Name.com

Industry:	Registrar
Founded:	USA, 2003
Founder(s):	Bill Mushkin
Ownership:	Demand Media
Headquarters:	125 Rampart Way Suite 300, Denver, Colorado 80230
Country:	USA
Website:	http://www.name.com/
Twitter:	@namedotcom
Key People
Bill Mushkin, Founder and CEO Scott McBreen, Bus Admin Manager Sean Leach, CTO Paul Carter, Dir of Operations

Name.com is an ICANN-accredited registrar. As of December, 2012, Name.com has registered 544,790 domains. It was acquired by Demand Media in January, 2013. The reasons for the acquisition were noted as adding a new outlet to sell as many new gTLDs as possible, and bolster Demand Media's line-up by adding a "retail registrar", given that its current eNom service is a "reseller registrar". Demand Media is itself an applicant for 26 new gTLDs, with a partnership with the largest applicant, Donuts, to partner on an additional 100. In March 2013, it was reported that the acquisition cost a total of $18 million USD.

History

Name.com was founded by Bill Mushkin in 2003. Bill Mushkin also runs two other registrars, domainsite.com and name.net.

Anti-SOPA Protests

At the end of 2011, and into 2012, Name.com became active in the protests against the Stop Online Privacy Act (SOPA), that was being discussed in both houses of the U.S. Congress. They were especially active during the anti-GoDaddy efforts, given that the latter organization had originally supported the bill, before caving to public pressure and the threat of the boycott. Name.com ran specials to those customers that were transferring from GoDaddy. They continued their opposition, and eventually donated $1,000 each to 3 different organizations that aim to create and maintain an open, productive Internet, including the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

Adult Performer Program

In anticipation of the launch of .xxx, ICM Registry reserved some 3,500 names of prominent adult entertainers and pornography stars to later be allocated via the "Adult Performer Program". The program was launched in February, 2012, in conjunction with Name.com, and saw ICM giving those stars their personalized .xxx domain registered through Name.com for one full year. The performers would be free to transfer the domain, and it would be there responsibility to renew and maintain the domain after the first year.

Products and Services offered by Name.com

• More than 50 gTLD and ccTLD extensions
• Aftermarket domain brokerage
• Web hosting
• Rapid Blog, a customized version of WordPress

Awards

Lifehacker, a popular tech/lifestyle blog, featured Name.com in it's list of Five Best Domain Name Registrars.

Controversies

Name.com has been accused of registering a plethora of domain names based on or closely resembling the trademarks of the luxury retailers-Neiman Marcus and Bergdorf Goodman, the computer giant-Microsoft, and another company.

Most of the Web addresses are intentional misspellings, such as NeimanMarkis.com or MicrosoftUpdat.com, according to lawsuits filed in federal court in Denver.

Neiman Marcus and Bergdorf Goodman argued that Name.com and Spot Domain registered more than 40 domain names that infringed on their trademarks and sought damages of at least $100,000 per name.

The defendants allegedly took advantage of five-day trial periods for each domain name to figure out how much traffic each site attracted and canceled registrations that failed to draw enough traffic. Neiman Marcus said Mushkin's domain name operations hosted websites featuring pop-up ads, and that he got paid when people clicked.

In the settlement, Name.com and Spot Domain were required to "perform several tasks," according to the court documents. Mushkin declined to say what the agreement specifically called for.

External links

• Official website of Name.com
• Name.com Blog