DomainInvesting.com Blog Chooses To Be Non-Transparent, NameBio.com Ends Up Publishing Sales Data

Wow I don't get it.why keep that info private? When it could easily be gotten from some other sources?

What's the point?

Exactly my point. The reason, data is valuable and chose to hoard sales data for self interests, instead of make public. He commented for me and his readers to do the research on namebio.com and to just email jeff/frank directly to get the sales data directly, instead of him just publishing.

This was his last reply to me, saying I was having a tantrum because he would not make this info public. SMH......

Maybe many of these sales had "gentleman's handshake" type non disclosure agreements?

That he would not publish the sale but removes all liability from himself if the sale was "discovered" by some clever domainer?

NameBio released a larger list...

https://namebio.com/blog/full-list-17-2-million-sales-uniregistry-released/

This is not the case. Jeff Gabriel from Uniregistry would not have released such sales. This is why the list only contains 2,700, instead of 3,614.

I gave him a few opportunities to comment if this was the case as to why not publish full list. Bottom line, no matter what I said, he refused to publish and said not to rely on 3rd party sources for sales data.

DnJournal.com is a 3rd party that publishes sales for quite a long time. Does this mean sales data can not be trusted?

In the end, A spade is a spade. No need to make excuses for Elliot. He chose not to publish and insult me along the way. My feelings are not hurt. I have the moral fortitude to call out blogs/businesses who are nontransparent or who conduct unethical business practices. All others should do the same to clean up this industry. Many have, and I applaud/salute those folks!

I first read about the UNI press release on OnlineDomain.com HERE

Below is the first comment:


I assume that comment hinted that the sales figure included in house sales.

I only ran two reverse WHOIS.

(1)




(2)

The last WHOIS registrant (that I saw) before Facebook took ownership was somebody from Germany n 2016. What a great ROI for a 2016 reg!





http://dotweekly.com/domain-movers-likewise-com-toontrump-com/


**I only searched two domains. Two sales don't tell the full story. Don't speculate. Don't be afraid research or ask questions either**

Don't look a gift horse in the mouth unless it's made of wood, if so, check the belly for soldiers.

ecalc said:

Don't look a gift horse in the mouth unless it's made of wood, if so, check the belly for soldiers.

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Very funny. Needed a good laugh!

Thanks

I don't think this is a lack of transparency. Uni would be opaque if they refused to release the data. Elliot publishes a private blog, with topics of his choosing and it is entirely his prerogative what he publishes or does not. If you feel he is misleading his audience, it is fully your right to call him out on your own publishing platform (or his blog if he chooses to allow the calling out). But AFAIK, it is fully his choice to publish the full list or not, especially if he is not the exclusive recipient of the data as he pointed out. If uni refused to release the data (which is not the case), you should instead call them out.

I get why you want the data, but targeting Elliot incorrect in my opinion. He is not the owner of the data and has zero obligation to publish it

anantj said:

I don't think this is a lack of transparency. Uni would be opaque if they refused to release the data. Elliot publishes a private blog, with topics of his choosing and it is entirely his prerogative what he publishes or does not. If you feel he is misleading his audience, it is fully your right to call him out on your own publishing platform (or his blog if he chooses to allow the calling out). But AFAIK, it is fully his choice to publish the full list or not, especially if he is not the exclusive recipient of the data as he pointed out. If uni refused to release the data (which is not the case), you should instead call them out.

I get why you want the data, but targeting Elliot incorrect in my opinion. He is not the owner of the data and has zero obligation to publish it

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There is something called professional etiquette and ethical business practices. When an industry blog refuses and chooses not to publish valuable sales data to keep for himself and cherry pick’s data to release publicly, trust is lost along the way of content published. This is not my opinion but fact. If an industry blog wants to operate in a nontransparent manner, what true value do they offer readers or their advertisers? If you are going to hoard sales data, do not make it public that you have gained access to it. Simple as that!

Aplaud/salute Michael from @namebio.com making this sales data public approx. 7 hours later after this post. Elliot should have just made full list public instead of hoarding the data. I am not the only one who feels this way. A spade is a spade. No need to make excuses for Elliot's actions, or lack of action.

