Should Epik be banned from NamesCon as racism debate spills over into domain industry?

Should GoDaddy-owned domain conference NamesCon ban the controversial registrar Epik from its conferences, after a day in which the domaining fraternity descended into a race row?

The fight kicked off last night when Epik director and noted domain investor Braden Pollock announced he was quitting the board over ideological differences with CEO Rob Monster.

Since @robmonster and I don't share the same ideology it's time he and I part company. I don't agree with the direction of @EpikDotCom so I've decided to resign my Board seat, effective immediately.

— Braden Pollock (@BradenPollock) June 10, 2020

Pollock did not explain his exact reasons for quitting, but the assumption among domainers on Twitter and elsewhere, perhaps due to heightened race awareness during the ongoing Black Lives Matter protests, was that it was race-related.

Pollock’s wife is the civil rights attorney Lisa Bloom, who is currently representing victims of police violence during the BLM protests.

Monster is a conspiracy theorist and Bible-bashing Christian who has been accused over the years of racism, antisemitism, and worse.

Even if Monster is not a racist (and plenty of his associates, even his critics, believe he is not), Epik is certainly friendly to racist registrants.

It caused controversy in March last year by publicly offering to host gab.com, the Twitter clone most often used by right-wing refugees escaping Twitter’s ban hammer.

It also took the domain business of 8chan, a forum site frequented by racists, though it refused to actually host the site.

The registrar is also very popular with domainers, due to its low price and domainer-friendly services.

Before long, Pollock’s tweet had spawned a thread of domainers expressing support for either Pollock or Monster, as well as casually throwing accusations of racism at each other.

Pretty much the same thing was going on over on NamePros and Facebook.

Epik all but confirmed that race was at the center of the disagreement by tweeting out the names of a couple dozen employees, whom I can only assume are not white, with the hashtag #diversity.

Monster himself posted a short video in which he appeared to denounce racism.

The rising tide of polarity is a false construct. Current events are a learning laboratory for all of us. For those with #EyesToSee there is unity in compassion, empowerment and love. #Wisdom pic.twitter.com/SnUjqX61ch

— Rob Monster – CEO Epik.com (@robmonster) June 10, 2020

Later today, Epik posted a screenshot of a Facebook comment by NamesCon CEO Soeren von Varchmin, in which he suggested Epik had been banned from the conference, which the company has previously sponsored.

The tweet tagged both GoDaddy and the US Federal Trade Commission.

Who owns @NamesCon? Post winning Best Registrar 2020, @EpikDotCom is in accelerated growth due to the love for our customers, diversity, innovation & the truth of how we maintain business. These attacks are #anticompetitive and hateful, and far from accurate or deserved. pic.twitter.com/RtC0Ygj5HZ

— Epik.com (@EpikDotCom) June 10, 2020

While the von Varchmin comment is genuine, I’m told that he was speaking in a personal capacity and it’s not current GoDaddy policy to ban Epik.

But should it?

NamesCon publishes full agenda for debut Austin conference

NamesCon Global is coming up at the end of the month, and yesterday the organizers published the final agenda for the three-or-four day event, including a keynote by GoDaddy’s new CEO.
Aman Bhutani, who took over the top job in September, will speak after lunch on day two of the conference, Thursday January 30, with an as-yet-untitled presentation. I imagine he was an easy booking, given that NamesCon has been owned by GoDaddy for the last few years.
Elsewhere on the agenda, there are plenty of sessions that look sufficiently interesting — covering topics such as data-driven market analysis, DNS abuse, and emerging technologies — that I kinda wish I was attending this year.
I’d be particularly interested in learning more about DNS over HTTPS and blockchain, two emerging “threats” to regular DNS that have sessions devoted to them during the conference.
It’s the first time NamesCon Global has been held outside of Las Vegas since the event debuted in 2003. It’s happening at the Omni Hotel in Austin, Texas, instead.
There’s a fair bit of doubling or tripling up in terms of speakers — some are sitting on multiple panels or keynotes spread over the three days of presentations — but that’s par for the course at NamesCon if memory serves.
Thursday evening sees the now-traditional domain auction, organized by NamesCon and RightOfTheDot. There are some pretty cool names up for sale this year, including add.com, laptop.com, shirts.com and offices.com.
If the auctioneer is anything like the ones hired in Vegas in previous years, you might want to bring along some ear protectors.
Finally, in terms of socializing, male attendees worried that the Friday night networking event is a “Ladies Only” affair can rest assured that Saturday is a day-long literal sausage fest, a seven-hour piss-up at the Banger’s Sausage House and Beer Garden.
NamesCon runs from January 29 to February 1. Tickets on the door are $999, but booking in advance online knocks the price to $699. Previous attendees are currently being offered an additional 30% discount on pre-booking too. Check your email.

