They are indeed the same guys who brought the Paris Hilton and Tom Sizemore sex tapes to the Web, but XPays has been working on something else, too: an automated domain name-, trademark-, and patent-monitoring service called IPAlert.
The service tracks applications and alerts subscribers when intellectual property, such as domain name registrations, expires.
Initially designed as an in-house tool, XPays had been using it to gobble up expiring domains before making it public.
“We were getting three-letter domains, dictionary word domains, and domains with traffic, so we decided to make it available to everyone else,” XPays co-owner Evan Horowitz says. “We also have law firms and inventors using our system to watch patents and trademarks.”
“We’ve gotten about 30 domains in the past two weeks at $20,” he continues. “Some of them are worth much more.”
Some of the bells and whistles include emails for every application status change, an IPAlert browser toolbar, and the ability to monitor competitors’ applications.
