Toys.xxx topped the Domain Name Journal sales chart of top reported sales for the fortnight to 29 April, selling for a cool $125,000 through ICM Registry. The domain was one of a trio of six-figure sales for the week, topping indi.com, which sold for $115,000 through DomainNameSales and Sommerhus.dk (summer house in Danish), which sold for €87,500 ($114,625) through Sedo. And in fourth place was bohe.com, selling for $85,000 through 4.CN/DomainNameSales. The sales were for the top 40 domains due to the sales period covering a fortnight and included 12 domains sold through Sedo, again indicating Sedo is facing more competition at the top of the sales charts, a trend underway for several weeks now. There were also eight sold through DomainNameSales (including two each in conjunction with 4.CN and DomainAdvisors) and Go Daddy Auctions and five through NoktaDomains. There were 31 .COM domains in the sales list, six ccTLD domains and three other gTLDs. To read the Domain Name Journal list of top reported sales for the fortnight to 29 April in full, see dnjournal.com/archive/domainsales/2012/20120509.htm .

ICM Registry, currently in court with online adult entertainment business Manwin, has asked a federal court in the US to dismiss antitrust claims saying Manwin “has failed to state anticompetitive conduct.” According to a report in XBIZ, “Manwin and its newly acquired Digital Playground unit teamed up in November just prior to .XXX’s general roll out to seek ‘redress for monopolistic conduct, price gouging and anticompetitive and unfair practices, broadly harming competition, businesses and consumers, and arising out of the establishment of .XXX.’” “But ICM Registry on Tuesday moved for an order dismissing claims under §§ 1 and 2 of the Sherman Act on grounds that Manwin failed to plead antitrust injury, failed in allegations that ICM Registry and ICANN conspired to create anticompetitive restraint or to monopolize a relevant market and that Manwin hasn’t alleged that ICM Registry engaged in unilateral anticompetitive or exclusionary conduct — all legal standards for antitrust cases to survive motions for dismissal pursuant to federal Rule 12(b)(6).” To read more of this report in XBIX, see newswire.xbiz.com/view.php?id=148193 . To register your .XXX domain name, check out America Registry here .

Since 3 May this year, 30 additional characters have been available when registering domain names under the six ccTLDs managed by AFNIC (.FR, .RE, .YT, .PM, .WF and .TF) under a Sunrise period that lasts until 3 July. Internationalised Domain Name characters that are now available to be used in domain names include é, è, ê, and β. During the Sunrise period, only existing registrants with an existing domain name in one of the ccTLDs managed Afnic are allowed to register a variation of their domain name using the new characters. After 3 July, registration will be open to all on a “first come, first served” basis. Afnic have released an analysis of the initial Sunrise period for the registration of domain names. In the first three hours after opening the registration of IDNs, 32 registrars submitted applications for 1009 domain names with diacritical marks. Of these “néria.fr” was the first IDN to be registered under .FR TLD by the registrar ASTURIA. And the five most popular new characters “é” (used 926 times), “è”, (118), , “à” and “ô”(25) and “ç” (19). And some examples provided by Afnic of domain names using the IDNs are gites-bretagne-côté-mer.fr, vannière.fr, kiosqueàdomicile.fr and bpifaçades.fr. To register your .FR domain name, with IDNs as part of the Sunrise period until 3 July, or without, see Europe Registry here .

Demand Media invested $18 million in pursuit of their generic Top Level Domain (gTLD) initiative in April, which it believes represents a complementary strategic growth opportunity for its registrar services. What the investment was in, the company has not said. The announcement came in their 2012 first quarter results, announced this week, that also included results for their registrar services. Registrar revenue grew 17 per cent year-over-year and three per cent compared to the fourth quarter of 2011 while the number of registered domains grew by a net 593,000 compared to 442,000 in the first quarter of 2011, due to growth from new partners and organic growth from resellers. “Driven by continued growth across our businesses, our first quarter revenue exceeded our seasonally strong Q4 2011 results,” said Richard Rosenblatt, Chairman and CEO of Demand Media. “We are pleased with our first quarter results and remain focused on investing in our long-term growth initiatives, including enhancing the quality of our Owned & Operated properties, expanding our content distribution channels and partnerships, and pursuing new generic Top Level Domain opportunities.”

May 9, 2012 — Web hosting company Pacnet announced on Tuesday it has named Nigel Stitt the CEO of its Australia and New Zealand business, replacing Deborah Homewood who is leaving the company to pursue new professional endeavors outside of the telecommunications and technology sector.

May 9, 2012 — Web hosting provider Lunarpages announced on Wednesday that it has expanded its presense in Irvine, California, through a Latisys data center.

May 9, 2012 — Web hosting company UnitedLayer announced on Wednesday it has made a considerable amount of investments in data centers, its employees, processes, and research and development to improve its cloud computing services.

May 9, 2012 — Cloud computing provider Amazon Web Services announced on Tuesday that it has added more features for Windows developers with Amazon RDS for SQL server and .NET support for AWS Elastic Beanstalk.

May 9, 2012 — Web hosting company PEER 1 Hosting announced last week it has named Gaye Andrews its new head of customer service in Europe, Middle East and Africa.

May 9, 2012 — Open source software provider Red Hat outlined the roadmap for its OpenShift platform-as-a-service on Wednesday. As part of its plans, Red Hat will extend OpenShift PaaS to allow enterprise to use both DevOps operational models and traditional application management.