Brent Oxley’s domain names are now unlocked at GoDaddy. Paul Nicks posted the following at Namepros:

All, I’d like to provide the community with another update on the recent situation. I appreciate all the opinions and engagement from the community.

As we reviewed our policies and procedures, our goal was to do what’s right for our domain investors and to protect the industry from domain theft. Your domain names need to be accessible and sellable, we get it. To be clear, this isn’t just about Brent’s issue, it’s about the long-term health of the aftermarket. The aftermarket has changed in the last 20 years, and our long-standing policy needed to address these changes.

Frankly, we needed to evolve with the times. After many discussions with outside experts, lawyers, and trade groups, we believe we have found the right balance. The new solution allows domain investing businesses to proceed while having robust anti-theft measures.

Moving forward, when we are notified of a legal dispute between two parties, we will not lock domains by default as we had previously done. We will review each notification and reserve the right to impose a 30-day interim hold, in part to help protect against improper domain flight, until a court order is obtained by the complainant. If a court order has not been received within 30 days of implementing a hold, then we will remove the hold.

While we can’t guarantee we can stop all abuse of our system, we will use best efforts and multiple layers of review to root out potential bad actors.

As this rolls out, please let me know if you hear of any issue the new policy is raising. We’ll continue to listen to your feedback and review our policies to ensure they do what’s right for the domain investor community, while still maintaining antitheft practices.

Brad Mugford had the best reply that summed things up:

Thanks Paul. I am glad to see common sense prevail.

It is the right decision as you can’t have domains locked indefinitely just based on a business dispute lawsuit, especially in a court with questionable jurisdiction over the registrant, without service of process, and without a court order.

This move will not prevent Puneet’s lawsuit going forward. If Puneet’s claims have merit, he can fight them in court. Then he can get a judgement, then he can have a US court sign off on enforcement of that judgement. There is a process that needs to be followed.

I am glad GoDaddy acknowledged there was an issue here and is working on fixing it moving forward.

Create.com has already been moved to Namecheap. Some have said this was too little too late they are never coming back. Others were happy to see GoDaddy change their policy and will give them another chance.

How do you view GoDaddy now after the update?