Domain Movers highlights company focused domain name transactions. These are often very early indicators of new brands, products, services and advertising efforts by companies around the world.
Here is a small sampling of just a few that were detected over the weekend:
PE.com has changed from being owned by Freedom.com in April 2017 to MediaNews Group. The domain has since transferred out of Moniker over to CSC Corporate Domains under MediaNews Group. The Freedom.com domain name was sold to Freedom Mortgage for $2 million by Ali Zandi in early May 2017 (and still doesn’t resolve yet today, with the domain resolving to a Network Solutions registrar landing page, but they are using the domain for email. Why not redirect it at least? I’m not sure). I’m not sure it was noted that MediaNews Group were the sellers of Freedom.com as they were not technically listed as the owners of the domain directly and it likely wasn’t known they owned PE.com also. To make your head spin a little bit, MediaNews Group merged with 21st Century Media and became Digital First Media in 2013. In March 2016, Digital First Media bid $45.5 million to acquire Freedom Communications Inc. in a bankruptcy auction for its assets, one of which was Freedom.com.
So, although “MediaNews Group” owns around 3,287 domain names, there are also about another 750 under the Freedom email address. Some of those are pretty valuable, like PE.com for one example, OrangeCountry.com for another. Neither of those companies exist any longer and the domains are actually owned by Digital First Media. Also to note, PE.com was owned by Press-Enterprise Company, which Freedom Communications acquired in October 2013 and is used for The Press Enterprise.
WeWork Companies Inc. registered PoweredByWe.com. The company does not own We.com but I had recently announced they acquired We.co.
Google Inc. now appears in whois records for ArExperiments.com. The domain was registered in June 2017 under whois privacy at NameSilo.
Guthy-Renker LLC has acquired JustBrush.com from HugeDomains.com. The domain has been registered since 2009. The domain held a buy now of $2,495.
Diageo Plc registered the domain name AmericanAnthemVodka.com, adding to the 4,000+ domain names already owned by the company.
Veevs.com has been acquired by a currently unknown CSC Corporate Domains client. The domain was using SedoParking at the time of the sale.
Akamai Technologies, inc. has taken ownership of Uncrackable.com. The domain was owned by Tucow’s YummyNames in 2014 and it then transferred to GoDaddy under whois privacy and remained that way until August 16, 2017 when Akamai appears in whois.
Claire’s Gourmet has acquired SmartFundraising.com out of GoDaddy’s NameFind portfolio for an undisclosed amount. The company offers fundraising products.
NBCUniversal Media, LLC registered WholeViewTimes.com and .net adding to the 11,000+ domains they already own.
Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. registered BetterInTheClub.com adding to the 9,000+ domains the company owns.
Geoffrey LLC (Toys R’ Us) registered FreeThePlay.com and acquired TodayWePlay.com from its past owners with the help of The Treadstone Group. Toys R’ Us is using the tagline Today We Play in a new advertising effort.
Stitch Fix, Inc. has acquired YouStyled.com from its past owner. It appears the domain transaction likely took place around December 23, 2016 when the domain transferred to Dynadot under whois privacy. The domain has since transferred to MarkMonitor. The Dynadot transfer under privacy is a fairly common practice used by MarkMonitor to “hide” things.
Okamura Corporation has acquired its EMD, Okamura.com from Frank Schilling’s Name Administration Inc. for an undisclosed amount.
Gunfire.com has been sold, with the transaction taking place via Escrow.com. The domain has been registered since 1996 and has since transferred into domain registrar Key-Systems, which is often used by companies. The domain was used prior for a web development company, as well as used for email. The buyers are currently unknown but the domain has been put on name servers of iai-system.com, which offers ecommerce solutions in Europe.
Central Garden & Pet (Central.com) has acquired PetBedCentral.com from its past owners for an undisclosed amount.
Bauer Media Pty Limited has acquired GourmetGiftCard.com. The domain held an offering price of $2,195 and was acquired in early June 2017.
Fluor Enterprises, Inc. has acquired StorkUSA.com from BuyDomains.com. I had reported this sale back in March 2017 but Fluor was just revealed in whois records now as the buyers. The company owns about 2,400 domain names
Univision has acquired Earther.com from its past owners for an undisclosed amount.
Rock Ventures, LLC has acquired RockPaper.com from its past owners, the late Lonnie Borck’s B52 Media. The domain was for sale using the Uniregistry system and was acquired by Quicken Loans, Inc. around November 30, 2016, about 1 month after Lonnie passed away. Rock Ventures is the holding company for Dan Gilbert, founder of Quicken Loans, which houses over 100 affiliated companies.
Interscope Records registered FannyOfficial.com and OliverOfficial.com. I always get a kick out of these type of domains, because anybody can add “Official” to a domain name and that doesn’t really make it “official”. The best way to be “official” is to spend the money and own the best domain name! In this case, it would be Fanny.com and Oliver.com! That makes you OFFICIAL! Fanny.com appears to be for sale and Oliver.com could likely be acquired.
OC.com appears to have been purchased by Coneris d.o.o
Spil Games Intangibles B.V. has sold the domain name 4299.com to a Chinese domain name investor Wu Feng Ying. The domain transferred from MarkMonitor to eName.
IAC has acquired Retirement Online LLC, which uses the domain name RothIRA.com as its main website. That domain name and several similar have now transferred to IAC’s ownership.
Q-UP, LLC has acquired LifeRocket.com from Name Administration Inc. The domain is using “Rockfin.com” name servers, which is tied to Rock Ventures / Quicken Loans. Quicken Loans uses “Rocket Mortgage” branding, so Life Rocket is a potential use for that or potentially something “new” since the domain is registered under a new organization called “Q-UP, LLC”.
Awesome work as usual, Jamie.