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

[James Iles]

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

 

[create.com]

Hello,

Brent Here. I had to create a new account as the old one had my old company Hostgator in the name. =)

I don't think a lot of you realize how serious this is. A scammer spent a little over $12 in India, and without proof, a contract, or even a court order, was able to abuse Godaddy's policy and lock over $10mm worth of my domains!

These names have been locked for over a year now, and I've spent $10,000's in legal bills trying to get a court order to get them unlocked as Godaddy requires. (covid hasn't made it easy with the courts) The legal fees pale in comparison to the millions in deals I've had to turn down. The lock prevents you from changing a domain's DNS or transferring it, which means you can't sell it.

This scam is pretty genius if you think about it. Just about any scammer in the world can file in their country courts for a small fee; email GoDaddy that the domains are under "dispute," and bam Godaddy will lock whatever domains the scammer asks them to in their email to [email protected]. (at least that's what happened to me)

The scammer doesn't even have to show up for court to keep your names locked and most likely won't. Godaddy will lock the domains without a court order and then require you to get a court order to unlock them all.

Getting a court order to get your domains unlocked is very costly, time-consuming, and can take several years with how backed up most of the courts are from Covid.

If you're with Godaddy and you think your account is safe from this scam, I'd recommend you email them and find out for yourself that your names can be locked from a "dispute." and their UTOS says such.

I'm ashamed to admit it, but I had a few moments of weakness and offered the scammer Puneet over $10,000 to drop the "dispute" with Godaddy. I even had some of the potential buyers wanting to pay Puneet $10,000's in extortion money in order to close on the names locked. He was too greedy, demanding millions, and as a result, I'm not going to pay him a dime in extortion money. Instead, I'm paying lawyers in India to make sure he serves prison time for both extortion and fraud.

At one point, I even offered Godaddy full indemnification from the "dispute" if they unlocked my names. This is off the table now, but I can't for the life of me figure out why'd they turn this down and continue to keep my names locked without any proof or court order.

Below is the email in which I found out why my names were locked. In this email Godaddy lied about there being a court order to lock my names. I don't know why they lied about this but I'm guessing it's because the file Puneet attached was in Hindu and they took his word for it.

"Dear Brent,



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



The court ordered that the domain names are to be locked pending further order of the court. Accordingly, we have locked the domain names.



If you have any questions regarding these actions or this court case, please contact the Court or Plaintiff’s Counsel directly. Contact information for Plaintiff’s Counsel can be found below:



Puneet Agarwal

** email removed **



Kind regards,



Lisa

Disputes Administrator

GoDaddy"



When I pressed them on there being no such legal ruling or court order, they quoted their UTOS:

"Per Section 14 of GoDaddy’s Universal Terms of Service (“UTOS”), we reserve the right to lock domain names to defend any legal action or threatened legal action without consideration for whether such legal action or threatened legal action is eventually determined to be with or without merit.

"

I had a registrar back in the day named launchpad.com and sold it with the sale of hostgator.com. I don't think anyone could ever picture something like this happening and it really doesn't make sense to have a registrar for less than 150 domains.

Had the domains that I bought before I launched Create been with Namecheap or Epik, this would never have happened!

I'm positive Puneet is insane. He has sent me thousands upon thousands of emails, messages, calls, etc, etc. Many of these messages involve death threats, talking about praying to the devil, drugs, pictures of mutilated naked bodies, and all kinds of craziness. In a few of the messages, he told me he got in trouble for waiting outside Prime Minister Modi's private house and office for trying to talk to him. I'm not sure I would have even believed this if it wasn't for him sending over a document that was an official complaint against the officer that questioned him for harassment!

 

[create.com]

After reading everything here and in the article, I wanted to address some of the questions swirling around about this.

There were many factors in deciding if we locked domains or kept domains locked in the India case between Mr. Oxley and Mr. Agarwal.

For instance, a U.S. federal court denied Mr. Oxley’s request for an order requiring GoDaddy to unlock the domains. If Mr. Oxley had been able to obtain a court order requiring us to unlock the domains, we would have gladly done it. The fact he was unable to do so suggests how much more complicated this issue is than is mentioned in the article. It’s not just monetary issues, but demands for the cancellation of the domain registrations at issue.

We understand how important your domain names are to you. We don’t make the decision to lock or unlock any domain name lightly. GoDaddy, along with other registrars, like NameCheap, Web.com, MarkMonitor and even VeriSign, reserve the right to lock domains in response to notification of a legal dispute.

In fact, it is the industry standard to ensure that registration rights for domain names are protected and maintained during the pendency of a legal dispute. Locking domains protects all parties until the legal dispute is resolved.

We also want to assure everyone that when a domain is locked, the goal is to keep the registration information at status quo. If the registrant would like to make changes to their DNS, they can contact our team to make them. They are able to renew the domain names. The domain and any associated web/mail services continue to function normally.

We understand Mr. Oxley’s frustration. No one wants to be in this situation, but the systems that we and the industry have in place are there for your protection.

Hi Paul,


You said "For instance, a U.S. federal court denied Mr. Oxley’s request for an order requiring GoDaddy to unlock the domains."

Let me understand this.....

Part of why you locked my domains before January 9th, 2020 is because of what a judge said 10 months later on 11/24/2020? The Judge wanted to make sure Puneet was served and requested proof of service, which required us to get a Hague certificate. It's not easy to serve someone in India that doesn't want to be served. We just received the Hague certificate back a few days ago, and the case can now proceed in America to get you the court order that you demand. This has also been Covid times with lockdowns, court shutdowns, and all kinds of uncertainty delaying a court order.

I have some questions for you........


Godaddy initially claimed there was a court order to lock my domains.

1. Is Godaddy continuing to take the stance that there is a court order to lock my domains? yes or no, please.
2. Is this an official response from Godaddy? Yes or No, please.
3. Did you have to get permission from GoDaddy prior to this post?
4. Have you seen any signed contracts between Puneet or myself? Yes or no.
5. I requested this to be escalated to your CEO back in March of 2020. Is he aware of this situation? Yes or no answer, please.

" If the registrant would like to make changes to their DNS, they can contact our team to make them.

6. If this is true, why did you all ignore my request on December 8th, 2020 to change my DNS for detect.com? I still haven't had a response from you on this! This is one of the domain names I have sold pending your locks being lifted. Can you please make the emailed change request?


7. Why did you all take the courtesy to respond to Puneet when you locked my domains, and yet as a customer, you never notified me? You failed to inform me on both the original locks and the recent one of create.com a few weeks ago. Godaddy still hasn't responded to my email from February 19th on why create.com was locked. Can you please tell me why? Was there another imaginary court order you aren't able to produce?

"They are able to renew the domain names. "

I am not able to renew the locked domains, which is why I emailed you on april 21st, 2020, requesting you all to do so. You still have not renewed these names. You all ensured they would be auto-renewed at expiration; however, I do not feel comfortable considering how incompetent you all have been to date. Can you please renew these names for me as requested using the balance I have on file!!!

