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

 

[Dave]

@Paul Nicks Why did GoDaddy lock domain names that are completely unrelated to the dispute, or rather not mentioned at all in the civil suit? For example I see no mention of Create.com, so why has it been locked?

Does this mean if someone sends me a legal dispute over one domain you'd go ahead and lock all my domains? That is somewhat concerning, and makes me want to move all my domains away.

 

[create.com]

After 14+ months of Godaddy holding my domains hostage and locking them without merit, they have been unlocked and safely transferred to Namecheap. I don't believe Godaddy would have ever have changed their policy if it wasn't for the community rallying to protest this injustice. Thank you all very much for your support and for helping to bring about change!

I now realize more than ever how vital the ICA is and what they're doing to protect our domain property rights in both Washington and throughout the domain industry! I highly recommend domainers to become a member of the ICA at https://www.internetcommerce.org/join/

My company Create.com has donated $50,000 to the ICA and is looking forward to becoming a member very soon. This donation is the least I can do as a small thank you to the community and for coming together to rescue my names.

Namecheap also deserves a special thank you. They went above and beyond by offering free legal assistance and started the process of ICANN's Registrar Transfer Dispute Resolution to help rescue my names from Godaddy. Unlike Godaddy, they also refused Puneet Agarwal's demand to lock my domains when he failed to provide a US court order.

I'm currently exploring legal actions against Godaddy for what they did to me and the millions in damages their poor judgment, lack of communication, and broken policy have cost me. I'm also pursuing legal action against Puneet Agarwal in India. Unfortunately, Puneet's harassment, threats, and extortion demands will never stop until he's behind bars.

I thank each and everyone in this community for helping to bring about change.

 

[bmugford]

Look at some of the comments on the original blog post from prominent members of the community.

This is going to be a disaster for GoDaddy if they don't resolve this soon.

It is really hard to overstate how important this is to domain investors, and just domain owners in general.

David J Castello
7 hours ago

Reply to Brent
This just put the nail in the coffin for us ever registering anything on GoDaddy.com


James Booth
1 day ago

This is an absolute joke! The fact someone can do something like this for $11 is beyond ridiculous. Brent is one of the most honest, straight shooting guys out there. Not once had any issues. He has benefited this industry massively and I find it disgusting he has to go through this with threats to him and his family while someone tries to extort him. This POS belongs in jail!


John Berryhill
14 hours ago

Reply to Matts
What if you don’t get your merchandise from Amazon.com? Does the domain name get locked? No. There are all sorts of commercial disputes which are brought and adjudicated without tangentially-involved domain names being locked.


Francois
1 day ago

Oxley discovered this lawsuit when I sold him encrypt.com for cash + domains one year ago with the help of Michael Gargiulo of VPN.com. Brent was unable to push me 2 domains… That’s when he called GoDaddy.com to learn about a claim from an unknown guy in India who apparently had filed a frivolous lawsuit on a large collection of his premium domains. It was incredible that GoDaddy locked all these domains overnight without even inform the owner. This is a scary story that I thought will be resolved quickly but apparently continues. It’s terrible!!!

 

[Rob Monster]

@Intelliname This is clearly an attack from one registrar to the other. Let's not do this. Your company isn't telling the #truth about your alternative .truth TLD, and more. Fix this first, before participating in this thread?

I won't disagree w/ some of your facts, btw.

I think Intelliname was commenting in a private capacity. He was a NP member and industry observer long before he joined Epik. He even consulted for Godaddy in the past and had 10,000 domains there until recently. I am pretty sure he is observing this as an industry stakeholder, raising concerns.

Godaddy should have stood down on this issue on Friday night. It is insanity to have allowed this to become the top thread on NamePros for the month. There is no defense. The fact that guys like Brad Mugford, Grilled, or SilentPartner condemn the action is telling.

If registrars can simply seize domains, and hide behind ToS that allows them to do it, then the industry has a problem. There was some prior incident with Pheenix where domains went missing, and that was pretty much the end of Pheenix as a registrar where anyone renews domains.

Aman can still still claim that this was done without his awareness. I sent him a private note on Friday night imploring him to take action. I was hoping that I would wake up to find out that the matter was solved. Unfortunately, that is not the case and that is a very sad day for the industry.

 

[bmugford]

The idea is that godaddy could release all Brent's domains, just to limit the damage, but without lot's of changes in their TOS and registrant rights, sooner or later it will happen again and it cold happen to somebody who can't afford tens of thousands to defends their names. Godaddy needs to do a lot of changes, from registrant rights to customer service( how it's possible for a guy who owns domains worth millions to not receive a proper reply to multiple emails in a situation like this?) So, the the main question is ,are you waiting to see if godaddy will release Brent's domains and apologize or you expect them to make some hard core changes to stay?

