Google To Unveil Its Own Smart Phone Without Owning The Domain: Nexus One: Did The Owners Just Hit The Domain Lottery?

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Tomorrow Google at an “Android press gathering” at its headquarters in Mountain View, Calif. at 1 p.m. ET,  is expected announce the first smart phone completely designed by Google, and according to reports is to be named the Nexus One.

Unlike Apple which has appearently locked up the domains associated with its widely anticipated Tablet computer, widely reported to be iSlate, Google does not seem to own Nexusone.com or even Nexus1.com.

Nexusone.com is registered to an individual in Portland Oregon but is re-directing to a site owned by Supra Systems, a Philippines company which is a  “Manufacturer and Distributor of Products for  Mining, Tunneling, Construction”.

The domain Nexusone.com was registered way back in 1998.

Now if the Philippines company is happy re-directing the domain nexusone.com to is .com.ph site, you would think that Google could have well before the announcement, maybe months ago when they decided to go with the name “Nexus One” buy the domain for a small change.

Nexus1.com is owned by an individual listing a Houston address and the domain does not currently resolve.

According to a review by tech blog Engadget Google’s Nexus One was built by HTC, under the specifications of Google. According to reports The Nexus One smart phone will be wider but slimmer than Apple’s iPhone and faster than Motorola’s Droid, and will run on Google’s Android 2.1 software, on a lightning-fast processor.

How Google could have named this phone Nexus One, and compete with the iPhone, Blackberry, Palm and the Droid, without securing the branding of the product by securing at least the .com of the proper spelling, is pretty amazing.

For those owning the domains, did they just hit the domain lottery?

If they are smart they did.

About Michael Berkens

Michael Berkens, Esq. is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of TheDomains.com. Michael is also the co-founder of Worldwide Media Inc. which sold around 70K domain to Godaddy.com in December 2015 and now owns around 8K domain names . Michael was also one of the 5 Judges selected for the the Verisign 30th Anniversary .Com contest.

Comments

  1. dcmike77 says

    Or is google just slapping all domainers in the face and suggesting domain names are not that important. Perhaps they’re contempt with simply using google.com/nexusone

    I’m curious to see what they do from a marketing standpoint.

  2. David J Castello says

    Whatever one thinks of Google they’ve historically been quite clever about covering ALL of their bases. This makes no sense. It would be like Apple not owning iPhone.com.

  3. MHB says

    Dc

    I don’t think that was a good business decision by Google when they could have had the domain for what $10K, $25K, $50K?

    Risk a huge brand for what is chump change, that isn’t smart business

  6. Anunt says

    Domain names are going to be worthless very very soon…as more and more people just type what they are looking for in the google search.

    Just an hour ago, i was looking for the phone number to papa johns pizza in my town…i did not type papajohns.com … i just went to google.com and typed in papa johns and my city and state and just like that…the phone number appeared.

    Google has extremely smart people working for their company and they know what they are doing…if they wanted to get that domain name nexusone.com …they would have got it long time ago..but they dont need it!

  9. don says

    The obvious answer here is they will lock up the twitter/nexusone name and provide immediate real time tweets and advertise the product just like best buy

  10. t says

    I would think it makes the most sense for them to get nexus.com , the 1 and one just to enforce their brand,..as for the exact searchs, ahem they’re google

  11. MHB says

    Abdu

    According to Alexa Nexusone.com has shot up to the top 30,000 of all sites already, that a LOT of traffic they are missing out on for pennies.

  15. Robert Haastrup-Timmi says

    Most people are more likely to search for “Google Phone” rather than Nexus One. Infact, most of the media are referring to Google Phone and then go on to mention Nexus One. I’m going to develop FreeGooglePhone.com and CheapGooglePhone.com as I believe that is what most people will search for.

  16. MHB says

    Robert

    “””I’m going to develop FreeGooglePhone.com and CheapGooglePhone.com”””

    Have you ever heard of UDRP or WIPO or trademark law?

  17. Breaking News Blog says

    “I’m going to develop FreeGooglePhone.com and CheapGooglePhone.com”

    Reply: “Have you ever heard of UDRP or WIPO or trademark law?”

    to avoid any copyright problem about the G name, you can use a a different domain and a logo with the three *** as I’ve used in my PROTEST T-SHIRT against the Big Brother of the web:

    http://www.cafepress.com/spaceideas

    .

  18. Robert Haastrup-Timmi says

    Re: UDPR & WIPO

    That may or may not be an issue depending on how the site is eventually developed. For instance, both Freeiphone.com and FreeiPhone.co.uk both direct to other websites, with only the latter actually promoting iPhones.

    My perspective is this, if you own a trademark related domain with good intent to develop, what is the big deal? After all, Google phones will have to be sold in the wider universal market place by all kinds of players. The other thing is, Google blatantly publishes books that are copyright because it believes people should have access to these books. So why would developing freegooglephone.com be such a big deal as long as it promotes google phones for sale.

    I honestly sometimes feel domainers over react to UDPR & WIPO…. I think all cases are different based on intent. You can’t tell a car dealer not to own usedbmw.com just because it’s a trademark right? If all you intend to do is park domains such as this, then that may be an issue. By the way, Freegooglephone.com has a pr3, but i have never parked the domain and do not intend to park. I aim to develop and sell google phones with affiliate partners hopefully e.g Amazon and other cell phone providers hopefully.

  21. Domo says

    The answer to the question is ; yes!!!

    and then here comes Nexus 2 or Nexus Plus…

    The big winner IMO is nexus.com

    MHB:
    have you considered domainstate.com ?
    I like your style, very simmilar to the Spirit of DS (at least to recent times).
    Domo

  24. MHB says

    Anthony

    As with my recent run in with domainboardroom, I’m definitely not a forum guy.

    Besides I already have a low paying job which takes a lot of time right here

  25. domain guy says

    googlenexusone.com,is a long tail domain this way google incoporates
    its name in the brand. the generic nexus.com,nexusone.com could simply be a shampoo.freegooglephone.com, freeiphone.com etc incoporate registered trademarks. any attempt to benefit from goodwill will result in legal termination of the domain.all domainers should know this throughly…..
    anunt makes a valid statement… if google or microsft adjust their browser they will hijack direct navigation traffic this is where i am afraid we are all headed and i see this as a legimate future threat to all domainers.

  26. Robert Haastrup-Timmi says

    “freegooglephone.com, freeiphone.com etc incoporate registered trademarks. any attempt to benefit from goodwill will result in legal termination of the domain.all domainers should know this throughly…..”

    Well, I have launched FreeGooglePhone.com so let’s see what happens. As I pointed out previously, it all depends on a case by case basis and nothing is cast in stone. If any domain name is construed as an infringement simply because it has a trademark name in it, then that means millions of domain names are illegitimate including ones unknowingly in your portfolio as long as any trade mark can argue.

    If the above comment is absolute, why haven’t Apple pursued the owner of FreeiPhone.com and FreeiPhone.co.uk? The truth is imo, a lot of domain owners have no idea what to do with domain names other than to park them or sell them at auction, which is why the industry has such a bad reputation as cybersquaters….seems rather unfortunate. I suppose I would be upset as a trademark if a domain with my mark in it was blatantly promoting my competitors. That is what most parking pages do, hence the problem of cybersquating.

    If a domain name is being used to compliment a trademark and it’s products, e.g re-seller as in usedbmw.com or freegooglephone.com, then why should there be a legal issue. It’s called “Marketing” and should not always be mis-construed as TM infringement, as is being overtly asserted through the domain community today. We should tow a fine line here, otherwise domain creativity is grossly subdued.