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The whole domain industry has been reeling under the Snap Names revelations over the last few weeks. Is this really such a bad thing?
 The life-cycle of almost every industry has resulted in the ejection of undesirables and bad practices as the industry begins to clean itself up. From my perspective the Snap Names saga is really where men of conscious have discovered a wrong an decided to make it right. In this case it was a tough call.
Just think about it. At some stage there was a board meeting where the CEO of Snap Names reported to the board of Oversee that he’s just discovered a Mount Everest sized skeleton sitting in the lounge room. Everyone must have looked at him and thought, “Exactly how big is Mount Everest?”
My guesstimate is that this issue at Snap Names is going to cause about a $10-15m cash hole that I’m sure the private equity investors would be none to happy about. So now the board has a decision to make. They could quietly fire the “halverez” pseudo-user and pretend the event didn’t really happen thereby saving the $10-15m or they could publicly confess their sins and put the whole company through both financial and personal pain.
I’ve heard some people complain about Craig Snyder (CEO of Snap) that he should’ve known about “halverez” due to his time at iReit. My view is that he probably did have suspicions about the situation and that’s one of the reasons why it’s come out into the open.
So let’s imagine that you’re now sitting as a fly on the wall and back int the Oversee board meeting. Coming out into the open is going to cost the company big time financially but there is an even greater unqualifiable cost that is likely to occur. It’s the account managers and staff at every level of the company that are about to go through hell and it’s a hell of not their doing.
 When people come under intense pressure and have to explain dreadful news time and time again they will often opt-out of the situation. It just wears them down. In the case of Snap and Oversee this was and still is a real risk where account managers just get sick of taking abusive phone calls, threats and corrosive emails. I imagine that many of them would think that they have better things to do in life and despite the economy there has to be a better job out there then one that receives abuse.
When I recently wrote a recent supportive blog towards Oversee I received a tiny portion of the abuse that the staff at Oversee/Snap must be facing on a daily basis. It's not a pleasant experience. A big problems for the industry and in particular Oversee is that tied up with all of these people in the firing line is a high level of knowledge about domaining and as an industry we should be concerned that there might very well be a “brain drain” due to the unprofessional conduct of a number of individuals. I believe that this potential brain drain could impact something that is very dear to me, the value of my domains.
So, for the value of your portfolio’s sake, I would recommend that we all swallow our anger and behave in a professional manner. If you happen to need to call up anyone at Oversee then somewhere in the conversation encourage them. It's not their fault that the SnapNames event occurred, give them a break. They're trying to help you out. As an industry, let’s get through this dark tunnel as fast as we equitably can!
For example, I just got off the phone to a guy at Oversee and let me say that he sounded exhausted. I could feel his tiredness from over 14,000 kms away. In the conversation I voiced my support for him and the staff at Oversee/Snap. I could almost feel the relief at the other end of the line.....not having to deal with a yelling customer was a good outcome. I also found that he was really helpful and I received what I was after hyper quick.It was a win-win overall.
So back to the boardroom. A tough call was made and you can always know it’s a tough one when in reality they probably could have got away with sweeping the mountain under the carpet and let time erode the issues. But they didn’t. The board made what I believe was the right decision on behalf of its customers (definitely not in short-term shareholder interest) to fess up and enter the swamp of innuendo, abuse and potential business suicide.
So now that the decision has been made and the organisation braced so what’s next? In many cases people that purchased domains at a price that they were prepared to pay will get a refund plus interest on the money. It’s like getting a bonus payment on buying a new plasma screen eighteen months after the event. I would imagine that most people never knew that it was coming and were pretty happy when it arrived. Sounds good to me.
If you are one of those people that enjoy court action television dramas that go on for years and years then I would recommend door number two and take part in a class action that results in lawyers getting rich and the plaintiffs wondering what the heck happened to all the money. I spoke to a lawyer that has been involved in a number of class action suits in the past and he said it’s a rare event that the plaintiff gets anything meaningful.
I personally like to be conducting business rather than law suits....but that’s just me speaking from a country that is not nearly as litigious as the USA. No offense to lawyers but I sometimes wonder if the US will one day be smothered to death by them. My recommendation is take the Oversee offer and let’s get back to business.
Despite my overall commendation of all things legal they are actually necessary at times and it’s nice to see that Oversee has altered the settlement agreement to be a bit more friendly. I’m also pleased that they’ve now publicly stated that they can’t unwind any auctions due to ownership issues.....if they could then it would cast doubt on the ownership of all of our domain assets....which is not a good thing.
Some people have suggested in some not too friendly emails that I've sold out to "the man" and sided with Oversee on this matter. Can I suggest that I've actually sided with the value of my portfolio and anything negative in the industry and in particular for a major player is not good for me....hence, I'll talk up anything that cleans up the industry and raises the bar with standards that will flow onto greater value for us all.
With this whole issue what I hope for is that the light at the end of the long Mount Everest tunnel isn’t another train coming the other way. In the meantime, contact SnapNames for a copy of the rebate offer document and make your own decision about what you would like to do.
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Not a word here about what ought best be done to assure the rest of us who are not speculators parking and flipping domains for profit that when we spend four years building our businesses and turn to the likes of your industry to secure our domain entities only to find out that the industry is rotten from the inside out?
And some how you think nothing has really happened man?
Do you realize all these people have been clipped, pick pocketed, ripped off?
Where is your sense of indignation?
What do you bemoan instead that little people of America should not avail themselves of a remedy not in the hands of your crowd?
Here Sir, The People Rule.
And while the corporate hucksters peddle their slight of hand legger demain and offer up rebates that call for a waiver for ones right to recovery as a trade?
Some of us here in the colonies waive no such rights, just as Mr Brady may be remined if and when he is Marandized
( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miranda_v._Arizona ) some day, as well as any who may be found to have aided and abeted the scheme, till then and beyond, some of us do seek a measure of justice, like wine sweetned with age.