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information Brent Oxley Loses Access to Create.com, Plus Millions of Dollars Worth of His Domains

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Brent Oxley, the founder of HostGator, has been accruing a portfolio of ultra-premium domain names since he sold his hosting company for close to $300 million in 2013.

With purchases such as Give.com for $500,000, Broker.com for $375,000, and Texas.com for $1,007,500, Oxley has spent millions of dollars over the past few years accumulating this collection. According to his website, the portfolio is worth more than $25 million.

Oxley has now, however, lost access to a proportion of his portfolio

Read the full report on my blog
 
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The views expressed on this page by users and staff are their own, not those of NamePros.
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”A court order is an official proclamation by a judge (or panel of judges) that defines the legal relationships between the parties to a hearing, a trial, an appeal or other court proceedings. Such ruling requires or authorizes the carrying out of certain steps by one or more parties to a case.”
 
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@Lox - That does NOT seem to be a 'court order', that is just a case being lodged.
 
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GoDaddy email showing that the web domain registrar is complying with a court order issued by the High Court of Singapore ...

Source: cointelegraph

Show attachment 184456
This seems to be just the complain filled, what I don't understand is why we are talking about two law courts in two different countries for the same lock? Brent was talking about an email recieved from gadaddy talking about a complain from Rajastan, India: 'We have been notified that per documents filed in the District Court in Alwar, Rajasthan, the domain names below are the subject of a legal dispute:

HYBRID.COM, DISTRIBUTE.COM, ADMIRER.COM, DRONE.COM, CIA.COM, DEMOLISH.COM, EMIR.COM, DARM.COM, BRIDE.COM, ADVISE.COM, FLUTE.COM, LOANTAP.COM, JEWEL.COM,

ITEM.COM, PIANO.COM, DEVOTE.COM, VTOK.COM, ATHLETE.COM, BONJOUR.COM, VALENTINE.COM, DUST.COM, DETECT.COM, VIAJE.COM, MESSAGE.COM'


What Rajastan, India has to do with Singapore? I'm missing something? From whom did you receive this copy of the email?
 
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This seems to be just the complain filled, what I don't understand is why we are talking about two law courts in two different countries for the same lock? Brent was talking about an email recieved from gadaddy talking about a complain from Rajastan, India: 'We have been notified that per documents filed in the District Court in Alwar, Rajasthan, the domain names below are the subject of a legal dispute:

HYBRID.COM, DISTRIBUTE.COM, ADMIRER.COM, DRONE.COM, CIA.COM, DEMOLISH.COM, EMIR.COM, DARM.COM, BRIDE.COM, ADVISE.COM, FLUTE.COM, LOANTAP.COM, JEWEL.COM,

ITEM.COM, PIANO.COM, DEVOTE.COM, VTOK.COM, ATHLETE.COM, BONJOUR.COM, VALENTINE.COM, DUST.COM, DETECT.COM, VIAJE.COM, MESSAGE.COM'


What Rajastan, India has to do with Singapore? I'm missing something? From whom did you receive this copy of the email?

Unless I am missing something, what does the Singapore case with Kucoin have to do with the Brent Oxley case in India?

Am I missing something? They seem to be completely separate cases and circumstances.

Brad
 
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so why people here keep saying there is no court order.
Because Brent has asked about a court order number from Godaddy for a year and was ignored, they said that they can lock a domain even without a court order, just for a complain..also, when goaddy representatives were commenting about this situation, they never talk about the court order. Brent didn't received any notice from India that he should appear in a court...you can't have a court order, without giving the right to defense to the defendant.
 
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GoDaddy email showing that the web domain registrar is complying with a court order issued by the High Court of Singapore ...

Source: cointelegraph

Show attachment 184456
This is how it will look an email received on a daily basis in couple of months by everybody who owns a decent domain, with millions of domains locked, if they will not do a hard core change to their legal issues.
 
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Unless I am missing something, what does the Singapore case with Kucoin have to do with the Brent Oxley case in India?

Am I missing something? They seem to be completely separate cases and circumstances.

Brad

1. filed in the high court ....
2. and domain name is locked ...
3. pending "further order" from the court.