" but demands for the cancellation of the domain registrations at issue.

This is the first I've heard this! Why am I just now being told this on a public forum? The way I'm interrupting this, is now that all this has gone public, there's a chance that over $10mm worth of my domains may be deleted by godaddy????? PLEASE DO NOT DELETE MY DOMAINS!

I may not be able to respond for a day or two. It's my 38th birthday in a few hours, and I'm set to go off-grid camping with my five-year-old little girl any minutes now when she arrives from Houston. I plan on climbing a small mountain tomorrow that should have recpetion and hope to check in at such time if needed.

 

[Kingslayer]

In the requests section on NamePros, you get people saying something on the lines of "i have a client with a budget of $500k to $1.5 million looking for single word com's".

Anyway in the past few months, I've messaged 2 of these people (even though i knew they was full of s**t and i was wasting my time) and both of them said something on the lines of "i've asked my client but they are not interested but I've gave your domain to other clients of mine" (ie acting as a broker on your behalf).

I shot that down straight away and made it clear 'YOU ARE NOT REPRESENTING THIS DOMAIN' and 'DON'T GIVE MY DOMAIN TO ANY MORE OF CLIENTS' because if i said "thank you" or "that's great" they've got you, you have basically gave them your blessing to do that and act as a representive on your behalf and they want £$£$£$.

Bottom line, be careful what you say in messages, there's many 2 bit brokers around and it looks like that who Brent as dealt with here. If you go the broker route go with a respectable broker and make sure there's a contract.

 

[create.com]

this is really insane, what happens if for some crazy reason the court there sides with him, will gd hand over the domains to him?

We all knew about people that abuse UDRP to steal names, but this is a new low.

That was and still is a huge concern for sure and part of why we've taken this to court in America.

One of the original reasons I chose GoDaddy, to begin with, was that they were a US company and publicly traded. I thought that they would offer more protection from financial stability and being Us based. Big Mistake!

I’ve been on the fence for a while now about launching my new hosting company Create. If it wasn’t for Godaddy poking me, I’m not sure I would have ever entered back into the hosting space; at least one good thing came from this nonsense!

Now it's time to steal some of their market share as payback! I was told at the time of Hostgator's exit that we hosted more sites than GoDaddy. If I did it once, I can do it again. It's all about customer service, uptime, and doing the right thing by the customer.

 

[create.com]

Last night I finished going through 2,000+ emails from Puneet, most of which is spam and took 50+ screenshots that I zipped up for you all and attached to this post.

The majority of Puneet's threats, mutilated body images, and prostitution discussions took place on Facebook messenger. If needed, I'll waste another day of my life organizing that for an upload.

These emails are proof that there are no contracts, Puneet was paid fair compensation on the very same names that are locked down, and that he is, in fact, the one that stole from me on multiple occasions.

I've purchased domains from just about every major broker in the industry and receive 100's of emails a day with thousands of domain names pitched. The first correspondence I had with Puneet pitching domains was on 3/24/2018. I made the mistake of being kind and responding, which eventually led to a few deals getting done. This email, too, can be found in the attachment.

I'm still waiting for Godaddy to explain why they locked Create.com, especially when considering that I purchased it in August of 2015, and it wasn't until years later Puenet and I met! But then again, Puneet doesn't seem to need to have any proof on having my domains locked down at Godaddy! Puneet is even in this forum claiming that he's aware of Godaddy's CEO Aman's personal phone calls and emails that he receives, and here I am with a $10mm+ portfolio locked down for over a year, and I still can't get him to reach out to me!

2) you called and emailed ceo of godaddy many times but he avoided you as you are a very big jerk.

In the beginning, Puneet did a good job at finding deals and came off as trustworthy; as time goes by in these emails, you can begin to see his brain seem to melt away.

I'm convinced that he's either bipolar or has schizophrenia which is most likely why he was stalking Prime Minister Modi. (the president of India) One theory I have on his rapid decline is possible drug abuse due to the newfound money flow.

I was concerned about his well-being and even discussed him getting medical treatment with his wife when she reached out to me about him being crazy.

Puneet stole $30,980 USD from me on a transaction that involved memo.com, piano.com, and flute.com. You will see a chat from Puneet talking to escrow.com chat support in the attached files, asking them to change funding to me. You will also see an email from him in which it's agreed that this is my money and that he'll wire it back. In a later Facebook chat, I offered to use this commission to purchase Indian domains to be held in my account, and, in turn, he and I would split futures profits from the sale of these Indian domains 50/50. We already had the seller cancel one escrow transaction, and we didn't want to risk the whole deal being canceled by starting escrow over with corrected payment details. Most of these deals you'll find were from 2018 when I was new to domaining as a business and before domain valuations skyrocketed.

Puneet received this wire, as proven by the included escrow transaction. He eventually tells me that he spent all the money on prostitutes, drugs, alcohol, and loans. The money was gone, and as reimbursement, Puneet offered to work it off in future deals. I was not happy, and this was the big turning point for the relationship.

I was left with little choice but to take him up on this offer and hope that he could deliver. Big mistake! In hindsight, it's clear that I wasted $100,000's worth of my time, if not millions, with his games and insanity. Even worse, there's no telling how many opportunities I lost from him pissing off sellers and all this drama that has locked $10mm+ worth of my domains. Losing the money would have been one thing but never in a million years would I expect Godaddy to lock my names down without a court order, siding with a scammer, and refusing to look at the evidence or hear my side of the story.

How Puneet got my credit card....

Puneet had a few domains about to expire within his Godaddy account and requested that I renew them as payment for a deal.

I renewed what was in the cart and quickly discovered there was no way to delete the credit card from Godaddy's system. I contacted him to have him reach out to Godaddy to get the card removed.

I have multiple chats and emails to Puneet saying that he wasn't authorized to renew additional domains and told him to reach out to GoDaddy to remove my card. Puneet acknowledged this and even responded, saying that the card couldn't be charged again.

Months later, I looked at my credit card statement and discovered $10,000's of fraudulent charges from Godaddy. I wasn't 100% sure but had a good guess where they came from, Puneet!

I reached out to Puneet to ask him if he was the one that did the credit card fraud. Puneet at first ignored me, later denied it, and last confessed to doing so. I warned him that I would do a chargeback, giving him a chance to make it right with Godaddy, he couldn't, and I soon did a chargeback for the illegal charges.

It's unfortunate to say this, but from experience, I've found the people that you help most in life are the ones most likely to steal and stab you in the back. I've learned this the hard way over the years from this Puneet experience, my ex stealing, and even close former childhood friends stealing from me.

I apologize for taking so long to get this to you all. It was a big project, and with the wife and our 2nd baby boy being born recently, helping Mama came first.

 

[CatchDeleted]

I dont have such an impressive portfolio like Brent but I can feel the pain and agony. Over the period of time I have acquired some great domains and kept them in Godaddy thinking they will be the protector of my assets (I paid them money for the names and paid a lot of it- Sometime all my savings for a great name)

I look into this issue from 3 angles..