NamesCon names con speakers

With NamesCon’s swansong Las Vegas show just a few weeks away, its agenda and speaker list is well on the way to being finalized.
Organizers recently announced Bhavin Turakhia, Haseeb Tariq and Richard Lau as speakers.
Turakhia, founder of Radix and several registrars, is perhaps best-known for selling Media.net for $900 million and for being one of India’s richest entrepreneurs. His Monday keynote has the tagline “Insights and Inspiration”.
Tariq recently join Fox, but his bread-and-butter has been founding and selling tech startups and high-end domain names. He’s speaking on portfolio pricing strategies.
Overall, the agenda seems to be heavy on speakers from .GLOBAL and affiliated business intelligence service provider RegistryOffice, which are sponsoring the conference.
I won’t be attending, sadly, this year, but these other sessions caught my eye on the agenda:

• Akram Atallah is part of a panel discussion on data analysis on Tuesday. I believe it’s his first speaking engagement since leaving ICANN’s top brass to become Donuts CEO in mid-November. He’s outnumbered by the .GLOBAL/RegistryOffice posse, so if he has anything interesting to say it may be lost in the sales pitches. Turakhia is also on the panel.
• Andrew Allemann (Domain Name Wire), Elliot Noss (Tucows) and Zak Muscovitch (Internet Commerce Association) are spending an hour discussing the forthcoming .com price increases after lunch on Tuesday. With no Verisign rep on stage, I’m not sure how balanced the discussion will be, but all three men are engaging speakers and the session may be worth a look.
• Sessions on emerging technologies include a discussion of Domain Connect with speakers from GoDaddy, WP Engine and Microsoft, and a solo talk on the intersection of blockchain and DNS fromm MMX CEO Toby Hall.
• Allemann is also hosting a yet-to-be-announced panel of domainers who chose to invest in new gTLDs, entitled “What Were They Thinking?” which may be worth a look-see.

NamesCon runs from Sunday January 26 to Wednesday January 30. Standard ticket prices are $999 or $1,349 for the VIP treatment, though I believe discounts are still available for pre-orders.
It’s the conference’s final year at the cheap-and-cheerful Tropicana hotel in Las Vegas. The organization announced last year that NamesCon Global, its annual North American event, would be moving cities.
While many regular attendees seem to think somewhere warm would be preferable — Florida or California, perhaps — I’ve also heard whispers that a Canadian relocation has not been ruled out.
Canada. In January. Time to buy shares in manufacturers of tuques, perhaps?

Three-letter .net leads as NamesCon charity auction raises €4,150 for Kenyan school

A domain auction at NamesCon Europe raised €4,150 for charity today.
A total of 22 domains were sold, each of which had been donated by a conference attendee.
The top sale was bbe.net, which went for €650, followed by xvs.net, which fetched €500.
The three-letter jjh.org went for €150, which some said was a bargain.
Also selling were smartphone.global and caring.global for €450 and €400 respectively.
The auction was organized by Shaun Wilkinson, COO of domain broker Nidoma, who wants to raise a total of €6,500 during NamesCon for the Hope Children’s Centre, which is trying to finish building a secondary school in Kenya.
Anyone wishing to help the charity reach its target can donate online here.

