When Accelerator.com went to expiry auction at GoDaddy Auctions, the Whois registrant was (and still is as of publication) listed as “Afternic, LLC – On Behalf of Domain Owner“. If you look up just about any GoDaddy-registered domain name currently in auction at GoDaddy Auctions, it likely has the “Afternic, LLC – On Behalf of Domain Owner” registrant information. At any given time, there are thousands of domain names with this registrant information.

I have been asked many times who this actually is, and I have come to understand that this is essentially a holding account for domain names that are pending completion of a sale. A GoDaddy-registered domain name that expired and is no longer able to be renewed will be moved to this account once it is past the renewal time and before the auction transaction is completed.

When someone previously asked about this registrant, GoDaddy’s Joe Styler answered on NamePros:

I learned there was a round of layoffs this week involving GoDaddy’s Domains, Registrars, and Investors (DRI) Group. This is the team that interacts with domain investors and partner domain registrars. I do not know the scope of the layoff, nor do I know if employees who work directly with domain investors were impacted by this layoff.

I reached out to GoDaddy to seek information about the layoff. The company seemingly confirmed that jobs were lost but did not share much additional information. I was given the following statement by a company representative: