Statement By Dan on Epik!!

[Ostrados]

This statement was just released by Dan:

We’ve ignored many of their actions in the past, because we’re laser focused on executing our ambitious product roadmap. However, last Friday, Epik has taken their attacks of our brand to the next level by sending a fabricated story about us to over 100,000 contacts in a mass email. As of today, we still haven’t received an apology or explanation from them. Their primary goal with this email was to hurt our brand and to gain new customers and this attempt was pre-planned and announced by them in June 2020* (See exhibit #2).

Full statement:
https://blog.undeveloped.com/statement-about-recent-events-b7c875cc6314

Have anyone received that email from Epik attacking Dan? I wonder what is the fabricated story Dan taking about?

 

[Chris Hydrick]

Also, for the record, I believe I had many more fake leads with epik nameservers, than I had with dan nameservers.

Thus, I'm not sure why epiks public relations guy is making anti dan marketing material detailing a concern that is more of a problem at epik, than at dan.

Edit Added: Still, it's a real shame that dan had blackballed sav domains. Sav/Dynadot/Namesilo became my go to registrars after I became disgusted with epik. Unfortunately, it felt like dan.com was telling me if I wanted to use their services, I would have to chose a morally bankrupt registrar like epik opposed to using a choice registrar such as sav.com

 

[Rob Monster]

I use both DAN and Epik, both of which are innovative companies that offer cost-effective solutions to the domain community, in my opinion.

Even though I am an Epik customer and have a number of .vc domain names without active landers, I did not receive the above email. When I first saw the DAN statement I quietly asked a few others who also had not received it.

It seems to me that the distribution of the email is greatly exaggerated in the DAN statement, and the degree of blocking is exaggerated in the Epik email posted above. Mistakes are made, but mistakes are sometimes how wars that benefit no one start.

I do a mix of DAN and Epik landers for names registered at Epik. I periodically check and to my knowledge I have never had any problem with blocking.

When DAN announced they would not transfer SAV registered names, it had a negative impact since domainers should not need to think about where a domain is registered to know if a marketplace will accept it. I don't know where that issue currently stands, or even the reasons for it really, but would hope that DAN can work effectively with all registrars.

As others have said above, I certainly hope that the companies will step back and seek solutions to perceived injustices in a spirit of cooperation, rather than ratchet up discord. This hurts our industry, hurts both companies, and hurts domainers. It also makes me sad.

Bob

"As far as possible, without surrender, be on good terms with all persons." - Desiderata​

Here are the facts:

https://twitter.com/x/status/1298284697261346818

What is notable is that those 46 emails moved ~20,000 domains to Epik landers. I could understand why Reza might think it was a large campaign. It wasn't. Those are the facts.

Keep in mind that Robert Davis at one point had ~10,000 domains on Dan. He knows their product better than I ever did. I can say with confidence he genuinely tried to help Reza.

Truth be told: Robert is one of the nicest guys you will ever meet. At the same time, his tolerance for fools is low. The man's talents are supernatural.

The Epik clients who have had the opportunity to work with Robert are better off for the experience.

 

[Chris Hydrick]

Truth be told: Robert is one of the nicest guys you will ever meet

C'mon now. Stop the madness! #TellTheTruth

 

[Chris Hydrick]

All I understand is that DAN is 10 times bigger than epik.
And DAN is not yet a public registrar, about to become one in q4 2020.

+ lots of exciting new implementations.

Until then, epik's in trouble.

Show attachment 165100

FWIW: It looks like both Dan and Epik lost DNS marketshare in domaintools' latest update.

https://dailychanges.domaintools.com/

 

[Kingslayer]

The best times for Sedo are already in the past...
But their credibility is still the highest among others... at least in Europe.

Sedo whilst I’ve never personally sold a domain with them, top the weekly domain sales charts more than any other marketplace, so I’m not sure why you think the best times are behind them when they showing no signs of slowing down.