1. As a Domain investor: As a domain investor this is clear sign that Godaddy is not the right registrar for your premium domains. Some crook from far country will get any document in their court and GoDaddy will just lock domains. Over period of time I have put all my savings and investments in digital real estate, and this case seems something similar to having money in American bank but my bank saying your money is frozen because someone in Nigeria says its their money because they sent me those ponzy emails that ‘I won a million dollar in inheritance’. and because they sent those email they have the rights on my bank account. Godaddy should realize that how much credibility they are losing and what value they will provide to their stakeholders by doing this. THEY NEED TO TAKE STAND. I have lost my trust and would be moving my portfolio from Godaddy to a trusted registrar.

2. As a NamePros community member: I have seen his past posts and he is no broker or a domainer.I have never seen him putting anything constructive for community and always ruffling feathers with others. We don’t need such toxic people in our community. They don’t do any good for anyone.

3. As an Indian: I am ashamed that my country has people like Puneet AKA Badri and I am not sure how many such names he has. We are good hard-working people who invest wisely and don’t cheat others. It’s not in our culture and values to swindle and extort money from others .When I see someone doing it I feel ashamed and I apologies to Brent and everyone that some scrupulous guy from India is doing it. Hope this gets resolved and I fully support you and request Godaddy to take consent on the matter.

 

[create.com]

Godaddy Paul,

Puneet was brought in for questioning by the Indian police due to stalking the prime minister of India! (basically the president of India) I've already sent you an official document related to this incident, and yet you continue to ignore my emails and keep my names locked down! Not only this, but you continue to take orders from him, as evident with Godaddy complying with his recent request to lock create.com without a court order, a contract, or any legitimate reason.

You all ignored my offer of complete immunity and continued to ignore my email requests for information. What is really going on here? Is this political, as Rob suggested? Does it have something to do with both your CEO and Puneet being from India? Is it because I own guns and tanks through my business Drivetanks? Why do facts not seem to matter??? Why are my emails to Godaddy ignored?

If this was simply a matter of policy, then why did you all lie about there being a court order that you haven't been able to provide? I have an affidavit from an Indian lawyer saying it doesn't exist, and I know I haven't been served, so how can it?

How about instead of posting, wasting everyone's time with empty words, you investigate this matter! I have thousands of crazy emails from Puneet, and yet I still have no idea what he's even claiming he's owed or why.

Can you make the dns changes that you claim are possible that were emailed to you back in December on detect.com? You're on here posting to show face with the community but can't even do something as harmless and straightforward as making a dns change!

Please have Aman call my phone number that Godaddy has on file. I'd be happy to keep the conversation off the record and would love to try to resolve this without you all continuing to ignore me and hiding behind broken policies.

I'd even possibly be willing to drop what inevitably will be a lawsuit against Godaddy for the millions you've cost me in domain name sales and the $10mms in what I believe I've suffered in business damages. I'd need my domains unlocked, an official apology, and need to be assured this won't happen to other innocent domainers in the future.


You seem to have missed my response to your previous post.

"
You said "For instance, a U.S. federal court denied Mr. Oxley’s request for an order requiring GoDaddy to unlock the domains."

Let me understand this.....

Part of why you locked my domains before January 9th, 2020 is because of what a judge said 10 months later on 11/24/2020? The Judge wanted to make sure Puneet was served and requested proof of service, which required us to get a Hague certificate. It's not easy to serve someone in India that doesn't want to be served. We just received the Hague certificate back a few days ago, and the case can now proceed in America to get you the court order that you demand. This has also been Covid times with lockdowns, court shutdowns, and all kinds of uncertainty delaying a court order.

I have some questions for you........


Godaddy initially claimed there was a court order to lock my domains.

1. Is Godaddy continuing to take the stance that there is a court order to lock my domains? yes or no, please.
2. Is this an official response from Godaddy? Yes or No, please.
3. Did you have to get permission from GoDaddy prior to this post?
4. Have you seen any signed contracts between Puneet or myself? Yes or no.
5. I requested this to be escalated to your CEO back in March of 2020. Is he aware of this situation? Yes or no answer, please.

" If the registrant would like to make changes to their DNS, they can contact our team to make them.

6. If this is true, why did you all ignore my request on December 8th, 2020 to change my DNS for detect.com? I still haven't had a response from you on this! This is one of the domain names I have sold pending your locks being lifted. Can you please make the emailed change request?


7. Why did you all take the courtesy to respond to Puneet when you locked my domains, and yet as a customer, you never notified me? You failed to inform me on both the original locks and the recent one of create.com a few weeks ago. Godaddy still hasn't responded to my email from February 19th on why create.com was locked. Can you please tell me why? Was there another imaginary court order you aren't able to produce?

"They are able to renew the domain names. "

I am not able to renew the locked domains, which is why I emailed you on april 21st, 2020, requesting you all to do so. You still have not renewed these names. You all ensured they would be auto-renewed at expiration; however, I do not feel comfortable considering how incompetent you all have been to date. Can you please renew these names for me as requested using the balance I have on file!!!"

 

[Rob Monster]

As some of you may know, Brent likes guns. Big guns. Like this one:

Yup, that's Brent's rig - courtesy of Andrew Allemann.

On January 11, Godaddy dumped AR15.com, which is believed to be the largest gun site in the USA.

https://domainnamewire.com/2021/01/17/godaddy-explains-ar15-com-boot/

AR15.com landed at Epik. The people who run the site are law-abiding and highly competent folks. I am dumbfounded that they were terminated by Godaddy.

I am told that on the same day, many other gun-related sites were also told to leave Godaddy. I won't quote the number I heard, but the number surprised me.

While Godaddy founder Bob Parsons liked guns, apparently the current leadership, or their handlers, don't like guns, and perhaps don't care for people who support the 2nd amendment (2A).

Specific to the case between Puneet and Brent, ultimately, it is for the courts to decide whether there was some breach of contract, or economic injury.

Unless there was a specific court order mandating Godaddy to seize Brent's names, I don't see how it can be justified. It is the antithesis of the registrar's job, which is to protect the registrant within the law.

If Godaddy has a problem with Brent, and does not have a court order mandating seizure of Brent's assets, they should just let Brent move on.

As for Puneet, I have interacted with him, including over this issue. Like all of us, he is on a journey. My hope is that the parties resolve their private dispute amicably and reasonably.

Good luck to Brent and Puneet in burying the hatchet.

In the meantime, Godaddy needs to release Brent's domains. An open refusal to do so sets a terrible precedent when it comes to sovereignty of personal property.

If Godaddy refuses to stand down, I believe Brent should pursue a legal path which serves to discover all communications at Godaddy related to policy and practices related to impairing 2A enthusiasts.

 

[bmugford]

I am a long time GoDaddy customer with thousands of domains there, but from what I have seen so far their actions seem way over the top, and pretty hard to defend.