PS: I can bet that no hardcore changes could make Brent decide to stay longer with them after this story and probably he is not the only one

I just sent an email to my account manager about this. I am looking forward to having a serious discussion.

If some random lawsuit, in some random court, in some random country is going to lead to GoDaddy locking domains without a court order, or even being served, including a domain that was not even part of the lawsuit... Who is going to feel secure with assets there?

They need to clarify their policy. That part is not even really debatable.

Brad

 

[Shimmy]

I don’t understand why people are thanking Paul Nicks, all he said is if you claim rights to any domain at GoDaddy they will keep the domain locked for at least a year, and not give a damn about it until a ton of people start complaining.

 

[Silentptnr]

To me, it is even more insulting that a complainant just for sh*ts and giggles decided to add create.com to the list and GoDaddy immediately complied. Makes no friggin sense.

I could see GoDaddy telling a person they would consider a court order, but to just lock the domains seems like bad business. No excuses.

 

[MapleDots]

EPIK locked them down when Mr. Petretta's lawyer sent them a mail requesting so. Just so simple. When I told them it's not a court order but a mere court filing, they unlocked the domains briefly. But then locked them back saying that we lock domains on court filings also. First telling me it's a court order, then accepting it's a mere court filing. You are so much at the whim of registrars.

They been locked about 6 months (August 2020) now since the court case was filed. There never was and, to date, there hasn't been ANY ORDER from the court regarding placing locks on these domains or maintaining status-quo. EPIK's bravado is on its own. Who knows how many years this may take?

The whole point is that once there is a court order, the domain can be recovered from almost any registrar. Domain locking shouldn't depend on the whim of registrars. NameCheap.com is much better if they don't do that.

Show attachment 184788
Show attachment 184789

I have read, and continue to watch this topic, but have only responded once. I prefer to read the facts and will make my decision on what to do about my domains at godaddy when this topic is resolved.

There is a lot of emotion in this topic, but also some good information, and occasionally a golden nugget.

May I say your letter to Epik was incredibly well thought out, especially the last sentence. For someone in a similar situation to the OP I admire how you handled yourself and can only assume you run your business in the same professional manner. I think Rob at Epik needs to give that a second look because to me it sounds like you are a leader when it comes to a proper response, by a domainer, to a situation like this.

Thank you so much for posting your letter.

 

[Rob Monster]

Indeed, big red flags for a while and it's really become obvious in the last 2 years. When they cancelled AR15.com, and countless other smaller sites that are "pro american" they always cite very ambiguous reasons that are open to interpretation. Ever since they canceled "Daily Stormer" (which was indeed a crazy hateful site that should have been canceled) they've used THAT as the future template, and they're lumping various sites that are simply against their corporate ideology with actual hateful or violent sites like Daily Stormer. Pretty transparent tactics.

I actually brought up these issues in a different thread, and how GoDaddy's increasingly partisan ideology is affecting policy, and was absolutely shit on. Ironically, the attacking posts from a few other namepro members sadly underscored how cancel culture is driven by ideology. You'd think that would be obvious, but apparently many folks are living in delusion.

Gab.com and AR15.com were both Godaddy refugee domains that ended up at Epik. Create.com does use some Epik technology. As yet the domain never moved. Perhaps we now know why!

The Gab.com story was chronicled here:

https://www.namepros.com/threads/so...y-24-hours-to-transfer-or-suspension.1107245/

As for AR15.com, while there is a rising tide of anti-gun propaganda, AR15.com is run by class people who understand the law.

There is a strong case that Godaddy's politics greatly shifted since KKR came on board. I think you can more or less set the watch to when it likely happened.

On August 17, 2018, the GDDY stock price was over $80 a share and a large amount of smart money cashed out on the same day:

https://www.secform4.com/insider-trading/1609711-4.htm

Bob Parsons left the Board a couple months later on October 3, 2018.

https://www.prnewswire.com/news-rel...rom-company-board-of-directors-300723251.html

The firing of Gab by Godaddy happened on October 28, 2018.

I believe it is very safe to say that once Founder Parsons left the Board, Godaddy was a different company. As near as I can tell, the smart money cashed out when the soul left the bridge of the ship.

Since then, it appears Godaddy became a tool of a political machine that aligned to a partisan agenda that likely has a less interest in empowering private ownership of domains.

Since Aman Bhutani was a member of the World Economic Forum, and sits on the Board of the New York Times, it is logical, that he has fully embraced the WEF Great Reset agenda. Look it up.

