Taking screenshots of your registrar account to prove domain ownership - LOL

[B Klug]

Afternic and Godaddy: I'm looking at you, kid.

Context: So, it's time to add your most recent 10 domains to the usual platforms. You go on Afternic and paste in the list ... and inevitably 1 or 2 of the names will have been previously listed on the platform by another user.

There is no automatic process to fix this, so you contact their support.

Every time .. they ask for a SCREENSHOT of your own registrar account. So I go into namesilo, search the name, take a screenshot and send it to them. How stupid is this???

The same thing just happened with GoDaddy. Domains already listed by previous owner(s) of the names ... so I contact support and again they ask for freakin screenshots.

This can be fakes SO easy ... just right click on the domain name in your account, click "Inspect", edit the HTML and now take a screenshot.

So in the most recent response to GoDaddy I included "proof" that I also own godaddy.com LOL.

The most annoying thing is BOTH THESE PLATFORMS USE TXT RECORDS to verify domains. Every single one of my domains automatically gets the TXT record added when I add it to my portfolio (one for afternic, godaddy, flippa, etc).

So not only are they using a MANUAL, INSECURE method ... they could be using a totally secure and AUTOMATED method to handle these removal requests! I mean the TXT record was their idea in the first place ... they should use it for this ...

 

[7363824]

I bet you are right. Why did you turn privacy off?

Because I got tired of sending in screenshots. I just used a Google voice number on Do Not Disturb to block spam calls.

 

[Joe Styler]

That's the thing, there is no one size fits all solution. We specifically do not use txt record verification on Afternic because many people on NamePros asked us not to. Even people on the thread brought it up here that it isn't easy to do everywhere. We do have txt record verification available on GoDaddy auctions and were ready to roll out the same process to Afternic but didn't based on lots of customer feedback. The main issue is that some registrars that domain investors use do not make it easy to manage DNS in bulk at the txt record level. There are a lot of investors who acquire many names a week and doing this DNS update one by one is difficult or impossible for them depending on the amount of names they buy. A lot of registrars do allow you to update in bulk but enough do not. Also some parking companies need your name servers pointed to them and do not allow you to update the txt records when the DNS is pointed away from your registrar. There are caveats of course but I am speaking broadly. The point is looking at this issue as a whole and trying to allow for investors to do all the things they want to do at all the companies they want to use to do it, there isn't a silver bullet or one size fits all approach.

The way to resolve this correctly requires a multi tiered approach. We have given this a lot of thought over the past year. We figure that by doing 5 or 6 different things in concert we can make the process work much better and we have scoped out plans to implement 2-3 of those this year. We hope to step up the automatic removal of old listings proactively. We do remove them now, but we think that we can improve this by scanning the registry drop lists where domains are in a penddelete status. This means without an act of God or a court decision this name IS dropping and the current owner no longer holds the domain. We can delete these listings daily and that way if you do a drop catch or new reg the name should already be de-listed from AN by the time you get it. We also are planning on adding some kind of txt record verification as a supplemental but not mandatory option. So you submit 25 domains and there are issues with 2 or 3. You can go manually make a txt record on those 2-3 and it will override the current listing removing it and adding you as the owner automatically, no need to write in. This would be in addition to our normal checks. We have been discussing name server updates for verification as well. Similar to DAN but again in a multi-tiered fashion. So that you are able to verify multiple ways and hopefully allowing you to have an easy option within your current registrar or parking company.

There are other things we have planned for the future to make it easier to list your domains on Afternic. They probably didn't answer your concern about the fake screenshot because we don't really see that many people trying to trick us about listings. We have multiple fraud checks already in place to prevent bad listings and sales, ways to unwind sales if the worst case were to happen, etc. The fact that we permanently ban you from using our platforms if you try to lie to us is enough of a deterrent in many cases for people not to try and trick us. Weighing that against not buying names on the GoDaddy auction or using our various platforms to sell your domains greatly reduces people's motivation to try and deceive us.

 

[capybara]

We specifically do not use txt record verification on Afternic because many people on NamePros asked us not to.

You could let people asking not to have it not to have it and at the same let people who want it to take the advantage of it.

Just make it optional.

Then people who have troubles adding TXT records could continue to do as always, and the rest could add TXT records and save tons of their own time and your staff time by having domains automatically confirmed & removed from previous owners accounts.

 

[Joe Styler]

You could let people asking not to have it not to have it and at the same let people who want it to take the advantage of it.

Just make it optional.

Then people who have troubles adding TXT records could continue to do as always, and the rest could add TXT records and save tons of their own time and your staff time by having domains automatically confirmed & removed from previous owners accounts.

Did you read in my response that is a part of the plan? I know my answer was long

 

[capybara]

Did you read in my response that is a part of the plan? I know my answer was long

I guess I have too much emotions attached to this event – confirming domains at Afternic, so I went on responding before reading further

 

[B Klug]

Thanks Joe, it's nice to hear plans are being made to resolve the issue.

 

[Joe Styler]

We did discuss the risks of fake screenshots prior to implementing them as well. I think the example you sent in is funny and thanks for giving us a heads up about it. Even if I did already know about this being a possibility there are a lot of times that I don't see something or we don't think of it and I appreciate the NamePros community pointing things out to us and giving us feedback on how to improve, so thank you for the feedback and the laugh.