GoDaddy: No Coronavirus Domain Names on Its Aftermarket

Elliot Silver
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Yesterday afternoon, James Bladel, GoDaddy VP of Public Policy, published an article discussing what GoDaddy is doing to combat coronavirus-related fraud and abuse. The article comes in the wake of a letter that was sent to GoDaddy by the office of New York State’s Attorney General Letitia James concerning domain names being used for fraudulent schemes and scams. GoDaddy already publicly replied to the NYAG via Twitter.

Here’s what GoDaddy has been reportedly doing to combat fraud related to domain names registered or hosted at GoDaddy:

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Dan.com Prohibits Coronavirus Domain Names

Elliot Silver
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According to research from DomainTools, reported this morning by Domain Incite, “[M]ore than 68,000 coronavirus-related domain names have been registered so far in 2020.” I would imagine this is a mix of speculative registrations, corporate registrations (like Target buying coronavirus testing domain names), and people registering domain names to build informational websites. Quite a few domain names that were bought speculatively have been listed for sale via Dan.com and other marketplaces.

Dan.com is one of the largest independent domain name marketplaces with an inventory of more than 5 million domain names currently listed for sale. In a pair of tweets this morning, Dan.com announced that the platform will no longer allow sellers to sell coronavirus related domain names:

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Dan.com Marketplace Activity Update

Elliot Silver
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I’ve been trying to get a read on the recent performance of the domain name aftermarket. GoDaddy likely has the best view of the aftermarket, but the company does not share its sales data. Reviewing NameBio is helpful to get an idea of what domain names are selling and for how much, but many of the tracked sales are wholesale auctions, and that does not really provide a good look at the current state of the aftermarket.

To that end, I reached out to Reza Sardeha, founder and CEO of Dan.com, to see if he could share some insight about what his team has been seeing of late. Dan.com and most of the company’s employees are located in Europe, which is currently the hardest hit area of the coronavirus outbreak. Reza was kind enough to share some information about what Dan.com has been seeing and how the company has been operating:

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No Outbound For Me Right Now

Elliot Silver
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Targeted outbound marketing can be a good strategy for people to sell domain names. With economic uncertainty around the world and a great deal of attention being paid to family and the news, I have not really been doing outbound marketing to sell my domain names proactively. I do not anticipate doing any in the short term.

For many businesses, survival is the most important thing right now. Many businesses around the world are assessing their standing and doing what they can to batten down the hatches to weather this pandemic and economic downturn. This is probably more of a time for cash preservation than for spending money to buy domain names. Companies will still buy domain names, but it will likely be on an “as needed” basis.

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Don’t Do Coronavirus Domain Outbound Marketing

Elliot Silver
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Andrew Allemann wrote an article yesterday to speak out about taking advantage of the coronavirus outbreak in order to profit from it. I understand that in dire straights people might do things they would not ordinarily do to feed themselves and their family, but I echo what he said and would strongly urge people to not buy coronavirus related domain names, especially if they intend to do outbound marketing to sell them.

Case in point, PRWeek published an article that discussed one such outbound marketing effort made to try and sell coronavirus related domain names to Carnival Cruise Lines and its Chief Communications Officer, Chris Chiames. Not only was Mr. Chiames upset by this outbound marketing effort, he posted the exchange on LinkedIn for all to see. Here’s an excerpt from the PRWeek article:

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Handle.com Was Sold for $180,000

Elliot Silver
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This past Friday afternoon, TechCrunch tweeted a link to an article about a company called Handle, an invoicing startup company for the construction industry. According to the article, Handle “raised $4.5 million in known venture capital funding and $20 million in debt financing“:

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