If you think the domain business changed in 2018. I think you are right.

 

[griff]

June 2020 - GoDaddy experiences surge in business, yet lays off over 800 employees in Texas
Nov 2020 - GoDaddy doubles Domain Discount Club price from $120 to $240
Dec 2020 - GoDaddy tricks employees with cruel $640 Christmas Bonus phishing email - refuses to give out bonus despite backlash
Dec 2020 - GoDaddy acquires Poynt for $320 million in cash
Jan 2021 - GoDaddy raising closeout prices from $11 to $50

All this as well as recent cases of censoring/kicking sites off, now they're locking highly valuable domains. They treat their customers as garbage as their employees.

 

[Rob Monster]

@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

Be serious, I have stayed 100% on-topic and have engaged as gentleman and ombudsman.

 

[Silentptnr]

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.

It seems nonsensical that a domain registration rights issue without any proof of ownership or interest from one party would outweigh the clear rights of another. GoDaddys legal teams decision to lock the registrants rights without evidence of ownership from the complainant is wrong on many levels. GoDaddy will more than likely be sued for this blunder. As well they should imo.

 

[Chris Hydrick]

Because he's likely mentally ill. The real question (and focus) should be why GoDaddy used this an opportunity to lock down Brent's domains without a court order. The more Puneet posts, the more he distracts from GoDaddy's liability. Grilling Puneet isn't worth it. We need to grill GoDaddy.

What would it look like to turn off the grill and stop the FireAman.com calls altogether?

Potential suggestion (unsure if all parties would be able to agree):
<Mr. Agarwal drops the lawsuit immediately, and promises not to launch any future related lawsuits against Mr. Oxley or GoDaddy.

In exchange:

Mr. Oxley promises not to sue GoDaddy or Mr. Agarwal. <<this might be the toughest ask given (everything that's been allowed to transpire under GoDaddys CEO Mr. Aman Bhutani's watch to include the communication/attention to detail and/or lack there of from GoDaddy Dispute Department) and (the offensive nature of Mr. Agarwal's comments towards Mr. Oxley) especially considering the serious/lengthy nature of the issue at hand>>

GoDaddy agrees not to sue Mr. Agarwal or Mr. Oxley. and GoDaddy pays all legal expenses incurred by Mr. Oxley.

GoDaddy reviews this case, and takes special notes to their dispute process, registrant rights, and to the mental health concerns within the domain investing community, and the devastating impact domain addiction can have to domain addicts and their families. GoDaddy covers the cost of health treatment, be spiritual health, and/or mental health ((or whatever is necessary within means for healing)) for Mr. Agarwal and any affected family members as needed to heal and find peace.>

After reading some of what @create.com had uploaded earlier in this thread, specifically the email from a family member who expressed concerned for @barybadrinath's health, I think I can relate on some levels as to what Mr. Agarwal may be experiencing. Mr. Agarwal may not have mental health issues as signs might indicate, or as others have alleged, but I do. And I don't think it's necessarily always a bad thing, nor is it something that should be ostracized. Though at times, and a very tricky thing to do at that, I think it is necessary to call out the obvious, to either protect/alert others, or to protect/alert the individual exuding psychotic symptoms him/herself to prevent further harm/damage and to help begin the healing/recovery process.

Domaining can be a very stressful business. Especially when renewals come, and you don't have the funds in your account to cover renewals. Couple that with thinking you were going into business with somebody who previously had a reported 9figure tech exit, and you had access to his credit card, as it was still saved to your GoDaddy account. Rather than taking the advice to drop the domains, and focus on more fruitful areas, the hook of domaining, and the fear of losing domains that Mr. Agarwal burnt many barrels of midnight oil to find, were all going to go up in flames, as his assets had quickly turned into renewal liabilities. Unfortunately, it appears that Mr. Agarwal knew and understood he didn't have a contract, or authorization to use the card for further charges. Ultimately, leading to events and a fallout that unravelled and eventually ignited into the dumpster fire we see being extorted here today.