Re:- This thread, I’ve not read it all, but it seems like every month we have a controversial thread on Epik, everything from Racism/Covid/bad mouthing competitors (and other things), Epik are right in the middle of it, having threads with ‘Epik’ in the titles linked to these subjects, that is ‘most popular this week’ on NamePros.

I do think Epik thrive of this controversy though and see it as promotion, but that’s not the way I see it, negativity is never good and controversy is never good, it just makes a company look 2nd rate and someone you can never fully trust and I think that’s why I still don’t have an account with them yet.

Epik needs to be less controversial and get rid of this ‘negativity’ if they ever want to be as big as GoDaddy/Sedo, just my thoughts.

 

[jmcc]

Illusion indeed there's not many independent registrars left. Ultimately that will hurt the consumer although at the moment I notice each of the brands is targeting a different kind of user. Smart play and an old marketing trick. Staying in competition with one of your own brands.

At the top of some of the markets, there is a lot of false competition but some of the registrars and hosters are more complimentary than competitive. There's retail hosting (think of it as small sites on shared hosting with less than a hundred webpages and a ccTLD/COM domain name combined with domain names that are only ever used for e-mail or not at all), dedicated/managed servers and Cloud hosting and others that offer DNS as a service (Dyn, NSone etc). The mix of options offered by some hosters is often focused so a portfolio operator could end up with some of its hosters targeting the retail market, some targeting the dedicated market and one or two targeting the Cloud market. Some of the portfolio operators are careful about the hosters that they acquire and how they are perceived in the market. With Cloud hosting, the big players are Amazon, Microsoft and Google. It is difficult for smaller operations to compete against these players.

By the way, what about Endurance? They're a big player.

Excluding the mess of the Chinese market where it is difficult to connect registrars and hosters, they are the second largest portfolio operator with 5.32% of the AMBIONIC market. (Acronym for .COM/NET/ORG/BIZ/INFO/MOBI/ASIA). Godaddy's main portfolio has 25.91% with its HEG and others portfolio at 0.91%. It also has PPC, brand protection and auction/sales operations. Endurance is at 5.32%.

Not the size of GD but one to be taken into account. They've accumulated quite the portfolio containing very well known brands. Where GD is consolidation they seem to keep their brands running separately, on the surface at least. They may focus more on add-ons (hosting, etc) but do own some renown registrars as well.

Godaddy seems to be careful about what it acquires in that it is already the biggest and often buys to acquire market share.It is a clever strategy in that it allows others to build up the business rather than having to invest time in building it. The HEG operation is heavily ccTLD focused as most European hosters have more than 50% ccTLD registrations and the gTLDs are less important. Endurance seems to be quite different. Many of the hosters it has acquired are small or medium sized hosters rather than market leaders and it is very focused on the US and Canadian markets.

The number of active registrars is only a fraction of the 2,500 or so. As a model it was great for the 1990s when the gTLD market was just .COM/NET/ORG. Over the last ten years or so, the weaknesses of the model have become apparent and large regions have very few ICANN registrars or none at all. Africa only has a few registrars.Brazil, one of the biggest ccTLD markets, has none. Outside the US/Canada, the market has shifted to ccTLDs and the incompetence of ICANN in dealing with Domain Tasting in the mid 2000s kickstarted that shift to ccTLDs. Thousands of hosters that would have grown to become ICANN registrars now outsource their gTLD registrations to registration as a service players rather than making the jump to become an ICANN accredited registrar. A hoster needs to have the registration volume to financially justify becoming an ICANN registrar.DAN's idea of having the registrar serve a function other than simple retail sales is a good one. But if it becomes successful, others will try to copy the model or integrate ideas into their own operation.

Regards...jmcc

 

[DAN.COM]

They went a little soft on you but be very careful about voicing out your opinion/feedback about their service in near future bud

Hi Soofi,

You are well aware of the true reason why we decided to terminate your account with us.

You first brought an imported transaction to DAN where the buyer (Ankit which was hiding under a stolen identity) used a stolen US-based credit card to purchase a domain you sold in your auction.