Brent summed it up well on the blog linked in the first post -

Puneet spent a little over $12 in India, and without proof, a contract, or even a court order, was able to abuse Godaddy’s policy and lock over $10mm worth of my domains!

These names have been locked for over a year now, and I’ve spent $10,000’s in legal bills trying to get a court order to get them unlocked as Godaddy requires. (covid hasn’t made it easy with the courts) The legal fees pale in comparison to the millions in deals I’ve had to turn down. The lock prevents you from changing a domain’s DNS or transferring it, which means you can’t sell it.

This scam is pretty genius if you think about it. Just about any scammer in the world can file in their country courts for a small fee; email GoDaddy that the domains are under “dispute,” and bam Godaddy will lock whatever domains the scammer asks them to in their email to [email protected]. (at least that’s what happened to me)

This is a major issue.

If this could happen to someone with the type of assets and resources that Brent has, it could happen to anyone.

I think GoDaddy really needs to take a hard look at their actions on this.

Brad

 

[VPN.com]

I spoke to Aman and @Paul Nicks multiple times for Brent over the last 12 months about this situation.

These locks interfered with over $900,000 in deals that VPN.com was working on for Brent. Significant delays and failed solutions were induced into our negotiations because of these locks. Outside of our deals, I am sure Brent's total damages from domains that he would have sold are now over $3 million USD due to these locks... which should pain every domainer.

While we have always been supportive of GoDaddy and its position in the domain industry over the years, this has become a situation that is not right.

As listed on this thread, Puneet made multiple threats against Brent's life, his family, and his business prior to submitting the claim to GoDaddy. He knew that this litigation would lock Brent's domains and use these threats to extort Brent through a publically traded U.S. company. It is against US law to threaten a business with threats or violence.

Puneet's conduct rises to criminal racketeering and conspiracy according to 18 U.S. Code § 1951 but because he is not inside the U.S. or a U.S. citizen, a ruling would be useless without extradition.

For American citizens, this is a felony punishable by 1-15 years in a U.S. prison, upon conviction. Additionally, without a signed contract between Puneet and Brent, which was never submitted in court, there is no claim against the ownership of these domains, just a frivolous lawsuit in Hindi that lists domain names. Even so, GoDaddy automatically locked the names.

As I told Justin Redman, GoDaddy's Assistant General Council, if you are going to lock domains under the guise of your company policy without reasonable evidence, you are forcing GoDaddy customers into a terrible legal position to protect their assets registered at GoDaddy.

The only remaining remedy Brent (and other customers) have is to litigate with GoDaddy, which would be an absolute nightmare for both parties and the entire domain industry. Everyone would prefer an amicable solution.


Here is the except from GoDaddy's Terms of Service that speaks to this issue:

You acknowledge and agree that GoDaddy and registry reserve the right to deny, cancel or transfer any registration or transaction, or place any domain name(s) on lock, hold or similar status, as either deems necessary, in the unlimited and sole discretion of either GoDaddy or the registry: (i) to comply with specifications adopted by any industry group generally recognized as authoritative with respect to the Internet (e.g., RFCs), (ii) to protect the integrity and stability of, and correct mistakes made by, any domain name registry or registrar, (iii) for the non-payment of fees to registry, (iv) to protect the integrity and stability of the registry, (v) to comply with any applicable court orders, laws, government rules or requirements, requests of law enforcement, or any dispute resolution process, (vi) to comply with any applicable ICANN rules or regulations, including without limitation, the registry agreement, (vii) to avoid any liability, civil or criminal, on the part of registry operator, as well as its affiliates, subsidiaries, officers, directors, and employees, (viii) per the terms of this Agreement, (ix) following an occurrence of any of the prohibited activities described in Section 8 below, or (x) during the resolution of a dispute.

​

While GoDaddy's Terms of Service may allow them to lock these assets for a period to review a complaint, there is an extremely thin line between their Terms of Service and what becomes ongoing tortious interference to the resolution of this matter.

GoDaddy should not involve itself in business disputes that do not challenge the ownership of domain names. This opens GoDaddy up to a substantial amount of liability to interpret legal cases outside a courtroom. This interpretation can now be influenced by frivolous litigation, cancel culture, or outright bias against an account holder.

Brent Oxley runs one of the largest wildlife and hunting ranch in North America. He believes in the 2nd amendment. If you leave any business dispute that mentions a domain name up to GoDaddy to interpret, it can become very hard to tell how much politics is playing into his treatment by GoDaddy, given their unilateral authority.

Aman Bhutani and GoDaddy's culture are on opposite ends of the American political spectrum compared to Brent Oxley. This is especially true since Aman sits on the Board of the New York Times, which published this bleak article about Brent's ranch and wildlife preservation efforts. I sincerely hope this was not a matter of influence but the unfolding of this situation has led us to these thoughts of possibility.

As far as a solution, it is highly likely this is NOT the first time Puneet has utilized GoDaddy's policy to extort people who host at GoDaddy. If there are findings to this end, GoDaddy would be able to lift the locks through the term bolded in section (vii) above.

Given the lack of evidence or a signed contract submitted to the court, GoDaddy would be unlocking the names to avoid any liability or becoming an accessory after the fact, that would arise towards them from Brent's position. This seems to be the most logical next step and one that would allow confidence to be retained in GoDaddy by the entire domain industry.

GoDaddy has the unilateral authority to cancel a domain name from your account for any reason or no reason at all. As we have seen with Twitter, Facebook, Amazon, and Parler, this is a very heavy burden for any company to always get right.

There must be better protection domain owners can deploy against this risk, otherwise, scammers now have the entire playbook.

I hope we have a positive update from GoDaddy very soon regarding this situation.
​

Michael Gargiulo
CEO at VPN.com​

 

[Paul Nicks]

All, I’d like to provide the community with another update on the recent situation. I appreciate all the opinions and engagement from the community.

As we reviewed our policies and procedures, our goal was to do what’s right for our domain investors and to protect the industry from domain theft. Your domain names need to be accessible and sellable, we get it. To be clear, this isn’t just about Brent’s issue, it’s about the long-term health of the aftermarket. The aftermarket has changed in the last 20 years, and our long-standing policy needed to address these changes.

Frankly, we needed to evolve with the times. After many discussions with outside experts, lawyers, and trade groups, we believe we have found the right balance. The new solution allows domain investing businesses to proceed while having robust anti-theft measures.

Moving forward, when we are notified of a legal dispute between two parties, we will not lock domains by default as we had previously done. We will review each notification and reserve the right to impose a 30-day interim hold, in part to help protect against improper domain flight, until a court order is obtained by the complainant. If a court order has not been received within 30 days of implementing a hold, then we will remove the hold.

While we can't guarantee we can stop all abuse of our system, we will use best efforts and multiple layers of review to root out potential bad actors.