@Rob Monster may recall a phone call last year when I was in the midst of a psychotic breakdown, I had suggested the need for some type of Domainers Anonymous support program, as domaining in itself can at times sound psychotic to those who don't understand the business of domaining. And sometimes, when you can't afford to renew or the stress that comes with spending your last funds on renewals opposed to daily living, the best advice is simply to drop your domains, and opt to use your remaining funds on daily living and forget about renewing or buying any more new domains until you can afford to buy or renew, opposed to entertaining fraudulent ideas such as renewing them with somebody else's credit card. If the domains are worth holding, I think epik innovated a domain loan collateral program and a name liquidating exchange to help support domainers in need. Because unfortunately GoDaddy Domain Valuations just aren't tangible enough to put food on a domainers table when/if push comes to shove. Additionally, to add insult to renewals or when not able to afford renewals and daily living, domain registrants have grown accustomed to accepting their nonliquid position only to witness a short time after GoDaddy subsequently sell their expired domain, and profit hand over fist, without GoDaddy ever passing on any percentage of the high profit margin profits/proceeds to the registrant him/herself. The domainer is typically left with few options being readily available, and in some cases, many are left watch to either (1) let domain expire, and see GoDaddy sell in their lucrative expired domains market, or (2) to overstretch themselves and renew hoping to sell it for what GoDaddy expired auctions would have sold it at. If only one could simply let their domain expire, not worry about overstretching themselves to chase a profit and be able to recoup their time/investment by receiving a percentage of the expired auction proceeds. Or at times most important of all, to take time to put the screen down, and spend what might have been neglected quality time with your friends and family.

I had considered posting screenshots of what @create.com had posted, and what other internet sleuths had shared, consistent to how I have interacted in other namePros threads, and although it may help paint a fuller picture of the alleged events and further the discussion, I have to reconsider what @The Rover had pointed out, that to what end will grilling @barybadrinath have in the grand scheme of things?

While GoDaddy has the most work ahead of them, I think it is important that somebody offers Mr. Agarwal a therapeutic hand out of the mess this has created. As someday, GoDaddy may clean up their act, and registrant rights will end up all the stronger, and we'll indirectly have Puneet to thank for that. The man clearly knows how to leave his mark, and make an entrance. (imo) If properly channeled and in good health, Mr. Agarwal could grow to be an asset to the community. So rather than condemning Mr. Agarwal for what appears to be exploiting a loophole and making a global mockery of registrant rights, is there any chance of getting this man the help it appears he desperately needs?

Lastly, there's just too much popcorn poppin in here for me to hang around any longer. I've eaten more than my fair share, and like anything in over moderation, it can begin to effect one's health. When you find your pupils starting to dilate after eating too much internet popcorn, that could be a sign to put the popcorn down, as the dilated eyes could be a physical warning sign / indicator that surges of adrenaline are being released during a euphoric and/or dysphoric state of mania.

This will be my last post in this thread. @barybadrinath or any other member, if you need to talk, feel free to send me a DM.

Good luck to all.

 

[bmugford]

Look at the threats being made towards Brent and his family. This stuff is crazy.
It does not surprise me, the person made similar threats on NamePros before mods took action.

More information about threats made to others - https://www.namepros.com/threads/ba...e-is-no-room-for-threats-on-namepros.1186257/

I really can't believe GoDaddy's actions on this.


Upon contacting Oxley for comment, he provided me with a screenshot of an Escrow.com transaction purportedly created by Agarwal.

In the transaction (#7813820), titled “Mutual settlement of fight,” Agarwal offers to withdraw his case against Oxley and allow the registrar to unlock Oxley’s domain names.

In exchange for this, Agarwal is asking for $5 million, according to the screenshot provided.

Oxley also sent screenshots of hundreds of emails and instant messages allegedly sent by Agarwal to Oxley.

In one string of 99 messages allegedly sent by Agarwal, numerous threats are made to Oxley, including “Ur [sic] ranch will burn one day,” “Ur [sic] car will catch fire,” “I will also take help from black magic,” and “I will pray to devil god to fulfill it.”

In another string, messages include “Ur [sic] children will pay for ur [sic] bad karma,” “All ur [sic] money will be no use to them,” and “U [sic] will cry blood tears.”

 

[create.com]

I had to break up into multiple posts due to file size restrictions. These attachments will prove that Puneet is a scammer and thief. Free my domains Aman Bhutani & Godaddy!

 

[Chris Hydrick]

Since my last post was deleted because @barybadrinath complained that it included his wifes name

I reported your post.

Do you have proof that @barybadrinath reported your post as well?

And regardless of who reported what, kindly explain why you felt it necessary to create a new account titled <HowMuchAreHookers> then immediately proceed to harass @barybadrinath in a public forum where his wifes name had no relevance to this thread?

Edit: Everyone please remember, this is namePros. This is not Gab nor 4Chan; rules and professionalism matter here.

 

[Keith]

The scary thing here is how quick registrars will side with the opposition. It happened with Netsol and France.com

At some point we have to demand a registrar that puts the rights of registrants first. They work for us, not vice versa.