When we canceled and refunded the transaction, you shortly after started to spread false information about payment processing issues at DAN and are still continuing to do so.

Both incidents but mostly the first resulted in us deciding to not work with you anymore. As a service provider, we choose who we work with. When a user engages in malicious attacks of our brand, we are within our right to not add value to you anymore.

The same happened with Robert. He started harassing our investors after he received some offers on a domain of his called GetMyCheck.com. Some US citizens thought they could collect their $1000 coronavirus stimulus cash from the Trump administration on that domain. When he started complaining about leads not converting into sales, we literally only told him to stop using the make offer option for that name and to set a BIN price to avoid getting new offers from people that want to get their check.

From this moment on, for no good reason, Robert starts emailing our investors & support staff accusatory messages and we decide to block his access to DAN directly in response of his continuous attacks.

Fun fact, all the time Robert was communicating with us, he had a management function at Epik as SVP Strategy & Communications.

We blocked Robert and Soofi to safeguard the integrity of our marketplace. We now observe that Robert Davis and Rob Monster are doubling down on spreading a new false narrative about a so called data leak at DAN.

This is again false and fabricated. We haven't had a data leak, do not have one at the moment and none of the Robs have reported such a leak to us privately or via our support team while they spread these new claims vocally.

After our announcement, a plethora of industry leaders have contacted us sharing with us that they also have experienced the same issues as us with these rogue and unstable actors.

We do not expect the actors involved to change their behavior but will continue to build our case against them which might turn into a lawsuit in the future if they continue their attacks and above all the spread of fully fabricated stories about us for personal gain. Others from the industry have forwarded their experiences with these actors involved to us so the case is growing with the day.

Kind regards,

Dan

 

[Jurgen Wolf]

I also use both...
And results are very low on both.
The best sales I still do just with Bodis/ParkingCrew...

 

[bmugford]

C'mon now. Stop the madness! #TellTheTruth

Yeah. The stuff being said is just not believable.

We saw how "nice" he was when it came to Molly White and that Wikipedia thread.

Brad

 

[maksimfa]

And... this reminds me to move domains away from Dan...

Sorry, but you do not respond to complaints and criticism by bashing your competitor. (Especially over religious and family beliefs)

And the security breaches? I do not see ANY responses to those yet.

I am not a massive domainer and consider myself an investor and end user...however I do maintain a portfolio of around 100 names now and pretty much all are at Epik for the past few years.

Every interaction I have had with them has been great and most of all, I feel my information is secure. That is what matters most to me.

Privacy, security and reasonable prices.

 

[Jurgen Wolf]

The best times for Sedo are already in the past...
But their credibility is still the highest among others... at least in Europe.

 

[bookname]

@Rob Monster @DAN.COM

I am total neutral about this dispute and I see that you both messed up so bad.

First thing first, the biggest mistake from both of you is that you moved your dispute from private to public! you should discuss such disputes privately and work them out. There is nothing that cannot be solved by professional constructive discussion.

Dan should cooperate with competitors rather than acting defensively! Blocking of SAV.com domains and now blocking Epik staff IPs is disturbing! and is very alien to this industry, I have never seen any other company in the domains industry doing that. Also you must listen to criticism with open minds, and actually you should be thankful for community feedback and criticism because if you do listen and act according you will be stronger and more successful. This is the only way to compete in modern business, any business that does not adopt and does not change according to community feedback will eventually fail.

Epik on the hand acted very unprofessionally (the least thing that can be said about it), you do not promote your service by attacking your competitor directly with something like "Danger of Dan.com" that is absurd!! I also have never seen any company doing that!! You may indirectly criticize competitors BUT you should not name your competitor directly in a professional marketing email! and you should not bring a private dispute into a public marketing message. Focus more on your own business and stop distracting yourself with disputes, politics, conspiracy theories and other useless unfruitful stuff.

You should both apologize to each other, delete all public posts and shake hands.
I honestly wish that you work this out between you because we need both of you to succeed. You brought many bright innovations to this industry and I see that your success will be in the benefit of all of us.

