Domain sharks? Not so fast.
GoDaddy CEO Blake Irving held a chat on Product Hunt Live this morning. A person asked him if domain resellers or “sharks” were a problem and what should be done about it. Here’s the exchange:
Q: Bharath B Lohray
Are domain resellers / sharks a serious problem? How do you think this should be dealt with?
A: Blake Irving— CEO, GoDaddy
Like stocks and real estate, domain names have quantifiable value. Anytime there is a situation of supply and demand, you’re going to have people investing. Since domain names are unique, there’s an opportunity. We fully support the investors who do it the right way. These are people who look for trends and register potentially good names. They then take the risk of renewing them year after year to potentially sell them.
What we don’t support is people who register trademarks, try to extort others or do things in an unethical way—and those folks are out there. Luckily, there are formal processes in place from ICANN (the domains governing body) to root out bad players. I’ve seen it work pretty well.
Other topics in the discussion include artificial intelligence, emoji domains, SOPA, equal pay and entrepreneurship.
Adam says
His answer makes sense as they are essentially one of the bigger “sharks”. The general perception is negative if anyone “investing” so they should naturally take this stance as a top investor in domains
Ron says
Well said considering they have a private for sale portfolio of close to 500k names.
Steve says
Hallelujah! Now if only some of the arbi “traitors” could understand that as well.
M. Menius says
Most investors have developed a thick skin against uneducated critics.The real estate analogy fits perfectly for domain investments. Anyone who doesn’t get that, doesn’t want to get it.
Joseph Peterson says
Glad to see the CEO of GoDaddy articulating an enlightened defense of domain investment. That’s the company’s honest position, but someone else in his place might still have feigned outrage at “domain sharks” in order to placate an uninformed audience.
At this point, GoDaddy is a clear ally. Not only do they count domainers and domain industry companies among their best long-term customers. GoDaddy has invested deeply in the domain aftermarket by purchasing large domain portfolios from private investors. And GoDaddy now owns the largest conference focused on domain investing, NamesCon. Virtually no one is more invested in domain investment than GoDaddy. And to have the world’s largest registrar onboard is great for PR.
Christopher Wilkinson says
Names and words other than TMs are in the public domain. ‘Investing’ in names effectively removes from the available pool of names that should be available for registration by genuine users, at the basic registration price. If there is a ‘rent’ arising from ‘good’ names, that should accrue to the effective user, not to ‘investors’ aka speculators.
Furthermore, such speculative activity exaggerates the level of real registrations, which makes it difficult to assess reliably what is the real user demand for gTLD names.
Thus I disagree with GoDaddy’s policy and self-justification in this respect.
CW
Ivan Rasskazov says
Hi CW,
I disagree because good names would be completely unavailable for endusers if the investors have not registered or purchased them earlier. Instead, domain investors preserve them for future development by making them available for sale, instead of allowing them to fall to first come/first serve registrant. Therefore, the internet reaches a higher level of utility on the indifference curve with domain investors.
Also, even if domain investors didn’t exist, if a buyer wants a certain domain they would still go to a site owner and buy them out. The market would form either way.
Regards,
IR
Joe Calzone says
And commerce dies,Its a blow to commerce. Its devastating to know Godaddy has the domain registered and they will do nothing for commerce, and a major psychological blow to the person looking to do business with that domain.
Joe Calzone says
ain Name: LEARNSPANISHINCOSTARICA.COM
Registrar: GODADDY.COM, LLC
Sponsoring Registrar IANA ID: 146
Whois Server: whois.godaddy.com
Referral URL: http://www.godaddy.com
Name Server: NS1.SEDOPARKING.COM
Name Server: NS2.SEDOPARKING.COM
Status: clientDeleteProhibited https://icann.org/epp#clientDeleteProhibited
Status: clientRenewProhibited https://icann.org/epp#clientRenewProhibited
Status: clientTransferProhibited https://icann.org/epp#clientTransferProhibited
Status: clientUpdateProhibited https://icann.org/epp#clientUpdateProhibited
Updated Date: 30-apr-2015
Creation Date: 31-dec-2003
Expiration Date: 31-dec-2017
============================
Creation Date: 31-dec-2003
Andrew Allemann says
GoDaddy doesn’t own this domain name.