As this rolls out, please let me know if you hear of any issue the new policy is raising. We'll continue to listen to your feedback and review our policies to ensure they do what's right for the domain investor community, while still maintaining antitheft practices.

 

[create.com]

@Grilled if what you shared is true, then its not scam, its a legal dispute and Godaddy did right about following court order. If @create.com used his service or used the information Puneet shared to buy or sell domain then it is fair to compensate him, if he feels not to pay and other party feel he have to pay for using is lead information then court case is valid and also its common for court attach the property to pay off any court compensation.

Best bet get US court order or fight the case in Indian court, I feel Godaddy right about this case, they just followed court order.

I think both parties in this not followed the business ethics and got in to this legal tangle.

You really believe I'd turn down a $21mm offer one of my domains that I'm not running as a business already? There is no court order, contracts or anything. If I emailed you saying that I had a $100mm offer for each and every one of your domains and fail to produce a buyer does that mean when you sell one I'm owed money? What if someone had your portfolio shut down without any evidence or court ruling would you feel differently?

 

[bmugford]

I respect Paul Nicks for responding, but I don't think it really answered the many questions.

Is there even an actual court order to lock these domains, or is this just some arbitrary decision by GoDaddy?

Even if there is a court order, I am confused why an India court even has any standing in the first place. GoDaddy, Brent Oxley, and Verisign are all US based as far as I can tell.

Can someone go to court in any random country or court, and with or without a court order, produce the same outcome?

Was the domain Create.com even part of the dispute? If not, why is that locked?

This seems like a business dispute. It seems like GoDaddy has clearly crossed an acceptable line in locking these domains IMO, at least with the information I have seen.

This is like opening up Pandora's Box.

Brad

 

[Chris Hydrick]

Reading Oxley's case against Puneet in the Texas court, I have to say it seems like a rather unusual arrangement they had. Puneet would help Oxley get domains and in return partly have Oxley pay his renewal fees for domains at GoDaddy if I read the document correctly:

https://www.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.txsd.1785233/gov.uscourts.txsd.1785233.1.0.pdf

9. In February 2018, Agarwal, aware of Oxley’s identity through HostGator, initiated contact with Oxley through an email offering to help Oxley in the sale of his premium domain names.

10. From April 2018 through August 2018, Agarwal assisted Oxley in the purchase of three domain names: Devote.com, Demolish.com, and Admirer.com. In connection with each purchase, the parties would negotiate a commission for Agarwal in the form of either a direct payment to Agarwal or a payment to GoDaddy.com, LLC (“GoDaddy”), the domain registrar used by the parties in this matter, for renewal fees for domain names owned by Agarwal personally. No written contract establishing an exclusive brokerage relationship was ever entered into between the parties

11. Despite no further commissions being due and no contractual obligation requiring Oxley to do so, on or around August 26, 2018, Agarwal requested that Oxley assist him in renewing more domain names owned by Agarwal. In response, Oxley agreed to advance $5,000 to Agarwal for the requested renewals and asked for an accounting of all transactions between the parties as of that date. Agarwal responded that the commissions for the purchases of Devote.com, Demolish.com, and Admirer.com and the $5,000 advance constituted all of the transactions between the parties as of that date.

12. In October 2018, Oxley, in an attempt to help Agarwal garner some commissions, requested that Agarwal submit a bid on behalf of Oxley for the purchase of Memo.com, Flute.com, and Piano.com despite Memo.com and Piano.com having been previously offered for sale to Oxley not as a result of any efforts by Agarwal. However, due to the high price that was received in response to Oxley’s bid, Oxley and Agarwal agreed that, if Oxley purchased the domain names, the commission due on purchase (approximately $31,000) (the “Oxley Commission”) would be paid to Oxley.

13. Nonetheless, seeking to build a side business venture with Agarwal, Oxley, upon purchasing Memo.com, Flute.com, and Piano.com, instructed Agarwal to take the Oxley Commission and use it to purchase premium Indian domain names, which would be subject to Oxley’s pre-approval and held in Oxley’s account with GoDaddy. Any proceeds from the sale of such domain names would then be split 50/50 between the parties.

14. Despite this understanding and Oxley’s express instruction to Agarwal not to use the Oxley Commission for Agarwal’s personal needs, Agarwal admitted to Oxley that Agarwal had spent the Oxley Commission on family debts, taxes, and personal excesses, including, but not limited to, drugs, alcohol, a luxury hotel, and the services of a prostitute. A true and correct copy of the Facebook Messenger chat transcripts containing such admission is attached hereto as Exhibit 1.

15. From December 2018 through February 2019, Agarwal, now out of money and desperate not to return to his home in Alwar, continued to contact Oxley, requesting a monthly salary for his living expenses in Delhi as well as renewal payments for his domain names in exchange for attempting to broker deals for the purchase and sale of Oxley’s domains. Oxley refused

16. Thereafter, beginning with messages sent to Oxley in late February 2019, Agarwal’s rhetoric escalated, blaming Oxley for failures to pay his rent and renew domain names, suggesting that all of his renewal fees could be paid if only Oxley would provide him with the CVV to Oxley’s credit card which Agarwal had previously told Oxley that he had deleted from his account, and claiming that he would have to have his father sell his factory in order to pay Oxley back for the Oxley Commission.

17. In furtherance of this rhetoric, on July 9, 2019, Agarwal sent a series of messages via Facebook Messenger to Oxley, blaming Oxley for the loss of Agarwal’s domain names due to Oxley’s refusal to advance money to Agarwal not in connection with an earned commission. In the same series of messages, Agarwal also threatened to file a lawsuit against Oxley to “show [Oxley] how it feels when [his] domain will be in [his] account but [he] will not be the owner.” A true and correct copy of this series of messages is attached hereto as Exhibit 2.

18. On or around September 13, 2019, Oxley became aware that Agarwal, without authorization, had charged Oxley’s credit card for renewal of Agarwal’s personal web domains in the amount of $30,000 and contacted GoDaddy who unwound the transaction.

19. As a result of Oxley’s refusal to allow Agarwal to charge $30,000 to his credit card for renewal of Agarwal’s personal domains and to advance money to Agarwal not in connection with an earned commission, Agarwal followed through on his threat from July 9, 2019 and filed suit against Oxley and an Indian affiliate of GoDaddy, GoDaddy India Web Services, Pvt. Ltd. (“GoDaddy India”), in the Alwar District Court in India, Filing No. 858/2019, on November 15, 2019 (the “Indian Litigation”), alleging, without any evidence, that Oxley and Agarwal had entered into an exclusive brokerage agreement pursuant to which Agarwal was owed a commission upon Oxley’s purchase and sale of any domain name and that GoDaddy India was liable for allowing these transactions to occur without Agarwal receiving his commission.