Nice Speech from The secretary-general of the United Nations Domain

 

[tonyk2000]

As for the operations of DAN registrar, the key issue imho is the following - will they join Afternic fast transfer? If no, then this would be unusable registrar for a lot of domainers who sell with BINs.

However, should DAN decide to join afternic fast transfer network - this would be an ideal combination. Perfect landers serving own traffic - this is what needed and expected from DAN. External distribution at the same time is a must, Afternic can not be outperformed... Maybe also Sedo as the 2nd option, would be appreciated.

@LaszloSchenk @DAN.COM - what are your plans as to Afternic / Sedo integration?

 

[jmcc]

As for the moment yes. The biggest mistake GoDaddy is making and a lot of other bigger venues are making, and where DAN does very well is the European market, middle East, Africa maybe. That's where they gained traction. They're building from that which seems to be working.

The domain name marketplaces outside the US and Canada tend to be highly regionalised and focused on the local ccTLDs more so than gTLDs. Some of these operations, such as the ones in the UK are highly specialised and have their own registrars (tags). The only way into some of these markets is through acquiring some of the leading players.

If they become a public facing registrar, I have no doubt they will pursue to dethrone GoDaddy or get swallowed up by them in the process.

Godaddy is like an iceberg in that only the part above the water (the retail hosting and registration) is visible. It has acquired a lot of European hosters and hosting groups and is a serious player in the ccTLD market as a result of this.

Godaddy's expired domain name feeder system is one of the largest and it is difficult for other players to compete on the same level.

Regards...jmcc

 

[xynames]

@Soofi and I had something like that happen:

Update: Underdeveloped aka Dan deleted my account without notice, for raising concerns about their poor payment processing, of their platform and I lost all my (almost dead) leads or failed transactions data.

Glad I moved out of their useless underdeveloped platform earlier than that!!

Interesting. Other than posting the Truth about how my exact same domains have sold well at platforms like Afternic Sedo DomainAgents and not at all during the same time period, at UNdeveloped (DAN) I haven't been a particularly vocal critic of DAN's lately and yet is it possible that @DAN.COM , meaning REZA pulled the same childish stunt on me, closing my DAN account because I have posted criticism of his platform?
https://www.namepros.com/threads/tw...d-dan-marketplace.1141640/page-3#post-7601758
I hope I am wrong, because any company owner who would pull your account Soofi simply because you criticized his business is not worthy of running any company with a public presence.

I mean let's just close bank accounts and processing accounts anytime a client files a complaint with the Better Business Bureau or posts something negative about us online; what a mature way to run a business. Real way to ensure longevity of your business.

I am not jumping to conclusions yet but it would seem that the end of 2019 was "Reza flies off the handle month" for DAN as Reza closed the DAN accounts of anyone who criticized him. And again, if I am wrong, and there was some legitimate reason for DAN to have closed your account Soofi, I would love to hear it from Reza.

What is really interesting is that the last communication I received from DAN was one CONFIRMING that yet another bogus buyer (apparently a recurring issue at DAN according to @JudgeMind ) had bid on a domain (not that I ever got too many bids, legitimate OR bogus while at DAN, and NO closed sales whatsoever at DAN even though my same domains continue to sell like gangbusters elsewhere), and then when I got around to trying to respond to DAN about this issue, I noticed that I could not login and that my email address no longer existed as a DAN account.

I really don't want to think that the public presence for an online company would act in this manner, and would welcome the opportunity to re-post here that I was mistaken.

although my account was reinstated at DAN and remains up.

I haven't looked into whether my listings are being IP "blocked" at DAN as Epik alleges, but then I haven't had much to say about DAN one way or another in some time so maybe I am no longer on that DAN "hit list" assuming there is such a list.

