Welcome to another round of domain movers by DotWeekly in series that digs domain name registrations, domain purchases and simply domain movers by large companies and more. These are often early indicators to new brands, services, advertising campaigns and much more. Here we go with today’s list of domain movers:
It’s A Domain Fact! Zurich Insurance Company Ltd owns the domain name Relax.com, which it redirects to Zurich.ch.
Siemens AG has acquired the domain name PVPlanet.com from HugeDomains.com and the domain was listed for $2,195. The domain was registered 12/30/2013 and the transaction took place at Sedo.
Photovoltaic is what PV stands for in this case and is related to solar power.
LifeStartsHere.com has been acquired by a currently unknown MarkMonitor client and this domain is likely going in “hiding” for now. The domain was owned by Heavylifting LLC and registered at Moniker, but the domain name has transferred to Dynadot under whois privacy. It isn’t uncommon for domains to be transferred to Dynadot and sometimes GoDaddy and put under privacy to “hide” who may have purchased the domain… but normally when they do this, they do not set domain name servers to something that is heavily monitored.
TakeTheChance.com has been sold by DomainMarket.com on Sedo for $15,000. Mike had purchased the domain on 8/1/2013 for $300, from his old company.. BuyDomains.com! Only the .com is registered currently and this domain was likely acquired by a large company. The domain had a $15K buy it now from what I could see.
ThinWire.com appears to have been acquired from Custom Credit Systems, L.P. by Misys Limited in some fashion. The domain has since transferred into CSC Corporate Domains under Misys Limited. ThinWire was a website prior as an open source Ajax RIA framework. The domain name now forwards to Misys.com which is a banking software.
A little further research and Misys acquired Custom Credit Systems, L.P. and the domain was an asset included in the sale.
SupportSpace.com which was a remote virtual agent service had a partnership with Best Buy starting in 2008 but “On July 15, 2013, all Geek Squad business was transferred away from SupportSpace and moved in house to Geek Squad agents.” according to the Wikipedia page for GeekSquad . Well, not even 4 months later on November 7, 2013 the domain name owned and used by SupportSpace Inc., transferred ownership to Best Buy (BBY Solutions, Inc)! So it would appear that Best Buy bought the company?
According to CrunchBase.com, SupportSpace had $36.3 Million in funding and only states that the company “closed” January 1, 2014.
There is very little press about Best Buy acquiring SupportSpace Inc. which is a little interesting, but The co-founder of SupportSpace Doron A. Elgressy states on his LinkedIn page that Best Buy acquired the company and states that SupportSpace is now the GeekSquad online support.
Another article I found stated that SupporSpace was a “Flailing technology company” and that Best Buy purchased just SupportSpace’s assets with Best Buy paying “some millions” but nothing near the $37 million the company had raised in funding. (last article on the page)
A former employee for SupportSpace likely sums it up: “once Geek Squad took all their tech support in house, support space pretty much closed up shop, as that was their main 1 client.” Interesting to note, SupportSpace.com still resolves but appears to be an outdated website. The only connection on the site is the About Us page which redirects to GeekSquad.com’s about us page.
VeriSign, Inc has registered the domain name TheNotComRevolution.com
eBay registered the domain names AskITSD.com | .net Not sure what that is, maybe they don’t either!
CBS Broadcasting Inc. registered the domain name EatUpLive.com
Church & Dwight Co., Inc. felt that allowing FreshCleanFeeling.com was a good idea… for some unknown reason. They owned the domain name since 2007 and own several supporting brands that could use the domain like: Arm & Hammer, Nair, Oxi Clean, Xtra and Spinbrush. Heck, even in a streach they could use it with the Trojan brand! The domain was registered after it dropped by a Joshua Eisenhower at GoDaddy and listed for sale with DomainNameSales.com .
Church & Dwight Co. use brand protection domain name service MarkMonitor.
T-Mobile USA, Inc. registered a couple domain names and they include: TheUncontract.com, TheUn-Contract.com, TmobileCarrierFreedom.com and T-MobileCarrierFreedom.com
WLCL.com has been acquired by Carnival Corporation for an undisclosed amount. The domain was registered with Fabulous.com and under privacy protection since 2011 but was owned by Vertical Axis, Inc prior and they were the likely sellers.
TechCrunch, Inc. which is owned by AOL has registered several domain names that indicate a play on a specific term, “Crunch Report”. They registered the domain names CrunchReport.net | .org, TheCrunchReport.com, wwwCrunchReport.com . CrunchReport.com was registered at eNom on 10/15/2013 and owned by a SAMMER ALY according to whois. Whois changed on 11/4/2014 out of whois privacy to Sammer Aly, so there is potential the domain changed ownership at that time. There is a website on the domain that states “Crowdsource News”… Crunch Report: Crowd + Cloud + Loud but not much more than that, other than an email address box.
Auto Trader Limited appears to likely become Auto Trader Group PLC based on several domain registrations like AutoTraderPLC.com | .net, AutoTraderGroupPLC.com | .net . This appears to be TraderMedia.co.uk and not AutoTrader.com. Auto Trader Group Limited was named after Trader Media Group was fully taken over by Apax Partners in 2014, so this appears to maybe the second name change in two years.
Hexagon AB was the buyers of BeCaptivated.com which I had reported on earlier that DomainMarket.com sold (likely for $500)
Microsoft registered the domain name GrowIt.info . They currently do not appear to own any other TLD’s. The .com and .org appear to be owned by the same person and are under whois privacy at GoDaddy.
Microsoft also registered the domain names MeetProjectSpartan.com | .net . Project Spartan is the current “code name” for the newly, not named yet brower that is replacing Internet Explorer. Microsoft has hinted that they will include “Microsoft” at the begining of the “new name”… so I have been keeping an eye on that.
Amazon Technologies, Inc. has registered the domain name AmazonHomeServices.com
AtDmt.com has transferred ownership from Microsoft TO Facebook Inc. This domain name is tied to “Atlas Solutions”. Atlas Solutions is a subsidiary of Facebook, which it acquiredfrom Microsoft in February 2013. Atdmt is a tracking cookie for the online advertising service Atlas. On a technical note… atdmt.com does not resolve, but www.atdmt.com does and it redirects to AtlasSolutions.com.
Everyone.net has long only stated in whois being owned by “everyone.net” but has changed to show Proofpoint, Inc. who has owned the domain for a long time. Proofpoint, Inc. is based in Sunnyvale, California and provides SaaS and on-premises solutions for inbound email security, outbound data loss prevention, privacy protection, email encryption, electronic discovery and email archiving.
HackySack.com and Hacky-Sack.com have transferred ownership to THE ORIGINAL FOOTBAG COMPANY from Mattel Inc. The domain has transferred from MarkMonitor to eNom under Kevin Slatnick. The domain has been registered since 1997 and has been owned by Mattel since at least 2001 as that is the oldest whois history record. The name “hacky sack” came from the 1972 inventors of the footbag, John Stalberger and Mike Marshall.