20. However, instead of attempting to obtain jurisdiction over Oxley in India and resolve any issues in court, Agarwal filed the Indian Litigation, naming GoDaddy India as a defendant, solely to induce GoDaddy to lock Oxley’s registered domains, depriving Oxley of the ability to sell or renew any of those domains. A true and correct copy of emails dated April 1, 2020 from Agarwal to Oxley evidencing Agarwal’s threat to employ a similar strategy in filing litigation against GoDaddy in order to lock domains owned by Oxley which are not included in the Indian Litigation is attached hereto as Exhibit 3.

21. In fact, Oxley did not become aware of the Indian Litigation until he contacted GoDaddy by e-mail after logging on to his GoDaddy account on January 9, 2020 to find several of his domains locked. A true and correct copy of this e-mail is attached hereto as Exhibit 4.

22. To this date, more than seven months after the filing of the Indian Litigation, Agarwal has never attempted service on Oxley. A true and correct copy of the case status for the Indian Litigation as of July 7, 2020 is attached hereto as Exhibit 5.

23. Despite no order or injunction ever being issued by the Court presiding over the Indian Litigation, as a direct result of its filing, GoDaddy, pursuant to Section 14 of the Universal Terms of Service Agreement between GoDaddy and Oxley1 , locked the following domain names owned by Oxley: Piano.com, Flute.com, Memo.com, Admirer.com, Darm.com, Devote.com, Demolish.com, Emir.com, Vtok.com, Vandalize.com, LoanTap.com, Advise.com, Message.com, Distribute.com, Detect.com, Jewel.com, Dust.com, Bonjour.com, Viaje.com, CIA.com, Drone.com, Item.com, Valentine.com, Bride.com, Hybrid.com, and Athlete.com (each an “Oxley Domain” and, collectively, the “Oxley Domains”).

24. Since the filing of the Indian Litigation and the locking of the Oxley Domains, Oxley has received offers for the purchase of an Oxley Domain in excess of $5,000,000.00.

25. To this date, Agarwal has continued his efforts to extort Oxley for money2 , including but not limited to threatening to inform animal activists about allegedly unethical treatment of animals on Oxley’s ranch located in Uvalde, Texas. A true and correct copy of the emails containing such threats is attached hereto as Exhibit 6.

26. Pursuant to Section 6 of the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (the “UDRP”) which is incorporated into the terms of the Contract, GoDaddy has not been named a defendant in this lawsuit but has been notified of this Complaint, having every intention to abide by the orders and judgment of this Court. See Internet Corp. for Assigned Names and Numbers, UDRP (Oct. 24, 1999), https://www.icann.org/resources/pages/policy-2012-02-25-en (“[GoDaddy] will not participate in any way in any dispute between [Oxley] and any party other than [GoDaddy] regarding the registration and use of [the Oxley Domains]. [Oxley] shall not name [GoDaddy] as a party or otherwise include [GoDaddy] in any such proceeding.”). CAUSES OF ACTION COUNT I – TORTIOUS INTERFERENCE WITH CONTRACT

27. Oxley incorporates and re-alleges the allegations of Paragraphs 1 through 26 2 Through his prior history before the Arbitration and Mediation Center of the World Intellectual Property Organization, Agarwal has gained a reputation for targeting notable individuals and organizations in an attempt to extort them. See, e.g., Administrative Panel Decision, Mr. Sidhartha Mallya v. Mr. Puneet Agarwal, World Intellectual Property Organization Case No. D2014-1262 (October 20, 2014) and Administrative Panel Decision, Facebook Inc. v. Puneet Agarwal, World Intellectual Property Organization as though fully set forth herein.

28. Oxley has a valid and enforceable Contract with GoDaddy which, among other things, allows Oxley to purchase, register, and sell certain domain names, including, but not limited to, the Oxley Domains.

29. At all relevant times, Agarwal was aware of the Contract and, at points, even acted as a broker to assist Oxley in the purchase and registration of domain names with GoDaddy for Oxley’s account.

30. In order to extort Oxley, without any contractual basis whatsoever, Agarwal willfully and intentionally filed the Indian Litigation to induce GoDaddy to lock the Oxley Domains.

31. As a proximate result of the Indian Litigation, GoDaddy – per its rights under the terms of the Contract – has locked the Oxley Domains unless and until it receives a court order lifting the lock on the Oxley Domains.

32. As a result of the wrongful actions taken by Agarwal, Oxley has suffered damages, including, but not limited to, his ability to sell the Oxley Domains despite receipt of bona fide offers, and will continue to do so. WHEREFORE, Oxley respectfully requests that this Court enter judgment in his favor and award him damages in excess of $5,000,000.00, including costs and attorney’s fees, and any other relief this Court deems equitable and just. COUNT II – INJUNCTIVE RELIEF

33. Oxley incorporates and re-alleges the allegations of Paragraphs 1 through 32 as though fully set forth herein.

34. Oxley has a substantial likelihood of success on the merits given Agarwal’s admissions prior to and after the filing of the Indian Litigation and failure/refusal to even attempt service on Oxley in the Indian Litigation for almost seven months.

35. If GoDaddy is not restrained from locking the Oxley Domains, Oxley will be irreparably harmed by not being able to sell the Oxley Domains despite bona fide offers for the same which will uniquely affect the value of the domains and thereby cause irreparable harm to the Oxley Domains.

36. The requested temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction will allow Oxley to protect the value of the Oxley Domains and market the same, which, due to their high value and unique nature, appeal to a limited number of purchasers during the pendency of this action. Thus, the refusal of a bona fide offer for purchase of an Oxley Domain, which Oxley would otherwise accept, will result in damages in the millions of dollars. Agarwal and GoDaddy will suffer no judicially cognizable harm by granting of the requested temporary restraining order or preliminary injunction allowing Oxley to sell the Oxley Domains as neither Agarwal nor GoDaddy has an existing lien upon or an ownership interest in the Oxley Domains. Should Agarwal prevail against Oxley in any fashion, Agarwal’s ability to recover money damages from Oxley will not be impaired.

37. It is in the interests of justice and public interest not to allow Agarwal to extort Oxley, a business owner and operator in this District, by filing litigation in a foreign country designed only to interfere with Oxley’s contractual relationship with GoDaddy and with no intent to pursue its frivolous claims.

38. As Agarwal and GoDaddy will suffer no harm if GoDaddy is restrained or enjoined from locking the Oxley Domains, Oxley respectfully requests that the Court not require any security to support the requested injunctive relief.

39. Nonetheless, Oxley stands ready to post an adequate bond pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 65(c), should the Court determine that such a bond is warranted.

 

[bmugford]

Does your current procedure involve notifying the registrant to inform them of a dispute when their name is locked?

I can understand an honest mistake when you failed to notify me the first time, but how did this failure happen a second time when create.com was locked?

This is a huge issue.

Let's put the massive legal issues aside for a moment; the ones dealing with jurisdiction, courts orders (or lack of), business disputes, etc.

How can you lock many millions of dollars in domains, and not keep the registrant updated? That is a massive failure of communication on GoDaddy's part that is simply unacceptable.