Atallah encourages domainers to get involved in ICANN

ICANN Global Domains Division chief Akram Atallah today encouraged domain investors to participate more in the ICANN community.
“Domain investors’ voices need to be heard in ICANN,” he said during brief remarks opening NamesCon Europe here in Valencia this morning.
“Your voices are as important as everyone else’s and should be heard,” he said.
He noted to the largely European crowd here that ICANN has a public meeting coming up in Barcelona toward the end of the year.
The call came within the context of comments that focused almost exclusively on GDPR and Whois.
Atallah said that the absence of Whois would make it difficult to track down bad guys and harder for the average person to ensure that the information they get online comes from a reputable source.
“Not everything on the internet is true,” he said, to an faux-incredulous “WHAT?!?” from a member of the audience. “You need to know who is behind this information.”
He said that ICANN hopes to keep Whois as transparent as possible, and played up the fact that most community members are now in agreement that a tiered access system seems like the best way forward, which he called a “major shift from 12 months ago, when the community could not agree on anything”.
He added that now that the Article 29 Working Party has been replaced by the European Data Protection Board, it could help ICANN figure out how to proceed on GDPR compliance efforts.
“I think we’ll get more clarity,” he said.
Disclosure: I’m at NamesCon on my own dime, but with a complementary complemintary complimentary press pass.

Can’t get enough GDPR? Come to my NamesCon panel

NamesCon Europe is being held in Valencia, Spain, this week, the first time the NamesCon branding has been applied to the old Domaining Europe show.
Starting Thursday, it’s a two-day conference — or three if you count the social events planned for Saturday — with a varied agenda focused on domain investors.
The keynote will be given by Akram Atallah, president of ICANN’s Global Domains Division, on a so-far unspecified topic.
There will be about 20 sessions in total, organized in a single track and covering topics such as valuation, monetization, drop-catching, web development and legal issues facing domainers.
Expect speakers from the likes of Donuts, Sedo, the new gTLDs .club and .global, and a bunch of companies I’ve never heard of (a fact I hope to rectify).
Staff from NamesCon owner GoDaddy also have a decent presence among the speakers.
Domaining Europe was sold to NamesCon earlier this year and there’s going to be a short “handover ceremony” at the end of the show, followed by a performance by a band whose lineup feature the conference’s new CEO.
I’ll be hosting a panel comprising Blacknight CEO Michele Neylon and German lawyer Thomas Rickert on the General Data Protection Regulation on Thursday just before lunch.
If you no longer wish me to tell you this, please click here. But if, as a domainer, you feel there are important GDPR issues that should be discussed at the session, feel free to leave a comment below or shoot me an email.
As usual with shows like this, a big part of the value is in the networking, and there’s plenty of opportunities for socializing scheduled, including a “Disco Party!” slated to end at 5am.
NamesCon Europe tickets are still available, priced now at €786.50 ($922).
Disclosure: I’m paying my own way to the show but have a complimentary press pass.

NamesCon dumps the Trop, eyeing beaches for 2020

GoDaddy-owned annual domain industry conference NamesCon has decided to ditch Las Vegas after its 2019 event.
The show is now looking for ideas for a new location close to a beach, according to a post on its web site.
The January event next year will be held at the Tropicana hotel on the Vegas strip, for the sixth year running, but NamesCon said:

if you have any city/venue suggestions you’d like to throw in the hat for NamesCon Global 2020, send them our way! Here’s a hint to steer you in the right direction: we’re looking to be leaving Las Vegas, and we’d love to sink our feet into a sandy beach somewhere…

The current industry thinking is either Florida or California.
The change comes following feedback from attendees at this year’s show, who seem to think the Trop is a little pokey (it is) with crappy food options (also true, particularly if you’re a picky eater like me).
On the other hand, the hotel is also cheap as chips, so NamesCon is looking for somewhere new that is just as affordable for 2020 and beyond.
NamesCon is promising to “send ourselves off in style” at the 2019 show, which runs January 27 to 30.
As a matter of disclosure, I’ve agreed to moderate a panel at sister event NamesCon Europe in Spain next month. I’m not being compensated beyond a complementary media pass.