Appear, GD locked all BO domains based on "filed docs/cases" and waiting for the instruction/order from the India court. And US court refuses to interfere or ?

(Paul), "For instance, a U.S. federal court denied Mr. Oxley’s request for an order requiring GoDaddy to unlock the domains."
 
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true... this is open season invitation to scammers...if gd doesnt fix this..like yesterday.. they are playing a very dangerous game here..

If we as domainers remove our domains one by one there will be no game to be played and they will be left holding their balls!!!

Reddstagg
 
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1. filed in the high court ....
2. and domain name is locked ...
3. pending "further order" from the court.

Appear, GD locked all BO domains based on "filed docs/cases" and waiting for the instruction/order from the India court. And US court refuses to interfere or ?

(Paul), "For instance, a U.S. federal court denied Mr. Oxley’s request for an order requiring GoDaddy to unlock the domains."
Looks like you haven't read all the thread...to get a court order, Brent needs to notify the complainant(the same as it should be and the complainant should have done the same thing to notify Brent) and because it's in a different country/continent and he doesn't have all the details of the complainant, he needs a Hague address or something like that, which takes a lot of time(he has just received it a few days ago, according to what he's saying)...so he should get a court order soon. The idea is godaddy staff knows about all this, but they act like they don't know..it's easy to say- US federal court denied a request for an order, without saying what's behind it, he thinks that if he's not talking about it, nobody else will say anything, a form of 'fake news' godaddy style.
 
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My BIGGEST personal takeaway from this.

DON"T EVEN THINK ABOUT having a high-value domain pushed to your Godaddy account. ALWAYS REQUIRE AUTH. CODE and transfer out to complete the purchase.

Can you imagine paying 100K for a domain, having it pushed to you, and subsequently the domain is locked by godaddy because of some scam (either intentionally, or peripherally) associated with the URL?
 
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All this about the GD policy and moving domains out etc was already discussed in 2006/2007 (15-14 years ago) when GoDaddy gave the customer only 3 days to challenge the subpoena and didn't even let customer see the subpoena itself. And the Q? was - do process encourages more fake subpoenas to be filed? ... grand canyon didn't happen.

Regards
 
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It seems that there are four different issues here that are all mixed up together, which in my opinion need to be addressed separately:

1- Can a domain name be locked upon notice of legal action being started against a Registrant or should locking the domain require an actual court order.

2- Is a court order from anywhere in the World good enough for the Registrar to lock a domain name or should the court order come from a certain jurisdiction that is relevant to the Registrar and or the Registrant.

3- Can each Registrar decide on their own through their TOS as to what a legitimate reason for locking a domain name is or should there be a Uniform Standard and Policy across the whole Industry regarding the Registrants' Rights that protects the Registrants regardless of what Registrar they have their domains at.

4- Is it fair for everyone to rush to judgment by trying this case in the court of public opinion here and on the blogs without having all the facts or should everyone reserve making any judgments against the parties involved in this case (including Godaddy) until all the facts are known and that there is an official verdict issued through the legal system.

IMO
 
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My BIGGEST personal takeaway from this.

DON"T EVEN THINK ABOUT having a high-value domain pushed to your Godaddy account. ALWAYS REQUIRE AUTH. CODE and transfer out to complete the purchase.

Can you imagine paying 100K for a domain, having it pushed to you, and subsequently the domain is locked by godaddy because of some scam intertwined into the sale?

yea I'm not so sure this is guaranteed not to happen elsewhere than gd tho...
 
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It seems that there are four different issues here that are all mixed up together, which in my opinion need to be addressed separately:

1- Can a domain name be locked upon notice of legal action being started against a Registrant or should locking the domain require an actual court order.

2- Is a court order from anywhere in the World good enough for the Registrar to lock a domain name or should the court order come from a certain jurisdiction that is relevant to the Registrar and or the Registrant.

3- Can each Registrar decide on their own through their TOS as to what a legitimate reason for locking a domain name is or should there be a Uniform Standard and policy across the whole Industry regarding the Registrants' Rights that protects the Registrants regardless of what Registrar they have their domains at.

4- Is it fair for everyone to rush to judgment by trying this case in the court of public opinion here and on the blogs without having all the facts or should everyone reserve any judgment against the parties involved in this case (including Godaddy) until all the facts are known and there is an official verdict issued through the legal system.

