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XYZ weighs into Epik controversy with .monster fundraising domain

Kevin Murphy, March 21, 2019, 20:47:23 (UTC), Domain Registries

New gTLD registry XYZ.com has set up a domain to help raise money for victims of the terrorist attack in Christchurch, New Zealand last week.
The domain is give.monster. It redirects to a page on Givealittle.co.nz, a Kiwi crowdfunding site, that has so far raised almost NZD 7.8 million ($5.3 million) for the victims of the attack, which killed 50 and injured many more last Friday.
Given the amount of coverage in the New Zealand press, it appears that the fundraising page is legit.
The domain is obviously a reference to Epik.com CEO Rob Monster, who has come in for criticism this week for hosting and sharing the terrorist’s video of the attack, and then suggesting it might be a hoax, as I blogged earlier today.
XYZ is able to create this domain because it is the registry for .monster, a gTLD it acquired last year that is currently slap-bang in the middle of its early access launch period.
Whois records show that the domain was created a little over an hour ago and belongs to XYZ.com LLC.
I learned about it through this comment on DI:

We are sorry to see this in our industry… Please visit http://www.Give.Monster and donate to support victims of the horrific Christchurch shootings. Thank you for your support.

XYZ.com is the registry for .xyz, .college, .rent and other gTLDs. .monster previously belonged to recruitment web site Monster.com.


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Comments (3)

  1. Very bad taste to piggyback aboard a massacre / scandal in order to publicize .MONSTER domains.
    I have publicly criticized Rob Monster for mentioning Epik in connection with the NZ shooting. So I’m not being hypocritical if I also criticize the .XYZ registry for doing likewise.
    The .XYZ registry doesn’t have the “excuse” of believing in a conspiracy theory and trying to combat censorship, as Rob did. On their part, this was a calculated decision to cash in.

  2. John says:

    Yes, this action by .XYZ is absolutely disgusting. I’ve been disgusted by .XYZ since the beginning.
    Censorship vs. free speech is one of the most important causes in the world and always has been.
    Reasonable, honest and intelligent people can honestly investigate and start with doubt about the nature of this shocking video. These days it would even be foolish not to start from a standpoint of at least being open to skepticism and skeptical inquiry no matter how extreme it may seem. In case anyone is not aware for instance, and doubtless many are not, anyone can even find and see for themselves examples of where even one or more of most famous mainstream media purveyors in the world have occasionally been caught literally staging false news events, lying and reporting lies. Especially the great CNN in fact. In a comedy of irony, for example, even the NYT itself only just recently called out CNN for lying about Venezuela no less. So however doubtful it may seem, doubts about this latest event are not necessarily just the baseless “conspiracy theory” some would like to call it, and there is ample reason to at least consider the possibility of such doubts, however unlikely it may seem. And because I know that nothing is impossible these days when it comes to “news,” I personally wanted to be able to review the video myself and make my own determination. It was a very sad and sober thing to do, but I did just that while it was still available on DTube after it had already been removed from Bitchute.

  3. Rubens Kuhl says:

    I liked the XYZ initiative in this particular topic.

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