points included are not restricted for identifiers in Table 1 of UTS#39 and must not be used for writing an excluded script. The MSR was further adjusted by following the prescriptions of the Procedure [PDF, 772 KB] in eliminating code points not eligible for the root zone.
In very general terms, where the Integration Panel was not able to resolve the status of a code point, it has tended to retain it in the MSR, to allow Generation Panels to perform a more thorough review, which might perhaps justify the inclusion of such code points in the LGR .
As a result, the mere presence of a code point in the MSR does not indicate that the Integration Panel considers it acceptable for inclusion in the LGR . In contrast, the absence of a code point affirms that the Integration Panel has determined that the code point is not appropriate for the DNS root, or, in the case of certain scripts, the panel has decided to defer it to a future version of the MSR.
Reviewers of the MSR are encouraged to carefully review the MSR documents listed below, as the MSR-1, once published, will be immutable. Communities that disagree with the choices that the Integration Panel has made in the MSR-1 as presented here are advised to raise any issues during the public comment period, and to provide a rationale for adding or removing specific code points. After the public comment period, the MSR-1 will be frozen for the purposes of developing LGR-1. Updates to the MSR-1 are anticipated only for future versions of the LGR , as described in the next section.
Future Development
The work that will be developed for integration in the first version of the LGR (LGR-1) will be based on MSR-1. If it becomes necessary to stage the release of the LGR , for example because not all Generation Panels are able to submit proposals at the same time, subsequent versions of the LGR may be released.
MSR-1 defers some of the eligible scripts, so as to balance timeliness with comprehensiveness. At some future point in time, another version of the MSR will be developed to include the deferred repertoire. MSR-2 would be the foundation for any LGR versions developed after its release.
All future versions of the MSR and all versions of the LGR must retain full backwards compatibility, such that they preserve the output of any label registration against the old LGR , when applied to an updated LGR or an LGR resulting from a later version of the MSR. Repertoire that has not been used for label registration is not required to be retained in future versions.
It is important to note that, while the expectation is that registrations predating the initial release of an LGR for the respective script will be allowed to remain in place even if they were to conflict, there is no requirement for an initial LGR to be compatible with them or to consider them precedents.
To support IDN variants in the root zone, the ICANN community, at the direction of the Board, undertook several projects to study and make recommendations on their viability, sustainability and delegation. One of these projects is the implementation of the Procedure [PDF, 772 KB] allowing for the development of Label Generation Rules ( LGR ) for the Root Zone. The LGR for the Root Zone is a mechanism for creating and maintaining rules with respect to IDN labels for the root. This mechanism will be used to determine which Unicode code points are permitted for use in U-Labels in the root zone, what variants (if any) are allocatable and what variants (if any) are automatically blocked.
The MSR is the first deliverable from the Integration Panel under the Procedure [PDF, 772 KB] and will serve as a fixed collection of code points from which Generation Panels may make a selection in constructing the repertoire for their respective LGR proposals. In accordance with the Procedure [PDF, 772 KB], “Generation panels must not include in their proposed repertoires any assigned code point that is not included in the maximal set of code points for the root zone defined by the integration panel.”
- Maximal Starting Repertoire – MSR-1-Overview and Rationale.pdf [PDF, 772 KB]
- MSR-1-Annotated-Han-Tables-20140227.pdf [PDF, 43.7 MB]
- MSR-1-Annotated-Hangul-Tables-20140227.pdf [PDF, 4.24 MB]
- MSR-1-Annotated-non-CJK-Tables-20140227.pdf [PDF, 1.86 MB]
- MSR-1-Repertoire+WLE-Rules-20140225.xml [PDF, 123 KB]
Comment / Reply Periods (*)
- Comment Open Date: 3 March 2014
- Comment Close Date: 28 March 2014 – 23:59 UTC
- Reply Open Date: 29 March 2014
- Reply Close Date: 22 April 2014 – 23:59 UTC
Important Information Links
- Public Comment Announcement
- This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
- View Comments Submitted
This ICANN announcement was sourced from:
www.icann.org/en/news/public-comment/msr-03mar14-en.htm
ICANN: Ashwin Rangan to Join ICANN as New Chief Innovation and Information Officer
Veteran business leader Ashwin Rangan has joined ICANN as its first Chief Innovation and Information Officer. Rangan assumes the new role on March 3, 2014 and will report directly to President and CEO Fadi Chehadé.