If GoDaddy takes this type of action, it needs to be made clear to any registrant immediately -

1.) What action they have taken.
2.) Why they have taken it.

Brad

 

[GeorgeK]

Here's an idea for Brent. ICANN does have the TDRP (Transfer Dispute Resolution Procedure) at:

https://www.icann.org/resources/pages/tdrp-2012-02-25-en

According to paragraph 2.3:

"2.3 Statute of Limitations

A dispute must be filed no later than six (6) months after the alleged violation of the Transfer Policy. "

So, he might have to reinitiate a new set of domain name transfers to NameCheap, to start the clock anew.

Then GoDaddy (the losing registrar) would have to show that one of the following applies, to deny the transfer (from 3.1.4(ii)(d)):

"d. Evidence of one of the following if a transfer was denied:

• fraud;
• UDRP action;
• court order;
• Registrant or administrative contact identity dispute in accordance with Section 4 [Registrar of Record Requirements]
• applicable payment dispute along with evidence that the registration was put on HOLD status;
• express written objection from the Registered Name Holder or Administrative Contact;
• LOCK status along with proof of a reasonable means for the registrant to remove LOCK status as per Section __of Exhibit __ to this Agreement;
• domain name within 60 days of initial registration; or
• domain name within 60 days of a prior transfer." [emphasis added]

You'll note I underlined and made red the "court order" part. It doesn't say "court action" or "court proceedings", or "legal dispute", it says "court order."

It doesn't appear to me that any of the other potential reasons apply here. So, if there is no actual court order, then NameCheap should be able to be victorious in a TDRP (note that the TDRP has to be brought by the gaining registrar, not the registrant).

The situation might be complicated by the fact that Brent has already filed a separate court action in the US courts, so one should carefully review the full text of the TDRP. But, I note this for potential future situations, where a registrar denies a transfer.

 

[bmugford]

This entire thing is very troubling on many fronts.

Brad

 

[Silentptnr]

It's enough that I have transferred all of my domains that were at GD to another registrar. Interestingly, all transfers completed except 6 valuable domains. Still pending transfer. I called GD and was told that there was no problem. I am anxiously waiting for those last 6 to complete.

Personally, my decision is not only based on this incident. There have been other instances of GD taking action to my detriment and not supporting me even after a probably 10+ year relationship.

I feel very good working with my new registrar of choice. No more GD for me. Not now, not ever again.

 

[bmugford]

GoDaddy is a major domain investor, spending hundreds of millions (or more) on domain portfolios.

I hope no one files some business dispute lawsuit against them. By their own logic, they might have to lock all their own NameFind domains for years until the dispute is resolved.

That sounds pretty silly right? Because it is.

That is what is happening to Brent here.

Brad

 

[Paul Nicks]

It sure would be nice to get some type of update from GoDaddy.

You know like we made a mistake, there is no court order, and we are going to release the domains. We should not have been involved in a business dispute.

or

Here is the court order, and here is why we believe it has jurisdiction.

or

We are still looking into the situation, and should have a resolution soon.

Something. There is not just the legal side, there is the PR and credibility side also. GoDaddy is suffering as far as that goes, especially with the domain investment community.

This issue is not going away. The more GoDaddy kicks the can down the road, the worse it is going to get for them.

Brad

Thanks Brad, I'll do my best to update everyone on where we are, but also wanted to address some of the conspiratorial nonsense I've been seeing. I understand that not having me always online addressing each new point immediately provides a fertile ground for drawing conclusions, but let's please not devolve into the ridiculous.

The heart of the matter is that there is a dispute involving registration rights between two parties who both acknowledge a prior working relationship. Our current procedure is to lock domain names upon notification that there is a registration rights dispute. We do this to maintain status quo on the domain names.

As for Create.com, it was added to the lawsuit, so it followed our standard operating procedure. This SOP was created in order to protect against business disputes involving registration rights and domain theft, and has worked well in that regard for many years.

Part of our review into our processes focuses on the growth of the aftermarket. We are continuing conversations with industry experts to better understand what current standards are and whether we can use this situation to promote industry-wide processes that have domain investing interests in mind.

As we’ve started to have these conversations, we’ve identified a couple of things that could have gone better in Brent’s case. First, we erroneously told Brent that a court order was issued when, in fact, we were served with a legal complaint, starting a lawsuit. This doesn't change how we would have or did act, but it was inaccurate to describe it as a court order. Second, we needed to do a better job in proactively notifying Brent of the domain locks on his domains. We’re taking these learnings and applying them to our procedures going forward.

As we continue to make progress on our review, we will keep the community posted.

Now, as for the conspiracies, let's tamp down the rhetoric a bit.

Understand that when a legal complaint comes in, it goes into our legal team. And they aren’t domain investors and don't know the players at all. There is simply no way that the legal team member that locked the domains per SOP knew anything about Brent, much less what his political views, hobbies and personal beliefs were.

Aman has been briefed on the situation, but has absolutely no contact with either Brent or Puneet.

I understand that tempers are high, I'm doing everything I can to make sure that the long-term health of the industry that I've been a part of for 14 years is on solid footing. Balancing domain security with a robust aftermarket is a challenge that I don't take lightly. With that, I will continue to consult the experts and will let you all know what we come up with as soon as I can.

 

[VPN.com]

Did VPN actually speak to him or is it BS? - I suspect BS........

I have no reason to believe calling BS on @VPN.com's Michael Gargiulo is/was warranted. I'm inclined to believe the comment, and that Mr. Gargiulo did in fact speak with Mr. Bhutani regarding this. Though, I know no more than you, and am simply speculating based off of the comment.

As Mr. Gargiulo stated he explicitly did so about this case. Though, the method of communication was not mentioned, and without speculating too much I think it's worth noting that a vast amount of domain related communication occurs behind the scenes (to include private forums).

Here are the details you are looking for. We reached out to Paul and Aman for Brent in February 2020, as you can see below. @Paul Nicks, quickly referred me to Justin Redman, who is GoDaddy's Assistant General Counsel. It was GoDaddy's legal team that made the final policy decision to keep the locks in place.

For context, these emails were sent when over $850,000 in our brokered deals for @create.com Brent Oxley and @DomainingCom Francois Carrillo were being jeopardized by these locks.

As you will read below, we offered to fully indemnify GoDaddy to protect them from any future liability created from the frivolous litigation if they unlocked the names. After being completely out of options, we even asked for GoDaddy to allow account changes of the domain, internal to GoDaddy, so they still had control. This was also denied by GoDaddy's legal team until the dispute was settled or withdrawn from the Indian court.


I also included the complete documents that were served in Hindi and the official translation that we attached for Aman, Paul, and Justin. No contract with Brent or evidence attached, just a complete rant.

Before we received the English version back from a Hindi legal translator, the domains had already been locked by GoDaddy. Weeks went by without us actually knowing what the documents in Hindi said or why GoDaddy had locked the domains. This part of the process was most troubling. Puneet sent the documents to GoDaddy before Brent was ever served. He knew Brent would be blindsided by GoDaddy's lock (because he has likely done this before).

