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

 

[The Rover]

Since my last post was deleted because @barybadrinath complained that it included his wifes name, I'm reposting the other info to get his response.

1) Why were you stalking the Prime Minister of India?

2) Why do you discuss domains equal to cancer patients?

Please respond to these 2 questions.

I'll leave your wife out of this, I'm sure she's already aware of your hooker budget.

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.

 

[Silentptnr]

If I want to hurt a competitor, all I have to do it file a complaint, then call rePoDaddy, and they will lock the competitors domain? Makes no sense.

I know for a fact that GoDaddy houses domains that are not registrar locked, not flagged at all, then sold on the aftermarket, pushed to the buyer, then suddenly GoDaddy repossesses the domain. The buyer is out of luck on their money. GoDaddy gives no explanation to the buyer, then later sells the domain in auction. GoDaddy is very dangerous to anyone that cares about their domain name(s). This exact situation happened to me on a domain I won here on NP.

I mention this because it's ironic that GoDaddy doesn't lock domains they should, doesn't properly collect payments for domains they sell, and locks domains they shouldn't. What does that say? It says use them at your own risk (peril).

 

[GoWebnames.com]

I'm starting to think there are no registrars that dont do it.

they just dont want to get into trouble...by precaution..of course if they do it there is trouble too..like now..but maybe they just tell themselves they are picking lesser evil

The right way to handle this is to LOCK domains only on a court ORDER. Otherwise anyone can just send an email and boom your domain is locked.

If the plaintiff wants them LOCKED, he should get an INTERIM ORDER from court that directs the domain registrar to lock them down. But it shouldn't depend on the whims of a registrar.

 

[bmugford]

No problem Brent sir. Don't worry. I won't back down. I still have my legal options.
Godaddy you have done an illegal thing. And you will answer for it in Indian courts. This is gross injustice and open violation of your own policies and blatant disregard to Indian Judiciary. It's an open contempt of law.

Nope. The gross injustice was having millions of dollars of domains locked indefinitely in regards to a simple business dispute.

It is a further injustice that Brent had not been served, according to Indian court records, in over a year.

Brent moving his domains to another registrar has no impact on your lawsuit. The only thing you might lose is leverage that you should never have had in the first place.

Brad

 

[Sutruk]

As somebody has already said, this is the most insane, disturbing and worrying thing I have seen here.
It's quite worrying, to say the least, that somebody filling a $12 unfounded claim in India can lock your domains at Godaddy.
It is quite worrying that Godaddy takes attention to somebody filling a weird $12 claim in India, and is capable of locking the assets of its client for more than a year causing him millions of loses in sales, for such a ridiculous claim filled in India.
It seems that our domains at Godaddy are in hands of somebody filling a $12 weird claim in India or wherever.
Now "I feel very safe" about my domains located at Godaddy.

 

[boker]

Thanks for the info, you have done a good search here. After all it seems that there's something behind this case. I haven't read all the thread but I think that if all communications were made by email, then everything should be able to be proven by those emails.

There could be even a contract and the indian guy could be right of demanding stuff, but the fact is that there is no court order issue and no court had said that he is right, so godaddy just acts as a judge and a jury in the same time, without waiting for anything to be proved in a court. Even more, if there is a contract, this should be a civil case and he should look for compensations, but it does not have anything to do with the domains being locked or deleted. It's like I'm using a real estate agent to buy a house and because I didn't payed the commission to the real estate agent, they will take the house even before a court case to finish, just when the real estate agent will complain about it, it's absurd.

 

[bmugford]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

A few examples -

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

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

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

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

Brad

 

[equity78]

@Paul Nicks you better have an answer for this one

GoDaddy,USA company has already confirmed to me in writing that only and only Indian court ruling will be followed by them related to any court order regarding these domain names.

Or it's about to get real spicy

 

[create.com]

I'll be posting a bombshell of information tomorrow at noon central time! I'd do it now but I'm afraid it would get lost with how late it is.

Unfortunately Godaddy still hasn't reached out to me, and I don't believe they will until mains stream media picks up on this scam.

 

[AEProgram]

With a portfolio like that start your own registrar. I hope things go well for him,

 

[Skyvisum]

I DONT TRUST GODADDY . Hope Brent gets his names back .This is an eye opener .