 

[Silentptnr]

Wanted to give everyone a quick update before the weekend. We've been having numerous calls with outside experts and internally as we continue to review our processes. We've made a lot of good progress, but this is a complicated issue and there is still more to do.

We want to make sure we get this right. Not just for Brent, but for everyone in this industry that we want to support.

So, please know I'm reading each post here and adding any new info into our analysis. Expect more information next week.

Who is the "We" in "We want to make sure we get this right."?

Meaning, does the "we" consist of actual decisionmakers in this matter?

As someone already mentioned....it's a simple question that GoDaddy should be able to answer as quickly as it's competitors have....

Will GoDaddy continue it's policy of locking the domains of their customer, without notice, when alerted to a business dispute by a non customer without formal legal service or a valid court order?

 

[bmugford]

The main issue here is that even if the complainant will win after 6 years, there is no court in India to have the right to seize any assets that somebody owns in another country, no matter if we are talking about US or Madagascar. Then, through the local court you need to fill another case to ask the court from where the defendant have his assets to force him to pay and if he refuses to pay in a certain time frame, than the court from his country can freeze assets, but that takes years and years. Godaddy acts in the place of all this courts and other entities, with no rights and they should not be involved in this case.

The registrar is based in the US.
The registry is based in the US.
The registrant is based in the US.

It is absurd that an Indian court has any standing in this case in my view.

Brad

 

[bmugford]

I had a discussion with Zak Muscovitch of the ICA about looking into this.

This does create a laundry list of potential issues. It will likely take some time to review in detail.

Brad

 

[trelgor]

If $12 can significantly sabotage a competitor for years, justified claims or not, it will happen again and again. Competing businesses will shower eachother with frivolous claims made through secretly hired proxies.

 

[Michael Castello]

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 reprehensive 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.

Correct. Anyone can bring a potential buyer but you must stipulate that it is a referral and not as a commissioned broker or agent. Commissions are usually offered to parties with an agreement with seasoned brokers with a reputation in the business. The main issue is that you do not want just anyone to represent "you". Someone moving a potential buyer to you is a referral. The bigger issue it would appear with Oxley is that the claimant filed for damages from sales already completed. I sold Oxley Dust.com B2B. This guy was nowhere near the deal.

 

[Castello Brothers]

Most of our names like Cost.com, Sample.com, Nashville.com, etc are at Moniker. I asked them what they would do in a similar situation and this is what they emailed me:

Hi David,

Generally speaking, it is difficult to comment on an issue where we don’t have all of the information, as well as to give a catchall answer as we do assess each case on its merit. That said, I appreciate this is an important issue and that you want to understand our stance so I’ll do my best to give you a guide.

In most circumstances we will not act on court orders regarding domain ownership for gTLDs as that is what the UDRP process was developed for and we prefer this as a mechanism for resolving disputes. We also, generally speaking, do not act on court orders from courts which do not have jurisdiction over our legal entity, which is based in the US, unless of course there was obvious and damaging criminal use of a domain using our services (e.g. Child Pornography, financial fraud, etc.) . Again, it is hard to say in all circumstances, but it is very unlikely that we would place any restrictions on a domain based on a court order from an outside jurisdiction. Registrants are actually protected from restriction of movement of a domain by ICANN rules and we are in compliance with all of the requirements of the ICANN accreditation agreement.

Please be assured that we value our customers very much and understand that for many, domain investment is how they make a living, pay their bills, put their kids through college, etc. Our support teams understand this distinction and take the time to look into the individual circumstances of every customer and domain.

I hope this helps and I apologize that I can’t be more direct.

Sincerely,

Marc McCutcheon
Head of Retail

 

[equity78]

People really need to stop with @Paul Nicks like he can do anything. This is way above Paul's pay grade he is here with a few updates but people telling him what to do, is a dream. Paul has little influence in this situation and is not to blame. If he can post info that's great but he is not calling the shots.

 

[EJS]

To be fair I think he has made his position pretty clear already with that post.....let's see if he wade's in on here

I have been keeping an eye on this discussion here and elsewhere. The entire situation is confusing to me and I don't really understand the full scope of what happened or why. I have quite a few questions that people have already posted. For instance, I would like to know if GoDaddy is legally compelled to do what it did because of the pending litigation or if it was a legal judgment call the company made.

I have no additional information that I can contribute, so I did not post an article. It is tough enough to follow all the commentary here, on different blogs, and on social media. Publishing an article that has no new information or insight would just divert attention elsewhere.

As I mentioned in response to someone who asked about it, I register most of my domain names at GoDaddy. There is a fair amount of risk investing in domain names (financial and legal), and this is a risk I never even thought about.