GoDaddy
Domain investor Rizwan “Riz” passed last week and the domain community shared our collective sadness for his untimely loss.
The domain investor is remembered for his kindness to others and willingness to share his knowledge achieved through personal success.
Domain registrar GoDaddy, where Rizwan kept his domains at, is working diligently to recover domain name assets that belonged to Riz, to ensure that his family—his wife and his brother—will be in control.
Joe Styler, Aftermarket Product Manager for GoDaddy, talked about these efforts:
We are doing what we can at GoDaddy […] Anything we know is Riz’s domains we are not selling and are doing what we can to help […] To be fair we are trying to do what we can, but we are scrambling and trying to put it all together. There may be accounts he has using another name, email, a business name, etc or domains coming in from another company that we don’t see ownership on. We are not and would not sell any domains of his on purpose.
Joe spoke about the necessity to make plans about one’s domain names in advance:
I know this is not the right spot to go into this but it is really important to have a plan for all of us when we die to take care of our domain assets. Somewhere listing all our accounts and passwords for our heirs and someone who knows how to manage domains. Almost all of us have domains at multiple companies, with sometimes even several accounts at each company and it can get messy how we acquire domains and where they wind up.
It’s unfortunate that many times in the past, domain names that expire are auctioned off once their registrant passes without leaving any necessary instructions in place.