IMO
I will comment just on your 4th point. This case is around 1 year old, so the ending should be: in around five years, the case will be dismissed or the complainant will win, if Brent doesn't unlock the domains, because it looks like godaddy doesn't do anything; if Brents manage to unlock them, he will transfer away in the next second, so godaddy will be in the same situation like now and nothing will change. So, what will be different in 5 years or in a few days, if Brent will manage to transfer away? You will have exactly the same story, godaddy will have the same rules. Even if we take in consideration that the complainant will win and the indian court will consider that he should have received some kind of commission, what should happen, godaddy will auction all these domains and pay the commission ordered by the cort to the complainant, keep their commission and pay the rest to Brent? Do you think that's even legal? So, as I see it, nothing can change that could make godaddy innocent, they don't have anything to do with this case, they have just seized something that they were not allowed to seize and they try to enforce something that is not their right to enforce. Do you see any other way out?
 
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If we as domainers remove our domains one by one there will be no game to be played and they will be left holding their balls!!!

I think we're assuming that they *care* about the business of domainers at all. The margins are pretty small for customers who mainly buy .com's (I'm guessing), and know to look for the coupons or use the discount club, etc - compared to "regular" customers who maybe own a few domains, a couple hosting plans, some emails... but are paying max price and max renewals for everything. <-- I think those are the people they like, not us.

Look at all of their marketing, it's never targeted towards domainers, it's always small business owners who don't know any better. "How GoDaddy helps small business owners succeed..." They aren't talking about domainers.

When every price they list has to include an * because it's misleading, that's a pretty big red flag. Get your new .com for only $2.99*.

Maybe it's because I come from the marketing/dev/SEO side of things, a hosting-buyer, but my impression for almost a decade has always been that GoDaddy is for people who don't know any better yet. It's almost like a rite of passage to have a bad experience with them. When we see someone using GoDaddy hosting, it's our moral duty to help them transfer away. I guess it's a bit different on the domaining side, or at least it was at some point, because I know some very established investors who are very happy with GoDaddy. Or at least, they were until now.

I think we're all trying to figure out why they aren't doing better for domainers, but maybe the premise is flawed.

It's a lot easier to understand why it seems like GoDaddy doesn't care about domainers, when you don't take it for granted that they even do care. Why would they?


Active domainers are less likely to pay the extra $20 for privacy, to overpay for subpar hosting plans, to buy all the other bells and whistles, to get gauged on year 2 onwards because they don't know about transferring their site elsewhere, or getting locked-in on proprietary nonsense and held hostage.

They probably make more money from one regular small business customer who just wants a website and email for their flower shop, than they make off any random sample of 100 domainers. So if 100 domainers decide to leave, who cares? They'll still use GoDaddy auctions, they'll still use Afternic to get more exposure for their names, they'll still get named pushed to their GD account and end up having to renew them occasionally.

I'm just making this up based on a hunch, I don't have any data to back this up, but would they really care that much if every single NamePros user transferred away? I'm not saying it's not a ton of names, but it just seems like everything else they sell has much higher margins than selling .com renewals for $8.29/yr. If Verisign price is $7.85, that's a few cents per name per year, plus the payment processing fees eating into most of that, anyways. Granted, they also make money for the discount club membership dues, but I think the point stands that they aren't really printing money off the backs of domainers.

I guess at the end of the day, big domain portfolios are basically buying high-volume of a product that seems like it's essentially a loss-leader, then threatening to take their business elsewhere, and wondering why GoDaddy doesn't seem to care.


*but you have to buy two years upfront, and the second year will cost you your first born, a rare flower that only blooms atop the world's most active volcano, and an amulet that's been lost at sea for 10,000 years.
 
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Do you see any other way out?

Who has authority over Registrars (in this case Godaddy) other than the courts.

I believe that's ICANN

So, ICANN needs to be petitioned to interfere in how these domains are being handled by GoDaddy (and that's if Godaddy has overreached in this case).

