Is Google Inc. launching a website builder called “InstaWeb” or did they get beat to the punch is the question. Here are somethings that I found:
Google Inc. became the owners of the domain name InstaWeb.net from a Joshua Marantz according to whois records. The domain has been registered since September 6, 2004 and according to whois records, Google secured the domain on March 23, 2015.
InstaWeb.com was owned by a David Lowy of Vancouver Canada and the domain was using Sedo Parking until April 2, 2015 when the whois data went into privacy protection. The domain name was reported sold on Sedo for $8,824 on April 8, 2015. On May 4, 2015 domain name servers were set to “voxiocms.com” and a website stating “A new way to create your websites in minutes” was live. The site isn’t functional other than a picture slider and that text. It has a sign up box but I tried it and it doesn’t appear to work.
So the question right now is, is Google also behind the .com domain changes? Google also owns the domain InstaWeb.org, which was also owned by Joshua Marantz. Neither InstaWeb.net nor InstaWeb.org resolve or redirect.
On May 12, 2015 a trademark was filed on the term InstaWeb by a “Code Loft LLC” and attorney David Lizerbram. The mark includes “Providing temporary use of non-downloadable computer software to create and customize web sites”
Code Loft LLC was filed on April 13, 2015 in California using LegalZoom.com, Inc.
Clearly some things point to Google as the potential buyers of InstaWeb.com, but Voxiocms.com isn’t a “common” name server used by Google. I also wouldn’t expect Google to be using LegalZoom.com, Inc to file an LLC when they have in-house legal.
Why would Google wait from March 23 when it secured InstaWeb.net | .org and until April 2 to buy the .com if it was for sale at Sedo? The LLC was created about 1 month prior to the trademark filing, which took place about 10 days after acquiring the domain… so it may appear that somebody had noticed Google obtain InstaWeb.net / .org and jumped on InstaWeb.com “to beat them to the punch”, created an LLC, filed a trademark and launched a website? It could be pure coincidence also.
Or is Google “hiding” they own the .com and set things up how the average person would? Only time will tell but that is the information that I have so you can decide.
Here is a screenshot of the whois record for InstaWeb.net showing Google as the owners of that domain name.
