Name.com
 | |
| Type: | Private |
| Industry: | Registrar |
| Founded: | USA, 2003 |
| Founder(s): | Bill Mushkin |
| 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 | |
Name.com is an ICANN-accredited registrar.[1] As of April, 2011, Name.com has registered 813,828 domains.[2]
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.[3]
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.[4]
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.[5]