In fairness to Aman, Paul, Justin, and GoDaddy's legal team they have to manage thousands of different legal situations. Divorces, death, lawsuits, and abusive litigation all factor into GoDaddy's daily role as the largest registry on earth. I do think this was one area where their Terms of Service overstepped and is causing a bad situation to get worse unless the locks are lifted.

Without somehow accounting for frivolous or unsubstantiated claims in the future, GoDaddy's policy decision to keep the locks in place could seriously jeopardize the value of domains across the broader market.

If GoDaddy unlocked the domains and developed an owner-friendly policy change, inspired by Brent's unsubstantiated situation, they could be the hero in all this. The ICA may need to promote additional reform by ICANN.

13 months later and we continue to patiently wait for recognition by GoDaddy of what is going on. I also hope they find a positive solution very soon to mitigate frivolous complaints and future abuses of GoDaddy policies.

Michael Gargiulo
CEO at VPN.com

 

[bmugford]

Wake up please. I am the reality check. This incident will fade like the wind while those who are impacted attack each other for sport. I am not here to have my voice reduced so you can feel better about your own posts or brand identity. Read and learn and ask why it continues to happen. You didn't have one intelligent point to add to this for accountability enhancement outside of attacks on others. This company is seizing names, marginalizing users, targeting competitors, and you personally attack me as not being liked?

Read them!

https://domainnamewire.com/2021/02/22/godaddys-afternic-had-security-hole/

https://www.theverge.com/2020/12/24/22199406/godaddy-wins-2020-stupidity-award

https://krebsonsecurity.com/2020/11...-attacks-on-multiple-cryptocurrency-services/

https://www.zdnet.com/article/aws-error-exposed-godaddy-server-secrets/

https://www.forbes.com/sites/daveyw...llion-customers-need-to-know/?sh=37b1d0f01daa

https://www.cpomagazine.com/cyber-s...ansferring-ownership-of-cryptocurrency-sites/

https://thefederalist.com/2021/01/1...-kicked-off-the-internet-without-explanation/

@Intelliname @Rob Monster

This is a thread in relation to a specific issue. It is not a thread to just randomly attack GoDaddy on everything.

This is not the place for off-topic rants about GoDaddy. Please create a separate thread, like "Everything wrong with GoDaddy".

Brad

 

[bmugford]

Thanks Brad, I'll do my best to update everyone on where we are, but also wanted to address some of the conspiratorial nonsense I've been seeing. I understand that not having me always online addressing each new point immediately provides a fertile ground for drawing conclusions, but let's please not devolve into the ridiculous.

The heart of the matter is that there is a dispute involving registration rights between two parties who both acknowledge a prior working relationship. Our current procedure is to lock domain names upon notification that there is a registration rights dispute. We do this to maintain status quo on the domain names.

As for Create.com, it was added to the lawsuit, so it followed our standard operating procedure. This SOP was created in order to protect against business disputes involving registration rights and domain theft, and has worked well in that regard for many years.

Part of our review into our processes focuses on the growth of the aftermarket. We are continuing conversations with industry experts to better understand what current standards are and whether we can use this situation to promote industry-wide processes that have domain investing interests in mind.

As we’ve started to have these conversations, we’ve identified a couple of things that could have gone better in Brent’s case. First, we erroneously told Brent that a court order was issued when, in fact, we were served with a legal complaint, starting a lawsuit. This doesn't change how we would have or did act, but it was inaccurate to describe it as a court order. Second, we needed to do a better job in proactively notifying Brent of the domain locks on his domains. We’re taking these learnings and applying them to our procedures going forward.

As we continue to make progress on our review, we will keep the community posted.

Now, as for the conspiracies, let's tamp down the rhetoric a bit.

Understand that when a legal complaint comes in, it goes into our legal team. And they aren’t domain investors and don't know the players at all. There is simply no way that the legal team member that locked the domains per SOP knew anything about Brent, much less what his political views, hobbies and personal beliefs were.

Aman has been briefed on the situation, but has absolutely no contact with either Brent or Puneet.

I understand that tempers are high, I'm doing everything I can to make sure that the long-term health of the industry that I've been a part of for 14 years is on solid footing. Balancing domain security with a robust aftermarket is a challenge that I don't take lightly. With that, I will continue to consult the experts and will let you all know what we come up with as soon as I can.

Hi Paul,

Thanks for the response. I think keeping the community updated is very important in this case since it involves registrant rights in general.

As I mentioned the other day, I think GoDaddy would greatly benefit by adding more resources to communicate with the investment community, especially on NamePros.

Compared to the size of GoDaddy, the engagement with the investment community is lacking. You and Joe do as well as you can, but have full time jobs outside NamePros that keep you very busy. You guys can't be everywhere at once.

When you have a lack of engagement it is easier to fill the gaps with conspiratorial thoughts and opinions.

In this case I don't really care about the political beliefs of anyone involved, this is simply about property rights and protections.

I would like to know what happened, how it happened, what GoDaddy is going to do about it, and what GoDaddy is going to change going forward.

Brad

 

[boker]

After reading everything here and in the article, I wanted to address some of the questions swirling around about this.

There were many factors in deciding if we locked domains or kept domains locked in the India case between Mr. Oxley and Mr. Agarwal.

For instance, a U.S. federal court denied Mr. Oxley’s request for an order requiring GoDaddy to unlock the domains. If Mr. Oxley had been able to obtain a court order requiring us to unlock the domains, we would have gladly done it. The fact he was unable to do so suggests how much more complicated this issue is than is mentioned in the article. It’s not just monetary issues, but demands for the cancellation of the domain registrations at issue.

We understand how important your domain names are to you. We don’t make the decision to lock or unlock any domain name lightly. GoDaddy, along with other registrars, like NameCheap, Web.com, MarkMonitor and even VeriSign, reserve the right to lock domains in response to notification of a legal dispute.

In fact, it is the industry standard to ensure that registration rights for domain names are protected and maintained during the pendency of a legal dispute. Locking domains protects all parties until the legal dispute is resolved.

We also want to assure everyone that when a domain is locked, the goal is to keep the registration information at status quo. If the registrant would like to make changes to their DNS, they can contact our team to make them. They are able to renew the domain names. The domain and any associated web/mail services continue to function normally.

We understand Mr. Oxley’s frustration. No one wants to be in this situation, but the systems that we and the industry have in place are there for your protection.

I want to make sure that I understand right. You don't have and don't need a court order from the indian guy to lock the domains, but you need a court order from Brent to unlock them? That sounds like the godaddy way of doing things. So, if I open a dispute saying that all domains owned by @Joe Styler are mine, you will lock all his domains or you will need a court order in this case? Rhetorical question.

Edit: so now godaddy acts like a law court, deciding what domains to lock, without any court order or anything to prove that you could be right or wrong and who you should punish and forgive. You should be very proud of your legal department.