Brent Oxley Donates $50,000 to the ICA

HostGator founder Brent Oxley has been in the domain industry headlines recently, especially on JamesNames.com.

On March 4, I wrote an article revealing that 25 of Oxley’s valuable domain names had been locked by GoDaddy as the result of a lawsuit filed by Puneet Agarwal in India in 2019 against Oxley and GoDaddy India.

The strong reaction to this news from the domain name industry prompted GoDaddy to review its domain locking policy. To get insight into domain investor needs, GoDaddy consulted with the Internet Commerce Association (ICA) during its review phase.

The Internet Commerce Association is a non-profit organization that advocates for the rights of domain owners, and domain name investors in particular.

GoDaddy’s internal review ended in the company changing its policy on locking domain names as a default upon notification of a legal dispute between two parties.

As a result of the policy change, Oxley’s domain names, including Piano.com, Flute.com, and Message.com, were unlocked.

I’ve learned that Oxley has now made a $50,000 donation to the Internet Commerce Association to further the ICA’s work on protecting the rights of domain name owners. The donation, according to Oxley, was given through his hosting company, Create.com, with the company now in the process of becoming an ICA member.

Oxley told me that the donation is “a thank you to the community for all their support.” Oxley also confirmed that although he has been largely silent since his domain names were unlocked, there has been “no NDA and no settlement,” referring to apparent speculation that Oxley had been silenced in some way.

Oxley’s $50,000 donation to the Internet Commerce Association will help the ICA to continue its fight to protect the rights of domain name owners and investors. To get an idea of just how valuable the ICA is to the domain name industry, you need only look at the ICA’s testimonials page.