Right, best to lighten the mood, we're not curing cancer here. For the record I'm with Elliot not the peanut gallery on this one.

ecalc said:

Right, best to lighten the mood, we're not curing cancer here. For the record I'm with Elliot not the peanut gallery on this one.

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I respect your position Sir.

However, the peanut gallery are the ones who read the content that is published on DomainInvesting.com and many other industry blogs, and are the reason alexa rankings improve. Just saying...........

His site, he can post what he wants.

I think what it boils down to is ridding any possible efforts of deceptive marketing. I don't know the original domains Elliot posted, nor am I qualified to speculate on why he might have posted those.

Certain headlining stats are marketing hype, sometimes referred to as click bait. I'm continually learning that you can't judge a book by it's cover. IE -- you need the full data before you can speculate. The book may be better, or worse, than the cover suggests. That's why, if the data exists, there is need for the general public to have access to data so they can gain the full scope of headlining stats.

That said, in my previous post, I included a second WHOIS history of WorkplaceChat.com to show an example of a sale not owned in house. The other sale may or may not be an in house sale. I simply noted the previous 2016 owner. (An updated WHOIS after the 2016 one I posted will help confirm or deny if it was an in house sale or not) At first, I only ran one historical WHOIS and saw it was previously owned by Name Administration Inc. I could have just posted that statistical headline alone to support the suggestions previous comment from OnlineDomain.com.

I targeted a similar short name in the sales data, and ran a historical WHOIS.



... and found a similar result.



Now, I can keep posting historical WHOIS of short names sold on UNI, to help try and uncover how many of the sales were in house vs 3rd party. This might inspire others to help research, and the task will get done quicker. (This might inspire UNI to provide that info up front. ie 3rd paty sales vs in house sales) The thing is, if only I (or a select few) had the data, nobody else would be able to fact check the other domains. Uni might have sold a higher percentage of short in house domains than longer domains. Hence, the importance of open data and transparency. It can take me hours to find the bread crumbs I find, while it takes somebody in the know or with a large DB minutes.

When I saw the first comment on OnlineDomain.com, regarding the possibility of those stats including in house sales, a part of me wanted to confirm or deny that comment. Now before anybody starts wrongly assuming I am judge, jury, and executioner (again) I am merely a domainer voicing my personal opinion. Nothing I say should be taken at face value. You always need to research for yourselves, because there are times, when the author of the content might not have knowingly known they said something wrong and/or controversial and/or out of scope. IE if Elliot saw others were upset about the amount of data, he could have taken that issue into consideration before making it personal. Even if it was something like, I understand your concerns. I will talk with the appropriate people to see if we can find a way to make this data more transparent to the masses. That way, it shows that even though there isn't intent to publish sales, there are back channels working to disclose the data. I wouldn't have found the sales reported on NameBio (as quickly as I did) if I didn't read the comments of Elliots blog. And, with that, it might not have been certain that NameBio was going to publish the data until the public requested it. Regardless of how this played out, I like it on NameBio because it's searchable with dates.

Thank you Michael from Namebio, and Uniregistry for working together to provide the data that has been provided. While, it is better than 136 data points, it is not the headlined 3,614. This is a tough marketing call on what to report. Should they only report sales they can provide data behind? Maybe a dual headline issuing a presser that Uni released sales data for $17,200,000 of their 29,000,000 in sales? IE a verifiable figure with data, along with their internal (nonverifiable?) sales? This kind of reminds me of the recent confusion of Efty's PR that they just added their 1 millionth domain. Some people though that meant 1 million domains were being forwarded to Efty landing pages, while the stat (I think) actually meant 1 million domains being managed using Efty dashboard.

texmexi said:

There is something called professional etiquette and ethical business practices. When an industry blog refuses and chooses not to publish valuable sales data to keep for himself and cherry pick’s data to release publicly, trust is lost along the way of content published. This is not my opinion but fact. If an industry blog wants to operate in a nontransparent manner, what true value do they offer readers or their advertisers? If you are going to hoard sales data, do not make it public that you have gained access to it. Simple as that!

