Categories
News Technology

The Kindle Ice? Amazon acquires KindleIce.com domain name and more

 Kindle Ice

On the same day Amazon announced the Kindle Fire on September 28, Jeffrey Casserino, a resident of Syracuse, New York, got busy registering domain names having to do with the Kindle.

Despite Amazon buying up over 500 Kindle Fire and Amazon Silk domains such as 3gKindleFire.com and SilkSmartphones.com on September 28 as well, the company wasn’t fast enough to get certain names like AmazonKindleFiretablets.com, UsedFires.com, and KindleIce.com.

That’s because Jeffrey Casserino registered the names first.

Now, it appears Amazon has taken ownership of several domains first registered by Jeffrey Casserino, including:  amazonkindlefires.com, amazonkindlefiretablets.com, amazonkindleice.com, amznfire.com, kindleice.com, kindlesfire.com, and usedfires.com.

While it’s unknown whether Amazon’s lawyers threatened legal action or if Amazon offered cash for the names, according to WHOIS History, each name was transferred from Jeffrey Casserino to Amazon Technologies, Inc. on November 4.

Two of the more interesting domains Amazon acquired in the group were AmazonKindleIce.com and KindleIce.com, which may be nothing more than defensive names the company is adding to its portfolio of over 20,000 domains. 

Or maybe, the Kindle Ice will be the name of a future version of the Kindle tablet?

Here’s a look at the WHOIS record for KindleIce.com.

Registrant:
   Amazon Technologies, Inc.
   P.O. Box 8102
   Reno, Nevada 89507
   United States

   Domain Name: KINDLEICE.COM
      Created on: 28-Sep-11
      Expires on: 28-Sep-12
      Last Updated on: 04-Nov-11

   Administrative Contact:
      Hostmaster, Amazon 
      Amazon Technologies, Inc.
      P.O. Box 8102
      Reno, Nevada 89507
      United States

   Technical Contact:
      Hostmaster, Amazon 
      Amazon Technologies, Inc.
      P.O. Box 8102
      Reno, Nevada 89507
      United States

I’ve reached out to Jeffrey Casserino for comment and will update this post if I hear back.

Discussion: Geeky Gadgets, DeviceMAG, Tom’s Guide and AndroidOS.in

Categories
Disputes News WIPO

Apple’s IP lawyers get control of domains like UsedMacs.com before case decided

Used Macs

Just over a week ago, Apple Computer filed a domain name dispute with the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) over five names registered to Wachter Consulting Inc.

Four of the five domains named in WIPO case number D2011-1866, have now been transferred from Wachter Consulting Inc. to Kilpatrick Townsend & Stockton, a law firm that has successfully represented Apple in the past in dozens of patent and trademark infringement cases.

The domains that were transferred to Apple’s name servers include imacstore.com, macdaily.com, mactimes.com, and usedmacs.com. 

It appears the best of the bunch, applestores.com, is still in the possession of Wachter Consulting, according to WHOIS records.

Although the case is still listed as ‘Active’ online with WIPO, it’s possible Wachter Consulting decided to turn over the names even before a decision was handed down.

Chances are the case will remain ‘Active’ until all of the names have been transferred, voluntarily or otherwise.

[Updated November 10, 2011 3:19am EST:  Kilpatrick Townsend & Stockton has now taken ownership of AppleStores.com.  The law firm also took ownership of アップルストア.com (‘Apple Store’ in Japanese).]

(Photo of Apple Power Mac G4 with an Apple Studio Display via Collin Grady)

Categories
News Technology

Microsoft developing “30 to Launch” Windows Phone app, but what is it?

30 to Launch Windows Phone app

Microsoft appears to be developing a new Windows Phone app called ’30 to Launch’.

On November 4 according to WHOIS records, Microsoft registered the domain names 30toLaunch.com, 30toLaunch.net, 30toLaunchWindowsPhoneapp.com, and 30toLaunchWindowsPhoneapp.net.

All of the domains were registered through the internet brand protection company MarkMonitor.

No details are available on exactly what ’30 to Launch’ will be. 

No trademark applications have been filed and the only exact match domains taken, are the ones Microsoft registered: 30toLaunch.com and 30toLaunch.net, neither of which resolve to a website at the time of this story.

As far as social media usernames, twitter.com/30toLaunch went online for a very short time in 2009, but is no longer active.  ’30 to Launch’ was setup as a collaborative project between Sarah Lewis and Alex Terry that asked users, “What would you do if you had 30 days left to live?”

Categories
Movies News

Diary of a Fashion Intern: The Saul Zaentz Company registers a slew of domains

Diary of a Fashion Intern

One of the most respected film production companies, The Saul Zaentz Company, has registered a dozen domain names for ‘Diary of a Fashion Intern’ including diaryofafashionintern.com and diaryofafashioninternnewyork.com. 

The names focus on various fashion capitals of the world such as Los Angeles, Paris and London.

The Saul Zaentz Company has won Best Picture Oscar for three films and owns exclusive rights to certain elements of J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit, through its Middle Earth Enterprises Division.

The company’s latest domain registrations, all registered on November 4th through the brand protection company MarkMonitor, include:

diaryofafashionintern.com
diaryofafashioninternberlin.com
diaryofafashioninternlondon.com
diaryofafashioninternlosangeles.com
diaryofafashioninternmadrid.com
diaryofafashioninternmilan.com
diaryofafashioninternmoscow.com
diaryofafashioninternnewyork.com
diaryofafashioninternparis.com
diaryofafashioninternrio.com
diaryofafashioninternshanghai.com
diaryofafashioninterntokyo.com

It’s unknown what will become of the domain names, but they could be destined for a new film project, as there appears to be number of online diaries written by fashion interns.

As of today, none of the domains resolve to a web page.

(Photo of Milan Fashion Week via br1dotcom)

Categories
News

Internet giant InterActiveCorp (IAC) is working on something called ‘Coolica’

InterActiveCorp Headquarters

New York-based InterActiveCorp, the internet company which owns some of the most popular destinations on the web such as Ask.com and Match.com, appears to be working on a new business called ‘Coolica’. 

Now this is purely speculation since IAC hasn’t announced anything, however, it appears the company has been acquiring domain names like Coolica.net, Coolica.org and Koolica.com through the internet brand protection company MarkMonitor.

Coolica.net, Coolica.org and Koolica.com were all registered on November 2.

While the domains remain hidden behind WHOIS privacy, the tell-tale sign that the names belong to IAC, is that the name servers for all three WHOIS records point to IAC’s own name servers: laxsns01.iac.com and nycsns01.iac.com, as shown in the picture below.

Coolica

Unfortunately, IAC is so far missing one component – Coolica.com. 

The domain name is currently owned by Ron Sharon-Zipser who has been the registrant since 2009.

(Photo of IAC/InterActiveCorp Headquarters in NY City via XalD)