IMO
 
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I think we're assuming that they *care* about the business of domainers at all. The margins are pretty small for customers who mainly buy .com's (I'm guessing), and know to look for the coupons or use the discount club, etc - compared to "regular" customers who maybe own a few domains, a couple hosting plans, some emails... but are paying max price and max renewals for everything. <-- I think those are the people they like, not us.

Look at all of their marketing, it's never targeted towards domainers, it's always small business owners who don't know any better. "How GoDaddy helps small business owners succeed..." They aren't talking about domainers.

When every price they list has to include an * because it's misleading, that's a pretty big red flag. Get your new .com for only $2.99*.

Maybe it's because I come from the marketing/dev/SEO side of things, a hosting-buyer, but my impression for almost a decade has always been that GoDaddy is for people who don't know any better yet. It's almost like a rite of passage to have a bad experience with them. When we see someone using GoDaddy hosting, it's our moral duty to help them transfer away. I guess it's a bit different on the domaining side, or at least it was at some point, because I know some very established investors who are very happy with GoDaddy. Or at least, they were until now.

I think we're all trying to figure out why they aren't doing better for domainers, but maybe the premise is flawed.

It's a lot easier to understand why it seems like GoDaddy doesn't care about domainers, when you don't take it for granted that they even do care. Why would they?


Active domainers are less likely to pay the extra $20 for privacy, to overpay for subpar hosting plans, to buy all the other bells and whistles, to get gauged on year 2 onwards because they don't know about transferring their site elsewhere, or getting locked-in on proprietary nonsense and held hostage.

They probably make more money from one regular small business customer who just wants a website and email for their for their flower shop, than they make off any random sample of 100 domainers. So if 100 domainers decide to leave, who cares? They'll still use GoDaddy auctions, they'll still use Afternic to get more exposure for their names, they'll still get named pushed to their GD account and end up having to renew them occasionally.

I'm just making this up based on a hunch, I don't have any data to back this up, but would they really care that much if every single NamePros user transferred away? I'm not saying it's not a ton of names, but it just seems like everything else they sell has much higher margins than selling .com renewals for $8.29/yr. If Verisign price is $7.85, that's a few cents per name per year, plus the payment processing fees eating into most of that, anyways. Granted, they also make money for the discount club membership dues, but I think the point stands that they aren't really printing money off the backs of domainers.

I guess at the end of the day, big domain portfolios are basically buying high-volume of a product that seems like it's essentially a loss-leader, then threatening to take their business elsewhere, and wondering why GoDaddy doesn't seem to care.


*but you have to buy two years upfront, and the second year will cost you your first born, a rare flower that only blooms atop the world's most active volcano, and an amulet that's been lost at sea for 10,000 years.

A lot of what you are saying is correct, especially on the registration margins. However, GoDaddy makes a lot of revenue from domain investors in other ways.

A few examples -

1.) The vast majority of GoDaddy auctions are won by domain investors, not end users.

2.) The more domains @ GoDaddy, the more sales go through their venues. That is up to a 20% commission on every sale. That is a massive revenue driver.

3.) The expired auctions are also massive revenue drivers. They require expired inventory. The more domains there, the more inventory. The less domains, the less inventory.

On the buy and sell side I think domain investors create a bigger piece of the pie for many registrars than most domain investors actually realize. It not just direct revenue, there is also a lot of indirect revenue related to domain investment.

Brad
 
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I surmise that Godaddy violates their own TOS every time they sell a dead person's domain portfolio through their expired auctions, without checking if case is in probate or other status. Godaddy makes millions off of dead people. Most high-value expired domains are from dead people. If you don't believe me, do some research. GoEvil for sure.
 
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Who has authority over Registrars (in this case Godaddy) other than the courts.

I believe that's ICANN

So, ICANN needs to be petitioned to interfere in how these domains are being handled by GoDaddy (and that's if Godaddy has overreached in this case).

IMO
It's ICANN, but I don't know if they interfere in all the cases or if they have strict rules for every situation. The idea is that even if this was not about domains, it was about, cars, ships, houses or anything else. The complainant can fill a complain but nobody can seize any assets until a final verdict, you can't seize anything without a final verdict. Even after the final verdict, you need to go with your court order to other law enforcement agencies( in my countries are named executors) and only then and them can seize things and only after some certain steps are made and they give the right first to the defendant to pay cash, only as the last option they seize things(and for sure nobody from another country can seize things from other countries). I would like to know what was in the mind of the guys from the godaddy legal department and if somebody asked them to do it....and who will pay for all this?
 
