Chinese Firm to Buy Godaddy.com?

China and its leading Google competitors may soon be shopping down Godaddy’s lane. Bob Parsons may need to be raising some extra cash because Godaddy.com is up on the auction block. Reliable news or rumor? Domainers were stunned today when the Wall Street Journal announced the celebrated blog-era registrar and massive hosting company Godaddy.com is for sale.

Priced at about 9or over) $1 billion, Godaddy owns a significant share of both all internet domain name business and beginner-to-intermediate web hosting enterprises online. Domainers mourned that the days of the dollar discount and Godaddy coupon codes may sadly be over. Whomever buys Godaddy will have 43 million domain name contracts with ICANN intact, and the owners reading their new partner’s email at rapt attention.

Godaddy is in decent shape for an auction. The company posted revenue (after a few choppy years in a row) between $750 million and $800 million in 2009, and has a whopping 50% of web hosting market share hands down. This is one of the healthiest industries in America today.

Godaddy enjoys a reputation among online customers a reliable warhorse with flexible hosting plans for every level of computer user. Domain names and bundled third party applications canted at the beginner webmaster through the career website administrator regularly accompany domain sales.

The Scottsdale, Arizona company offers tiered web hosting services and discount-code name promotions that have kept Godaddy hopping with the general public and industry regulars.Internet pricing wars between web hosting companies led Godaddy to scale its offerings in every shape and size, including online carts, forums, security, and traffic building.

After several hard years shaking off many smaller hosting competitors,  and promotional representation by Danica Patrick (et.al) Godaddy is archly the common friend/enemy of most domainers.  Yet almost every domain name owner has a Godaddy account and/or hosting plan. Godaddy antics have been chewed over in the blogosphere by domainer cognoscienti daily.

Why sell Godaddy.com now? Speculators wonder if Parsons is low on cash or simply looking to take a profit in the best domainer tradition. Google has been suggested as a buyer, but more interesting acquisitions of Godaddy.com might be by Oracle, a company long rumored to try and match its hardware industry presence with online services and interactive client sales potential.

Certainly Oracle (or Sun, for that matter) could power their Sparcstations with self telephony and owned packets for a lower price that leased VPS or whatever redundancy they have now. If Hewlett Packard somehow assembled a leadership squad, then they might arise anew as the Internet business phoenix of all time.

Could Conde Nast or Trump be thinking of expanding online?

Or could China, newly emerging as the era’s leading moneymaker, pick off Godaddy and suddenly own 50% of the Western world’s hosting files? If a China firm marshals one of the private equity bidders to acquire the webhost monolith, China could grasp a tenterhook on Western media and global consumer eyeballs in a one-check power play. (And become Paypal’s new best friend).

Godaddy.com goes on sale shopped by Qatalyst Partners of London and San Francisco. (Danica Patrick not included).

Mind.cn sold for $20,000

I haven’t seen any .cn domains sold in xx,xxx range previously and I now notice a domain sale of Mind.cn for $20,000. It was a very good domain sale for a .cn (China extension) domain. I believe it is sold to an end user. The domain, Mind.cn was sold at the Sedo domain marketplace. The domain made me think of my domain sale, Mindpedia.com for x,xxx range a few months ago.

I looked at the previous .cn domain sales and found out another two xx,xxx range .cn domain sales. They are Rugby.cn sold for $25,000 (2007) and Forums.cn sold for $10,000 (2009).

Godaddy Boots .CN Namesells

Concerned about new Chinese data collection policies, Go Daddy announced Wednesday that it will no longer allow customers to sign up for new .CN domain names. While .CN management is currently intact, Americana and global customers may ultimately vended to a third party if GoDaddy washes it hands of .CN altogether. China’s surveillance and monitoring of the Internet activities of its citizens has unsettled many human rights legislators and internet business operators.

As China changes the internet model, so may they also see declines in international traffic and online profit taking opportunities from Western consumers. The domain registrar follows recent reporting of rejection of Google data management policies inside the Asian meganation. The curtailing of sales of  .CN domain names spells the end of the open book playing field for internet domainers.

Google China: What Went Wrong?

Evidently the overarching deal terms to whatever agreement Google had with China didn’t stipulate clearly enough that Google’s brand and emechanisms would be falling under the red banner. Did China backwards engineer a Google fault or did they use proprietary technology to spark a lethal cyberattack against (American) competitors online?

