Daily Poll: Does Verisign’s Blog Post Concern You?

On Friday, a blog post I would describe as inflammatory was published on the Verisign corporate blog. One line was particularly bothersome to me, especially given that Verisign has advertised here on DomainInvesting.com and Verisign has sponsored domain investor conferences like NamesCon and today’s NameSummit conference in New York. Here’s what was written:

“Flipping domain names or warehousing them to create scarcity adds nothing to the industry and merely allows those engaged in this questionable practice to enrich themselves at the expense of consumers and businesses.”

Andrew Allemann wrote about Verisign’s blog post, as did Rick Schwartz. There is a thread on NamePros, and a whole lot of comments on Twitter. Domain investors are reacting strongly to it.

I don’t really know what to think. I’ve always thought Verisign was supportive of domain investors. The employees I have met, both via email and in person, have always been helpful and friendly. After reading the blog post, it feels like Verisign is positioning itself to become an adversary to domain investors. I don’t really understand why.

It seems that people are angered and disappointed by the tone and content of the blog post, and I want to know if investors are concerned by it:


Elliot Silver
Elliot Silver
About The Author: Elliot Silver is an Internet entrepreneur and publisher of DomainInvesting.com. Elliot is also the founder and President of Top Notch Domains, LLC, a company that has closed eight figures in deals. Please read the DomainInvesting.com Terms of Use page for additional information about the publisher, website comment policy, disclosures, and conflicts of interest. Reach out to Elliot: Twitter | Facebook | LinkedIn

10 COMMENTS

  1. What V/Sign actually mean is that they don’t have an effective secondary market or drop-catch service, and so despite significant growth, their lack of those strings mean billions of $ per year relating to .com domains end uo in other pockets.

  2. Verisign acts like they created the .Com domain extension and own it, but they did not create .Com nor do they own it.
    Verisign just won the contract to administer .Com domains and they should be grateful they are still able to do so!

  3. Why doesn’t Verisign simply acquire Turn Commerce and share in the profits that they frown upon so much? Verisign shareholders like us would love to participate in the true market value upside made available through an acquisition like Turn Commerce. It’s not like Verisign doesn’t have the financial wherewithall to buy Turn many times over!

  4. “I’ve always thought Verisign was supportive of domain investors. ”

    Really?? Non of these guys are unless it directly creates revenue for them. Verisign’s Sitefinder from years ago showed us that they will say and do whatever is best for their bottom line. Domainers are currently in the way of their monopoly pricing ambitions because nobody else is watching.

Leave a Reply

Recent Posts

Spaceship Doubles its DUM

1
At the end of July, I wrote about Spaceship surpassing 100,000 domain names under management (DUM). The registrar continues to grow, and its Founder...

You Can Now Hide Estimated Value at Dan

1
Last week, Dan.com announced and deployed a feature I did not like. On the user control panel, Dan showed GoDaddy's Estimated Value for each...

Media.com Buyer Comments on Acquisition

1
This afternoon, Axios reported the sale of the Media.com domain name. Kismet Group, an Australian private equity company, acquired the domain name to launch...

“We love to share success!”

1
If I see two friends or colleagues that could benefit from meeting over a shared interest or converging path, I am always on the...

It Pays to Know Random Phrases

3
My eyes bulge out of my head sometimes when I see a somewhat obscure term in a domain name coming up for auction. Oftentimes,...