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A lot of what you are saying is correct, especially on the registration margins. However, GoDaddy makes a lot of revenue from domain investors in other ways.

A couple examples -

1.) The vast majority of GoDaddy auctions are won by domain investors, not end users.

2.) The more domains @ GoDaddy, the more sales go through their venues. That is up to a 20% commission on every sale. That is a massive revenue driver.

On the buy and sell side I think domain investors create a bigger piece of the pie for many registrars than most domain investors actually realize. It not just direct revenue, there is also a lot of indirect revenue related to domain investment.

Brad

Don't forget about all the new customers that domainers bring for Registrars by selling domains to end users who will end up using the Registrars' other services.

IMO
 
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Don't forget about all the new customers that domainers bring for Registrars by selling domains to end users who will end up using the Registrars' other services.

IMO

Exactly. That is what I would classify as indirect revenue. It is hard to quantify, but will make up a decent size chunk of revenue.

Brad
 
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I think we're assuming that they *care* about the business of domainers at all. The margins are pretty small for customers who mainly buy .com's (I'm guessing), and know to look for the coupons or use the discount club, etc - compared to "regular" customers who maybe own a few domains, a couple hosting plans, some emails... but are paying max price and max renewals for everything. <-- I think those are the people they like, not us.

Look at all of their marketing, it's never targeted towards domainers, it's always small business owners who don't know any better. "How GoDaddy helps small business owners succeed..." They aren't talking about domainers.

When every price they list has to include an * because it's misleading, that's a pretty big red flag. Get your new .com for only $2.99*.

Maybe it's because I come from the marketing/dev/SEO side of things, a hosting-buyer, but my impression for almost a decade has always been that GoDaddy is for people who don't know any better yet. It's almost like a rite of passage to have a bad experience with them. When we see someone using GoDaddy hosting, it's our moral duty to help them transfer away. I guess it's a bit different on the domaining side, or at least it was at some point, because I know some very established investors who are very happy with GoDaddy. Or at least, they were until now.

I think we're all trying to figure out why they aren't doing better for domainers, but maybe the premise is flawed.

It's a lot easier to understand why it seems like GoDaddy doesn't care about domainers, when you don't take it for granted that they even do care. Why would they?


Active domainers are less likely to pay the extra $20 for privacy, to overpay for subpar hosting plans, to buy all the other bells and whistles, to get gauged on year 2 onwards because they don't know about transferring their site elsewhere, or getting locked-in on proprietary nonsense and held hostage.

They probably make more money from one regular small business customer who just wants a website and email for their flower shop, than they make off any random sample of 100 domainers. So if 100 domainers decide to leave, who cares? They'll still use GoDaddy auctions, they'll still use Afternic to get more exposure for their names, they'll still get named pushed to their GD account and end up having to renew them occasionally.

I'm just making this up based on a hunch, I don't have any data to back this up, but would they really care that much if every single NamePros user transferred away? I'm not saying it's not a ton of names, but it just seems like everything else they sell has much higher margins than selling .com renewals for $8.29/yr. If Verisign price is $7.85, that's a few cents per name per year, plus the payment processing fees eating into most of that, anyways. Granted, they also make money for the discount club membership dues, but I think the point stands that they aren't really printing money off the backs of domainers.

I guess at the end of the day, big domain portfolios are basically buying high-volume of a product that seems like it's essentially a loss-leader, then threatening to take their business elsewhere, and wondering why GoDaddy doesn't seem to care.


*but you have to buy two years upfront, and the second year will cost you your first born, a rare flower that only blooms atop the world's most active volcano, and an amulet that's been lost at sea for 10,000 years.

someone must be insane to think they care..caring is what out friends or mothers do..this here is just business.

they just doubled club prices.

but we cant blame them either. when buyer shows up to buy our domain and offers 2k we dont reply ...here have it for 1k cause I care about u.

I'm not Russian but they got saying there..w karciszki niet braciszki... when we play cards were no longer brothers
 
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