 

[Future Sensors]

We all know that India is an important country for Godaddy for growing its business. I sincerely hope that foreign ambitions do not take precedence or harm the rights of customers in other countries.

Reading this thread on namePros, I am struggling taking a stand that Godaddy is fighting for their clients and their rights.

Here's a news item from 2018*

Moving forward, we are committed to contribute significantly to our country's Digital India initiative. We expect one-third of Indian small businesses to be online by 2022, and we aspire for GoDaddy to play a major role in helping these businesses bring their ideas online," Nikhil Arora, Vice President and Managing Director, India, GoDaddy, said in a statement.

*Source: https://tech.hindustantimes.com/tec...rs-in-india-story-mwzT80VIJ4mjKSLhAuXeZO.html

As someone closely involved in Internet infrastructure matters, I'm particularly worried about trust that has been given to Godaddy for providing services in the DNS B-Root, and other critical DNS infrastructure services.

https://www.godaddy.com/engineering/2020/01/27/b-root/

Godaddy, I recommend taking a broader look at this case than just ticking some things off.

@Paul Nicks @Joe Styler

 

[bmugford]

Brad will you move names out of GoDaddy because of this, I mentioned this thread to someone who doesn't spend much time here anymore, he just texted me back, "Thanks transferring all my names out now, this is an utter disgrace!!!!!!"

I want to see what GoDaddy's response is to this.

I just don't see any defense for it. I am not sure if GoDaddy really understands how damaging this action can be for them.

It is clear that in the eyes of the community GoDaddy is in the wrong. From small time investors to the largest, that view seems universal. This action opens a Pandora's box of issues from jurisdiction to registrant rights.

I would like for GoDaddy to acknowledge they went too far, that this creates a terrible precedent, and fix it ASAP. GoDaddy also needs to add clarity to their policy going forward.

Brad

 

[MapleDots]

A Canadian Registrar Canspace.ca just chimed in...

" There is absolutely no circumstance in which we would deny clients access to their domains without a direct order from a Canadian court. "

NOTICE THE PART ABOUT A CANADIAN COURT

Time to actually do it and move out of godaddy at next renewal.

 

[Silentptnr]

It's a real shame to be put in a position of begging for something that is already yours not to mention having paid a large sum to acquire.

It's pretty scary to think TOS exist that give a registrar the right to lock a domain for ANY reason, at it's sole discretion, at any time.

 

[namesilo]

@namesilo So would there ever be a situation where you'd lock down domains without even a court order?

In the vast majority of cases, we have not locked down domains when asked to without a legitimate court order. The only situations would be extreme cases where there is potential abuse or criminality involved.

 

[create.com]

Was this paid to him on these highlighted domains from the complaint copy?

I think it's crucial to note that I told Puneet on several occasions that he wasn't an employee and that he was never paid a salary or any set payments.

There were no contracts or any type of exclusive whatsoever. Puneet would have collected on the $1mm offer I made to show proof if this existed. He's reached out to Namecheap to lock down my entire portfolio and was told to get a court order.

Goddady, on the other hand, locked down my create.com name and hosting business without a court order. What could he possibly be owed on a name that I'm using for a personal business and was purchased years prior of ever hearing the name Puneet?

Godaddy doesn't seem to care about the facts at all when they require a court order to unlock.

Here are the dates, give or take a few days depending on transfer and my recording:

Show attachment 184702[/QUOTE]
advise.com 1/28/19
message.com 6/6/19
distribute.com 6/5/18
detect.com 2/3/19
jewel.com 9/27/19
dust.com 7/11/19
bonjour.com 7/2/19
viaje.com 4/12/19

I don't believe one can ever part ways with Puneet. He sends me dozens of emails and messages a week, harasses my office staff, puts in fake offers on my domains, messages my wife, friends, family, lawyers, etc. If you block him, he creates new accounts to reach you with. I've bought the above names from many different brokers, many of which have already said Puneet wasn't part of the deal.

I believe in Puneet's mind he thinks he's owed a commission simply spamming a name whether I read the email or not. It may even be why even after all this time, he continues to spam me lists of names without pricing or contact info that I choose to ignore. I'm surprised he hasn't sent me a list with every dictionary word in existence in it with .com appended to it.

When I ask him what's owed, he's rambled 100's of times about snort.com. If Puneet genuinely believed more was owed, I'd imagine he wouldn't be so focused on just this one name. In the attachments, you can see an email from him saying snort commission was included in the price and then not. I'm still confused to this day on that one if anything is owed or not. If it is, he can deduct the $3k from the stolen funds he still owed me. I'll even agree to send him this money if he releases all my names, but I will reserve the right to pursue him criminally for his extortion and theft.

I hope this all helps. I'd love to sit here all day answering questions but unfortunately, I get pretty busy, and so far, I'm the only one here responding to questions.

Aman where are you with answers?
Godaddy where are you with answers?
Puneet, where is your proof on anything?

 

[bmugford]

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

 

[GTBAAA]

Godaddy arbitrarily locks and deletes names far too often...

I don't trust my names there. I have two names there (total) - from auction wins. They will be moved as soon as 60 days passes...

 

[Paul Nicks]

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

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.

 

[blockhead]

Yikes!

Will be moving my best domains out of GoDaddy immediately!

 

[Chris Hydrick]

What will it honestly take? This company is not your friend. They are a weaponized arm of BigTech with the objective of single source domain control as a monopoly for content removal for a warped version of future utopia that will not favor humanity. Their depravity can be measured by a corporate lifetime of bad choices, arrogance, and zero accountability because they believe in their hearts they are beyond touch. #truth

The psychological warfare division called; they want their dictionary back. Citing a concern with continually subjecting netizens to the crossfire of this ever-growingly uncivil persistent corporate feud, that hints at misinformation, distorted political undertones, and worst of all excessively divisive rhetoric.

Simply put, if Epik can out-tech / out-policy Godaddy and other leading registrars such as Dynadot and NameCheap, then Epik will become the new market leader. All of this warped utopia, lifetime of bad choices, and #truth rhetoric has too much of a Mike Lindell (marketer) feel, and not enough of a Steve Wozniak (innovating developer) feel. I mean, we're talking domains here, not pillows!

@Intelliname This is clearly an attack from one registrar to the other. Let's not do this.

Amen!

 

[bmugford]

This is a quick summary, as far as I can tell.

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

The complainant filed a case in an Indian court related to a business dispute.

There is no court order. The defendant has not even been served yet.
Even if there was a court order, I fail to see how it would have any standing in this case.

GoDaddy for some reason not only locked the domains, without a court order, they also locked the domain Create.com which does not even appear to be named in the suit.

I am not really sure WTF GoDaddy is doing here. It makes any domain owner, from the largest investor to the smallest end user far less secure with their assets.

Brad

 

[GeorgeK]

I recall Microsoft filed an ex parte motion to have various domain names suspended a couple of years ago, see:

https://noticeofpleadings.com/phosphorus/files/TRO.pdf

IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA
Case; 1;19-cv-00716

One of the important parts of the proposed order (page 49 of the above PDF) was that:

"IT IS FURTHER ORDERED that Microsoft shall post bond in the amount of $50,000 to be paid into the Court registry."

That's an important element, to ensure that there's no frivolous litigation. As Brent noted above, for $12 the Plaintiff has caused distress to Brent's portfolio, and apparently hasn't even been served the complaint yet. Without that security bond (or security for costs, as I mentioned in a prior post in this thread), this situation has turned into a farce.

Without an actual court order from the Indian court, GoDaddy (or other registrars in similar situations in the future) at a minimum should require something more from the plaintiff, like a substantial security bond deposited with the court, in my opinion.

 

[Paul Nicks]

Thanks for all the feedback on this so far. I've been reading every reply and can understand your concerns.

In the last 36 hours, we've been having some serious discussions about our policies, processes, and ultimately, how we can better serve our customers while protecting everyone's legal rights. We have already engaged the ICA and other industry experts to determine if there are any changes we should and could make. As we make progress, we will keep the community posted.

For Brent, I want you know that no domain name will be deleted. Consistent with our policy, we have paid for renewals and will continue to pay for renewals as necessary. We're keeping them safe, and leaving them up and running.