 

[Soofi]

It seems everyone has issues with DAN and it’s rude owners/operators!! SMH

READ TO KNOW https://www.namepros.com/threads/domain-buyers-payment-issues-with-dan-com.1161584/

 

[Way3]

I've had my own wth moments w Dan when I first started out. Not saying it's all of them, how would I know, but some that I've dealt with are quite dismissive, and rude. Is that a way to run a business? No. Does that extend to the tactics pointed out here, not necessarily, but it does point to the real value of quality customer service, without it's easy to say "Hmmm...."

 

[bmugford]

It seems to me that the distribution of the email is greatly exaggerated in the DAN statement, and the degree of blocking is exaggerated in the Epik email posted above. Mistakes are made, but mistakes are sometimes how wars that benefit no one start.

If this was sent to (1) person for (1) million people it was still extremely unprofessional.

As usual though, everyone else can see mistakes were made. However, Epik will not admit that and double down on it.

Brad

 

[Rob Monster]

I will tell you a true story.

I just helped a guy in Louisiana close a sale for a .VC domain. The buyer is in Orange County. The seller is dealing with a hurricane tide surge. He told me it was the biggest sale he had ever gotten. Timely cash.

I have no idea whether domains parked elsewhere missed out on sales but we are selling .VC domains in 4 and 5 figures daily for the past week delivering solid ROI.

You folks that want to stir the pot are free do so,my staff will focus on helping clients close deals. Hopefully many of them will use their windfalls to empower something good. #PayItForward

 

[boker]

Yep. Domain names have always been an entry point for the registrars to upsell the customer to hosting or other services.

Regards...jmcc

I think that if @DAN.COM will build a registrar on minimum prices, a few cents on top of fees, to cover expenses, they could hit the jackpot, with a prelisting agreement that they will handle everything in a fraction of the time. It could be like an afternic fast transfer with much better customer service for buyers and no headache for sellers, with payouts in a few hours( they can handle the push, they have the auth codes) and 25% of afternic fees.

 

[frank-germany]

They've said earlier on they will be offering domains at cost. For a registrar their size that would be a gamechanger. And yes, domain delivery within minutes. Can't wait.

personally, I'm very glad Epik and DAN didn't merge

and actually I think we all can be

DAN Epik peace or not
that doesn't bother me

but I do think DAN should not ban SAV domains

 

[jmcc]

If I'm not mistaken they are already operating as a registrar.

Haven't seen it appear in the ICANN accredited registrars list yet.

https://www.icann.org/registrar-reports/accreditation-qualified-list.html

Many hosting companies outsource their gTLD registrations to registration as a service players like Tucows. A lot of resellers cause confusion by referring to themselves as being "registrars".

Regards...jmcc

 

[branding]

I don’t think this would be the case here. They would need to be the “real” registrar to be able to perform all the magic they promised.

It’s seems they’re currently using their own registrar internally to hold the domains under payment plans as I’ve mentioned above.

Easies way to know for sure:

@DAN.COM are you already an (albeit non public facing) ICANN accredited registrar?

 

[Lox]

Positioning Aftermarket of the Domain industry as a “behind the scenes” do not serve the economy of money making communities.

That > “behind the scenes” is not attracting influencers, journalists, media houses nor prospects or businesses etc. Only a mayor controversy ($35mln voice.com didn't help much, contrary - lots of people enjoy being scared by $35mln sale but if it scares Indiana Jones, ...?)

Without the professional promotion by the mass media agency/ies and influencers attracting media coverage nothing will change > outside (domainers window).

The vast majority of the postings / blogging seems more like a bunch of linear vs vertical echoes to me.

They (marketplaces, registrars, registries) seek only to promote their brands, goose. They should develop a self-promotion tool > dn sellers-movement' (ethical) to create healthy impact. SEO is not enough!

Regards

 

[Soofi]

They went a little soft on you but be very careful about voicing out your opinion/feedback about their service in near future bud

@Soofi and I had something like that happen:


although my account was reinstated at DAN and remains up.

I haven't looked into whether my listings are being IP "blocked" at DAN as Epik alleges, but then I haven't had much to say about DAN one way or another in some time so maybe I am no longer on that DAN "hit list" assuming there is such a list.