Gab.com on the Move: Domain Transfers to Epik

The Gab.com domain name is on the move again. The domain name transferred to Epik earlier today after being registered at Uniregistry for a very brief period of time. This comes on the heels of GoDaddy’s ultimatum that the domain name be transferred away from GoDaddy or face suspension.

Andrew Allemann reported that Gab.com is registered to Escrow.com’s holding account after selling on Flippa for $220,000 in September. Andrew speculated that this could mean the domain name was purchased using some sort of payment plan. Escrow.com does not comment about private transactions though, so the ownership information as it relates to the Gab.com domain name is a bit unclear.

There is quite a long thread on NamePros about Gab and the issues involving the Gab.com domain name. In a series of posts within the thread, Epik CEO Rob Monster seemingly invited Gab to transfer Gab.com to Epik and offered his thoughts on the topic.

I reached out to Rob to ask him why and he did this and whether he got in touch with Andrew Torba, the founder of Gab. “I worked with Escrow.com, Uniregistry and Gab.com management to get this done in a mutually cooperative way,” Rob told me. “We will work to keep them online, and I believe Andrew will rise to the occasion as a responsible steward,” he continued. Rob also told me he published a blog post with additional insight about why he sought out the registration of the Gab.com domain name.

It will be interesting to see what happens when (or if) the social network goes back online. Whatever happens, one thing is pretty clear – domain name escrow is usually pretty clean and simple, but when it isn’t, it can get messy.