Get a free ticket to NamesCon here

NamesCon, the annual domain name industry conference, runs in Las Vegas at the end of the month, and DI has five free tickets to give away to readers.
The catch: only people who have never been to NamesCon before are eligible. It’s a strictly n00bs-only giveaway.
NamesCon starts January 28 and runs for three days at the Tropicana Hotel in Las Vegas.
Kicking off the show, in surely one of life’s “together at last” moments, Andrew Allemann of Domain Name Wire will sit down for a live interview with David Ellefson, founder of the metal band Megadeth. It’s probably going to be one of those “you had to be there” experiences.
There’s a strong focus on blockchain and cryptocurrency this year, given the interest many domainers are showing in this area as a new investment opportunity.
But the agenda is made up of the usual mix of industry experts discussing themes such as domain investment, web site development, branding, intellectual property and the like.
There’s even a Women In Domaining Dinner, where women can discuss whether it’s worth investing in .makeup and .horse domains, and a Christian Domainers’ Breakfast, where followers of Our Lord can eat bacon in peace and prevaricate on why greed is definitely not as bad as the Bible unambiguously states it is.
It’s usually a pretty good show with a good turn-out. The networking opportunities alone make it worth a trip.
To claim one of the five complimentary conference passes, simply leave a comment on this blog post stating clearly that you want one, and complete this sentence in 10,000 words or fewer:

I want to spend three nights away from my partner in Las Vegas because…

Use a functioning email address or I won’t be able to send you the ticket details.
The first five people to leave a qualifying comment get a ticket each.
It should go without saying that this ticket only gets you into the conference itself. How you get to Vegas and where you sleep when you get there is your problem.
Again, and I can’t stress this enough, if you’ve been to NamesCon before you’re not eligible for this competition. That’s NamesCon’s rule, not mine, so no arguing.
In the unlikely event that all five tickets have gone by the time you read this post, you may want to check out some of my co-conspirators at other domain community blogs, several of which I gather also have tickets to give away today.