“We want to tap into Ashwin’s expertise in the IT arena in support of our on-going focus on operational excellence and internationalization,” said Chehadé’. “In addition, we think Ashwin’s experience will make him a very valuable resource as we expand our technical services to the ICANN community.”
Throughout his career, Rangan has driven global expansion and been at the forefront of innovation through skillful implementation of IT infrastructure and management.
“This is an exciting opportunity, I am looking forward to working with ICANN during its international expansion and to help the organization strive to serve the needs of its global community,” said Ashwin Rangan.
Rangan previously served as the Chief Information Officer for a variety of companies, including Edwards Lifesciences, Market, Walmart Inc., and Rockwell Semiconductors.
Rangan, who will be based in ICANN ‘s Los Angeles hub office, holds a Master’s degree in Industrial Engineering and Management from the National Institute of Industrial Engineering in Mumbai, India. He is fluent in English, Hindi, Kannada and Tamil.
This ICANN announcement was sourced from:
www.icann.org/en/news/announcements/announcement-03mar14-en.htm
Web.com Announces the Acquisition of SnapNames.com
Web.com officialy announced today that it has acquired one of the largest domain name auction marketplaces, SnapNames.com from KeyDrive S.A.
You can read the press release after the jump :
” Web.com Group, Inc. (Nasdaq:WWWW), a leading provider of Internet services and online marketing solutions for small businesses, announced today that it has acquired SnapNames from KeyDrive S.A. SnapNames is a leader in the daily online auction sales of domain names across all categories, including expiring, deleting and privately-owned domain names.
“We are very pleased to bring SnapNames under the Web.com umbrella,” said David L. Brown, chairman, chief executive officer and president of Web.com. “This acquisition enables us to enhance our existing domain related assets and provide additional services for customers who are looking for specific domain name addresses. In today’s expanding domain resale marketplace, SnapNames is a global industry leader with experience and expertise in domain lifecycle management and auction services.”
Since 2000, SnapNames has engineered a dynamic online marketplace, where high-performing domain names are bought and sold daily. With tens of thousands of newly expired domains flowing into SnapNames inventory every day, SnapNames provides a broad set of choices to customers. SnapNames has exclusive partner relationships with some of the world’s top registrars, thereby giving its users access to a broad set of domain names for purchase.
Web.com owns two of the world’s largest retail registrars in Network Solutions and Register.com. With the addition of SnapNames, Web.com will further expand its global partnership channel by leveraging SnapNames’ extensive international network, thus helping customers find the right domain names the first time they look. In addition, the acquisition complements NameJet, the domain name auction platform managed through a joint venture partnership with Web.com and Rightside.
The terms of the acquisition were not disclosed. Web.com expects this transaction to be immaterial to 2014 financial results. Web.com will provide updated guidance when it reports financial results for the first quarter of 2014 and conducts its regularly scheduled conference call.”
SnapNames 2014 Kick-Off Premium Auction Ends in Three Days
SnapNames is hosting these days its 2014 Kick-Off Premium auction. The auction features 95 domain names and ends in three days at 3:15 pm EST.
Up until now, only 10 domain names received bids :
Nova.com Current Bid $60,000
GirlCode.com Current Bid $1,300
ConcreteTruck.com Current Bid $1,000
iLeak.com Current Bid $325
Legalizingpot.com Current Bid $350
OnlineTreasures.com Current Bid $325
Xets.com Current bid $325
AccessCalifornia.com Current Bid $300
Pattern.info Current Bid $300
Pursues.com Current Bid $300
Other interesting domain names included in the auction are :
Top.com
Hear.com
Soft.com
4K.com
Clicks.com
Bop.com
Demo.net
Accommodation.co.uk
Temp.co.uk
3DPhotos.com
HomeInvestment.com
You can see the entire inventory and place your bids here .