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Again, it is not hoarding. It's his choice. If you do not trust him, do not read his blog. At the end of the day, it still is his choice to publish what he wants just as equally, it is your choice of what you read and which blog you follow.

texmexi said:

No need to make excuses for Elliot's actions, or lack of action.

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Meh. I have no reason to or incentive to defend Elliot. In this situation, I'd have stated the same thing if you'd have called out Andrew from DNW who published a post on the uni sales but did not publish the raw data or Konstantinos over at onlinedomain.com. It is immaterial that in this case, you called out Elliot.

anantj said:

I'd have stated the same thing if you'd have called out Andrew from DNW who published a post on the uni sales but did not publish the raw data or Konstantinos over at onlinedomain.com. It is immaterial that in this case, you called out Elliot.

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Interesting point -- but how can you know Andrew or Konstantinos had the data to post (or not post) in the first place? Both of them were reporting on the press release.

Andrew referenced this NJ presser which doesn't include sales data.

http://www.prnewswire.com/news-rele...-sales-in-its-secondary-market-300521407.html

It doesn't appear Konstantinos had the data either. Per his below quote...

We have no indication of how many of these 3617 domains were owned by Uniregistry’s owner Frank Schilling and how many were sold by Uniregistry clients.

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Twitter time stamps

Grilled said:

Interesting point -- but how can you know Andrew or Konstantinos had the data to post (or not post) in the first place? Both of them were reporting on the press release.

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That wasn't my point
My point was that I was not defending or making excuses for Elliot (in this situation). I'd probably have made the same arguments for anyone else who talked about this data. Andrew/Konstantinos were merely easy examples to cite

anantj said:

That wasn't my point
My point was that I was not defending or making excuses for Elliot (in this situation). I'd probably have made the same arguments for anyone else who talked about this data. Andrew/Konstantinos were merely easy examples to cite

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@anantj,

Your not defending, but making up scenario's with Andrew/Konstantinos as false examples is just that no matter how you try to spin it to make your so called point. Seriously? No need to back step now with smiley faces.

Your comment "Probably made the same argument if it were anyone else." Speaks volumes. You either have a "Standard" or there is no standards. Simple as that.

JB Lions said:

His site, he can post what he wants.

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You are correct. So can I and others based on facts and direct communications. It is called freedom of speech in America. Something I defended for over 20years as an Soldier in the United States Army. And continue to do so, now that I am retired.

anantj said:

Again, it is not hoarding. It's his choice. If you do not trust him, do not read his blog. At the end of the day, it still is his choice to publish what he wants just as equally, it is your choice of what you read and which blog you follow.

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Another silly comment or point. If you publish an industry blog and operate with nontransparent and unethical business practices, you will be held accountable. TechCrunch.com was just a blog that was operated by an individual in the beginning Michael Arrington, until accquired. Do you think your thought of mind would fly with his readers?

Not a chance. When you operate a blog and take on advertisers, you are now a business. The United States has Standards of business ethics, just like all countries.

So under your thought of mind, the Namejet.com and Snap Names scandal would fall into same scenarios you posted. It is there business, they can do what they want. If folks do not like how they operate, then do not use their services. No need to complain or voice opinions/facts on unethical business practices. Nothing to see here.

Again, it is all about standards. You either enforce "Standards" or there are none.

Elliot's blog is a business in the industry. He makes money off advertisers, visitors, and content that is published. He offers names for sale to his visitors. No different than a stand alone business without a blog. Regardless, blogs/businesses should remain transparent and operate ethically; and be held accountable when they fail to do so.

Have you even read the replies made by Elliot when I requested if he could publish full list? They tell the story and true intentions.

Commented for folks to search namebio.com, as it would be easier to sort instead of him publishing full list. Problem is namebio.com did not have all these sales in their database and he knew this. Additionally, DnJournal.com did not have these sales reported in their database. This is the reason why Michael published the full list of sales data and made public!