     It would seem that some code originators in China are not nearly as scrupulous as the Chinese government would believe. Experts say Google has a case to proceed no matter what. Either (A) malicious hackers are so prevalent in China nobody can stop them, and hence Google can proceed unimpeded by censors, or (B) China’s Internet policy is hopelessly imperialistic given the elasticity and speed of the Internet andthe genie can’t be put back in the bottle for billions of Chinese Internet fans.

China’s unilateral policy towards Internet use is ungovernable and technically indefensible, as the last week’s hacking activity shows. If China wants to control the Internet and write dictatorial policy for the entire planet, such as altering Google engines would demand, they need to address more internal matters before presuming to articulate market forces.

No Google Flowers for China

Chinese citizens, grateful to Google for stepping up against the unholy internet filters, started leaving flowers at the China location for Google, reports say. Al-Jazeera reports that  Chinese citizens are aware they are getting shafted by Chinese government policies and are happy someone is finally standing up to Big Red. This could mean a slammed shut China market for domaining and web space enterprises. Many experts cannot predict where China’s inflexibility will take their internet presence and how citizens will react.

China Strangles Google Access, Users

China continues to pretend it isn’t strangling natural growth and internet access to its citizens; Google isn’t buying. When will China figure out that political doubletalk doesn’t equal partnership? A BBC story details the myopic projection of Chinese Internet policies as the world’s biggest Internet company threatens to walk.

China today released a statement announcing that “Internet firms are welcome to do business “according to the law”.

The statement, from Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu, is Beijing’s first response to Google’s threat to stop filtering content in China.

Google said late on Tuesday that Chinese cyber-attacks aimed at human rights activists might force it to close its Chinese operations.

Ms Jiang said the internet was “open” in China.

Google announced that it was no longer willing to censor its Chinese search engine – google.cn.

The search engine subsequently said it would hold talks with the government in the coming weeks to look at operating an unfiltered search engine within the law in the country, though no changes to filtering have yet been made.

China delimits Internet Webmaking

As befits a national government free of corruption, China today underscored its intent to censor Internet activity centered on website launches and content creation, citing prevention of child-based pornography, piracy, and fraud.

Yet transparently this seems to many to be a way for the current political establishment to elimination development of the opposition. And, ironically, these efforts to shut down sites leave the options to buy .Cn domains to foriegners.

“Individuals have also been banned from registering Web sites ending in .cn, China’s country code domain name. That domain is now limited to registered businesses.

 Although individuals can still register Web sites in other domains, such as .com and .net, the new rule “will have a negative impact on the vibrancy of the Chinese Internet,” Kenneth Jarrett, vice chairman of the communications firm APCO Worldwide’s China region, said in an e-mail message.

“Local e-mail e-commerce startups and individuals will find it difficult to apply,” he wrote.”

from the New York Times

Review ICANN policy for disputed domains…

ICANN holds that passive holding of a disputed domain name permits an unlawful inference of registration and domain use in bad faith. The other two tenets of disputed domains are that  no use of the domain name or website that connected with the domain name is occurring, and that the domain holder is not widely known by that name.

For a good example, review the complaint filed with ICANN by West Coast University against a Chinese domain owner for www.wcuedu.us. The decision marks an ICANN enforcement of these elements and domain use dynamics.

Triple two dot com earns big…

Sedo.com has sold the 3 number domain name 222.com for $49,000 USD . According to Whois history records, the web hosting communications company Blue Gravity was the past owner and the new owner is Lei Shengqiang.

Secondly, 222.com is not just any old 3 number domain. Area codes and numerology issue new meanings to such names. A Chinese buyer makes sense, especially in China’s emerging internet landscape. As China discovers its inner websurfer, new domain destinations with strong numerical associations will be in demand.

According to NameBio.com, they report 4 other NNN .com domain sales in 2009. All of those are 5 figures.

434.com $18,500 (Sedo)
414.com $11,480 (Disemails)
659.com $10,600 (Sedo)
401.com $65,100 (NameJet)

Chinese Name Checkers

Domainers continue to coalesce around the Chinese name market as well as they can. As much as international domainers and global speculators are focusing on China, a limited participation offering may not yet have fully emerged solidly. Despite visible State support, the offering seems not quite yet navigable.

Complex entry into the Chinese domain name market may spell competition and obstacles. Currently, Internet Explorer 6 is in use in China is at around the 68% mark. Chinese residents and internet users also must participate in a cultural content block, which may limite certain domain topics and website offerings to a vast extent, such as the adult market.

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