NamesCon picks if you’re not a domainer

I’m not going to NamesCon this year. Scheduling conflicts, personal life, blah blah blah. You don’t need to know.
It’s a shame, as I’ve enjoyed the show in previous years and there’s usually plenty to be learned even if, like me, you’re not a domain investor.
So while I won’t be there, I thought I’d put together a list of sessions that I’d be likely to attend in my capacity as a non-domainer, if I were attending. Which I’m not.
Don’t get me wrong, I usually find the domainer-focused stuff interesting. It’s just less interesting to me because DI is not an investment tip sheet and I personally have no pony in the race.
In agenda order…
The Evolution of Domaining
This is Frank Schilling’s seemingly annual keynote, this year subtitled “A vision for the future of domaining and how we’re going to get there. The next wave of passive income generation for the savvy domainer.”
While it’s certainly got a domainer-leaning theme, the Uniregistry CEO’s speeches are often must-listen events. Schilling is usually a candid and amiable speaker.
Plus, he’s made a shedload of cash out of domains so many people hang on his every word. That’s why he’s been on the Domain Name Wire podcast 86 times.
It’s on at 10am on Monday.
Dominate the Drop: Best Practices for Successfully Acquiring Deleting Domains
Michael White from SnapNames and Jonathan Tenenbaum from Namejet promise to spill the beans about the crazy competitive drop-catching market.
I find this aspect of the industry fascinating, especially given the arms race going on between SnapNames/Namejet and its rivals at the moment.
Over half of all ICANN-accredited registrars are currently shell companies created to bulk up the dropnets of the two aforementioned companies, as well as TurnCommerce and Pheenix.
There’s clearly money in it, so I regret I’ll be missing this session.
It’s on at 11am on Monday.
Domain Monetization for Registries and Registrars
As somebody who writes a blog largely looking at the sell-side of the industry, this session title speaks to me.
It’s being held by Michael Gilmour, CEO of ParkLogic, a company I’m not particularly familiar with.
Even if it just turns out to be a sales pitch for ParkLogic, it might be interesting anyway, due to the promise to “unlock hidden value from data that is readily accessible to you”, which intrigues me as a data nerd.
It’s on at 11am on Monday too, so it clashes with the dropcatching session.
The Most Shocking UDRP Decisions of 2016
This one sounds like fun. There are few things more amusing in the domain industry than listening to domainers moan about crappy UDRP decisions.
In this session, three industry names who are no strangers to UDRP will compete to have a decision of their choice crowned the “most shocking” of the last year.
This is on at noon on Monday.
Investing in New TLDs – Making Money in the Short and Long Term
A panel of experts discuss how to make money out of new gTLDs. I think that is going to be a hard sell to a typically skeptical domainer crowd, so I’d be curious to hear what they have to say at 2pm on Monday.
NamesCon Domain Auction 2017
Live domain auctions are sometimes entertaining, but depending on the auctioneer you may need to bring ear-protectors. It’s on at 3pm.
Uniregistry After Hours Party
If you haven’t fested enough sausage yet, now’s your chance to top up, from 9pm until “late” (which in Vegas could mean midnight, 2am, 6am, or mid-February).
Christian Domainers Breakfast Buffet
I’m slightly flabbergasted that this is a thing. What is a Christian domainer, and how do they differ from non-Christian domainers?
A special prize goes to the first person to send me a photo of themselves at this event reading a hardback copy of “The God Delusion” whilst eating a free Christian pastry.
7am Tuesday.
Building a Business to Last Decades
Despite the dry title, this is Matt Muellenweg, founder of WordPress/Automattic, and I’m interested to hear what he has to say. Plus, it’s the only thing going on at 10am on Tuesday.
China Masterclass
Few things have influenced the domain name industry over the last couple of years than China. In this session, four guys who understand the market over there discuss the trends they’re seeing and expecting.
12pm Tuesday.
Will Branded TLDs Impact the Marketplace in 2017 and Beyond?
Events promising to spill the beans about how big companies plan to use the dot-brands are rarely very informative in my experience — speakers play their cards far too close to their chests — but I keep going to them anyway.
Let’s hope the Microsoft and MarkMonitor speakers have something new to add to the conversation at 2pm.
Dollars and Sense of .net
Verisign’s Pat Kane pitches .net, which has been stagnating since the launch of new gTLDs. 3pm.
DNS Industry SWOT Analysis, 2017 Edition
The “strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats” for the industry according to… ICANN?
Global Domains Division head and occasional CEO Akram Atallah is the only big ICANN name speaking at this year’s NamesCon, so it’s worth checking this session out for that reason alone.
It’s on at 9.30am on Wednesday.
A Look Ahead at New TLDs
Three registries and one registrar discuss the future of new gTLDs at 11am on Wednesday.
Bloggers Broadcast: Dispatches from NamesCon 2017
An opportunity to throw things at my competitors at 12pm on Wednesday.
The Pragmatic Rebel: a Fireside Chat with Elliot Noss
Noss is one of the most engaging speakers in the industry in my view, even if the subject matter of this session is not quite up my alley. 1pm Weds.
Privacy and Your Domains
This review of domain privacy developments is right up my alley, but it also clashes with the Noss interview.
Executive Roundtable: Industry Trends Forecast for 2017
A conference roundup from four registry/registrar bigwigs closes down the conference.

.com-dominated NamesCon auction already has one million-dollar bid

There’s still about week to go until this year’s NamesCon conference kicks off in Las Vegas, but the live auction that will close the first day of the show has already seen pre-bidding action.
One batch of domains has already received a high bid of $1,010,000, but does not appear to have yet met its reserve.
The batch is led by bar.com, but also includes bar.net, cafes.com, grill.com, place.com, pub.com and shelter.com.
Another five domains on the list, all .com names, have attracted bids in six figures, topped by the $800,000 bid for ol.com.
The list of names up for pre-bid on NameJet (100 of which will hit the live auction) is dominated by Verisign TLDs — .com, obviously, and to a lesser extent .net and .tv.
The biggest pre-bid for a 2012-round gTLD is the $1,010 currently offered for gold.club, roughly 110th on the list as ordered by current bid.
The most active new gTLD auction is currently shoes.xyz, which has 28 bidders but a top bid of just $330.
I’m not sure how much can be inferred from pre-bids, but it certainly seems that most of the money from domain investors is still being put into short, one or two-word .com domains.
The auction will begin at 1500 US Pacific Time next Monday, January 23.
The auction is being managed and promoted by Right Of The Dot and NameJet. Would-be buyers need a NameJet account to participate.
Names not sold during the live event will go to an extended auction until February 9. ROTD’s Monte Cahn said this is in order to give Chinese bidders time to bid after Chinese New Year (January 28 this year).