Then there is the comment of "Smart people would just email jeff/frank and ask for sales data, instead of reply on 3rd parties for sales data." Are you kidding me?

Standards are set to be enforced, not overlooked and defended when a blogger or business (both in this case) chooses not to follow those Standards for personal gain.

When I think of the most ethical people in the domain space there are two people that immediately come to mind, and Elliot is one of them. I'm not exaggerating in the least, Elliot is as good as they come.

Actually you should thank Elliot because if it wasn't for his post I would have had no idea Jeff was releasing the full list to anyone. I had to request it after seeing Elliot's post. When what I got didn't have dates I had to request it again, and then manually fill in some missing dates, which is why we were several hours late to the party. Elliot could have just kept the list to himself.

He wasn't hoarding data, he was just publishing what he felt like his readers would be interested in, with a mind to keeping the list at a reasonable length. That's his choice as the publisher. Last year DNJournal released the list in pieces over the course of more than a month. Was that hoarding data too? Ron is actually in the business of reporting sales and I didn't hear anyone complain. Elliot's focus is news and advice not data warehousing, he was just sharing some interesting sales with his readers.

The list itself is a bit of a hot potato because it includes sales made on non-house inventory, meaning brokered sales and I believe even self-brokered ones where Uniregistry only acted as the platform. Sales that not everyone realized would be made public. I can't tell you how many angry calls and emails I got from publishing the full list last year, from some very big names.

Publishing the full list opens you up to threats and potential lawsuits, so I can totally understand not wanting to publish the entire thing, especially when you know someone else will do it soon anyway. The more sales you publish the more chance you have of pissing people off. We get threatened all the time so I'm used to it, but had you gotten the list and published it you would have quickly found out why it sucks to be that guy

So rather than sitting there imagining some grand conspiracy where Elliot is twirling his curly mustache profiting from data that he won't give to you, be grateful Elliot brought its existence to light and that Uniregistry was kind enough to share it at all. And then go back to work, because this isn't productive.

Michael said:

So rather than sitting there imagining some grand conspiracy where Elliot is twirling his curly mustache profiting from data that he won't give to you, be grateful Elliot brought its existence to light and that Uniregistry was kind enough to share it at all. And then go back to work, because this isn't productive.

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@Michael,

So I am imagining some grand conspiracy now? Really? Not productive to call out unethical business practices? SMH. I should thank Uniregistry, guess what, I do thank them for releasing the info.

Elliot had plenty of opportunity to explain in detail why he would not publish the full list. Instead he chose to tell me and his readers, to go find it elsewhere.

This does not pass the commonsense test Sir. I posted this info to make a point to show what it is hidden in plain sight. I already knew I would be attacked for outing this unethical behavior. But to say I'm making up some conspiracy, priceless.

Seems folks only want to read between the lines where facts do not exist to defend Elliot's actions, but fail to read the true facts written in black and white written by him and I. For the record, I did thank Elliot and said Great job getting the sales data and also thanked him. But it is apparent you choose not to read that either to lecture me and make your point.

To bring up DnJournal.com is ridiculous. Ron has a consistent job validating sales before they are made public and this is why spurts of sales are released and updated on his sales database. I am no rookie/newbie. Been in the domain industry since 1999, and have seen it all.

I can handle the attacks with no issues, as i have thick skin. However, I find it amazing that you would post such statements, without reading the full context of the issue at hand and chose to lecture me.

Standards Not Enforced Are New Standards Set!"

soooooo,

the names that sold, have value....

and because they sold,

then knowledge of the sale, has value too?

but, if you don't give a flying frisbie -

then, does this, mean anything to you?

imo....

Michael said:

Elliot's focus is news and advice not data warehousing, he was just sharing some interesting sales with his readers.

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@Michael,

Yes he shared what he wanted, after stating that he had access to the full list disclosed by Jeff Gabriel at Uniregistry.com.

I would think that the most interesting sales data would be contained in the 99.04% not published. But under your thought of mind, that is probably part of the conspiracy you labeled this topic and I.