Domain name appears to be on a payment plan at Escrow.com.
The valuable domain name Gab.com is in limbo. It is used for a ‘free speech’ social network and it seems that the Pittsburgh synagogue shooter was radicalized (in part) by using the service.
GoDaddy told the company to move its domain name elsewhere. A new Whois record shows that the owners transferred Gab.com to Uniregistry in the Cayman Islands. The Hot Potato is now in Frank Schilling’s hands.
But there’s something else notable on the Whois record for Gab.com. In order to transfer it, GoDaddy’s proxy service had to be removed. Note the address and email address in the public Whois:
That’s the address for Escrow.com and the email address used when a domain name is sold in a payment plan.
In other words, it looks like the $220,000 sale on Flippa wasn’t paid up front.
The domain is damaged now that it has been used for a controversial purpose. If Gab.com stops making payments on the domain (which is possible given that their payment processors and hosts have pulled the plug), it might be harder to sell the domain again.
Whenever you lease a domain or sell it on a payment plan, you need to set terms on how it can be used. While typical clauses prevent using it for spam or adult content, you might want to look further than that.
It could have been cash upfront with equity paid over time. Or you could be 100% correct that it was cash over time and that it should not have been tracked as a “sold” domain name yet.
Great point about including an agreement clause to protect the owner until domain transfer.
I feel bad for Gab.com
This Stasi NWO Globalnirder disgusts me
Caveat emptor, do something that controversial with an asset that you don’t own outright, asking for trouble.
What exactly did they do?
From my understanding, failed to enforce their own terms and conditions.
I have certainly not seen everything reported about this so I’m keeping an open mind, but so far all I have seen reported is that the insane anti-Semitic psychopath murderer made a single particular and by no means clear comment that people are essentially blaming Gab.com for, and the leader of Gab.com making a perfectly sensible common sense statement about it while gladly cooperating with authorities. I have also seen evidence that sites like Twitter, Youtube, and Facebook at best enforce their own rules in a highly selective, inconsistent and discriminatory manner, and at worst hardly enforce their own supposed rules in any consistent or non-hypocritical way at all – sometimes relating to some pretty shocking and potentially hate, violence and murder influencing and inducing content as well. But of course, no calls or efforts to dismantle them.
So how did Gab.com fail to enforce their own terms and conditions?
And while anyone is considering that, I recommend watching this video by a pretty famous “alternative media” guy and contemplating whether he is right:
“The Tech Purge Is Here And Truth Is The Target”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JhPv6sDUCoc
And if anyone is not aware of the extremely *vast* tsunami of censorship and suppression that has been taking place lately against both the so-called “left” and the “right” who deviate from acceptable “establishment” mainstream narrative, while anyone not aware of that has certainly been living under a rock it is nonetheless a good idea to look into it and get up to speed now.
You could look at that way Andrew and I wouldn;t fault you, rational response to the situation. Or you could look at it from the other side.
Gab.com is now more popular than before, no? I never heard of the site besides the sold report and now the national news has told the world about it.
Could the seller lose out if he wasn’t paid in full and they defaulted, sure but details we do not know like down payment etc muddy that argument.
Is the name ruined, I’d say no, it is more popular and the seller got something to this point. For all we know someone would step up and buy it for what they perceive as good.
Sometimes things are not so black and white, there are lessons to be learned here for sure for domain sellers but the old “there is no such thing as bad publicity” comes to mind.
There are a few people that might place more value on it after what has happened, but most mainstream buyers would shy away.
“Gab.com is now more popular than before, no? I never heard of the site besides the sold report and now the national news has told the world about it.”
Same here, I had never heard of it either.
If they can get back online and recover payment processing, their growth may be immense and far beyond what they might have achieved without this headache. Its also another case for cryptocurrencies as well.
But I’m betting the attacks on them will continue and only grow, likely eating into the added revenue they might obtain for growth.
This ends up in the Domain Community’s lap, is this Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt acceptable regarding Domain Registration? Does it really make sense to hold the domain responsible, versus addressing disagreements to the registrant?
GAB.COM also is large enough to break through the noise of today’s news cycle. I don’t think we actually know how often something like this is happening and how many domains are involved. But as the larger platforms fall, it only becomes easier to target more domain names as the frequency of the events cause disruption of even large platforms to go unnoticed by the media.
This all becomes the norm, not the exception.
I knew of Gab.com’s existence since shortly before this horrible event, because an independent media personality whose videos I sometimes view mentioned it. I probably would have looked at it eventually, but was in no hurry. I certainly hate the heinous murders of the person who did this horrific deed.
However…
Now that this has been done regarding the site I will most definitely visit Gab.com asap when they are back online, AND almost certainly create an account there. When I see how Twitter, YouTube, Facebook and the like gladly allow plenty of shocking, hate mongering and potentially violence and murder influencing content to remain firmly entrenched on their “platforms,” while selectively censoring and suppressing others, and obviously acting in bed with government for much of it, these types of actions are very effective in stimulating my interest in membership and finding out more.
P.S. And if you see anything suspicious on any such site, you can always contact local authorities or the FBI instead of wholesale censorship and suppression while the likes of Twitter, YouTube and Facebook get away with anything they want.
When GoDaddy suspends a domain for TOS violations, it assesses a penalty fee of the owner to get the domain reinstated and working (assuming the TOS violations have been resolved). While it’s possible that the domain was already in escrow before Gab.com’s run-in with everyone, it could also be that GoDaddy has put the domain into escrow as a result of its reinstatement fees.
This would mean that GoDaddy would expect not only to recoup its reinstatement fees, but also any other fees needed to make the domain in good standing with GoDaddy. These fees would need to be paid before GoDaddy would allow transfer of the domain to another registrar. Hooking the domain up with Escrow.com forces the user to pay GoDaddy via Escrow.com to reinstate and would also not allow transfer until that happened.
It could also be that GoDaddy is hedging its bets that the domain owner may forfeit the domain and having the domain already at Escrow.com would help GoDaddy when they want to put it back up for auction. There are several reasons which could exist why the domain is currently under Escrow.com’s purview. It could also be the issue that was suggested by the article.
I believe GoDaddy’s reinstatement fee used to be ~$250 but it could have gone up since I have dealt with this issue.
Looks like they are coming back online.
How is this Gab’s fault that this nutjob went out and shot some people. We need to start blaming the person who commits the crime in this country rather than everybody else. Od course the libtard Nazis are going to exploit this to the fullest extent now, Check this video out to see what they have in store for us on the internet. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RUctcAlzY6E