On the topic of domain owners who've passed away, it's always weird seeing a recent read receipt on an old email to an owner who is dead. Just happened on one today.
Lately, people have been asking what happens to a domain name when the owner dies.
Given that Halloween is near, it’s time to let a few skeletons out of the closet.
Death comes with a lot of paperwork. Apparently, so does keeping your domain names.
When you die, your domain names don't just introduce themselves to your family. Somebody has to work out what you own, where it's registered, how to keep paying for it, and which device receives the two-factor code. This can become a fairly expensive scavenger hunt.
One family described exactly that after a webmaster died suddenly.
They got into his laptop, password manager and email, then hit a registrar account protected by a phone number his widow didn't recognize after fifty years of marriage.
The domains were nearing expiration, and the plan was to let them lapse and buy them back, (which is roughly like letting your house go into foreclosure because you want to take your chances at getting it back through an auction).
Then there are the domains valuable enough to end up in federal court. After Uzi Nissan died, Nissan.com was taken from his registrar account, and his estate sued to recover it.
A judge ordered it returned in 2024. AIR.com was the subject of another estate recovery order in 2025, directing Verisign and GoDaddy to return the name.
GoDaddy has a deceased-account recovery process, complete with legal documents, a death certificate and photo ID. Turns out "over my dead body" isn't much of a domain security policy.
Read Full Story 👇
snagged.com/post/what-happen…
Snagged retweeted
I remember when we started Ro with a simple idea: making care less fragmented and more affordable.
Robin feels like a massive step in that direction. Kudos to the team. 🚀
Lately, people have been asking what happens to a domain name when the owner dies.
Given that Halloween is near, it’s time to let a few skeletons out of the closet.
Death comes with a lot of paperwork. Apparently, so does keeping your domain names.
When you die, your domain names don't just introduce themselves to your family. Somebody has to work out what you own, where it's registered, how to keep paying for it, and which device receives the two-factor code. This can become a fairly expensive scavenger hunt.
One family described exactly that after a webmaster died suddenly.
They got into his laptop, password manager and email, then hit a registrar account protected by a phone number his widow didn't recognize after fifty years of marriage.
The domains were nearing expiration, and the plan was to let them lapse and buy them back, (which is roughly like letting your house go into foreclosure because you want to take your chances at getting it back through an auction).
Then there are the domains valuable enough to end up in federal court. After Uzi Nissan died, Nissan.com was taken from his registrar account, and his estate sued to recover it.
A judge ordered it returned in 2024. AIR.com was the subject of another estate recovery order in 2025, directing Verisign and GoDaddy to return the name.
GoDaddy has a deceased-account recovery process, complete with legal documents, a death certificate and photo ID. Turns out "over my dead body" isn't much of a domain security policy.
Read Full Story 👇
snagged.com/post/what-happen…
If you're looking for heart-pumping domain auction porn, look no further than this piece on our role in snagging Abortion·org. 😀
19thnews.org/2026/10/abortio…
Huge!! Congrats to our friends at @lumis_com on the milestone.
From $0 to $100 Million. In 2026 ALONE.
Deal by deal.
And we got here at the start of October... so this one is HUGE for us!
Really proud of the team, the clients, and everyone else who made this possible. Without you, we would not be standing here today. And the year’s not over.
Onward!
#Lumis
Mike O'Connor helped popularize the internet in Minnesota, and in the mid-90s he registered a handful of one-word .coms.
One he tucked away and never built on: corp.com.
While it sat there, @Microsoft shipped Windows 2000 with "Corp" as the example name for an internal network, and thousands of IT departments kept the default.
Those laptops spent years knocking on corp.com's door, sending passwords and emails to whoever held the domain.
When @briankrebs wrote about it in 2020, Mike decided to sell, mostly because he didn't want his kids inheriting a domain that passively collected Fortune 500 credentials.
Microsoft agreed to buy it, and corp.com now sits in their portfolio…doing nothing.
After 26 years of leaking secrets by default, corp.com is finally taking a long, overdue time-out.
Read Full Story 👇
snagged.com/post/corp-com-th…
Free $100K, equity-free for your start-up just for building on a .tech domain? Pretty sweet!
This is both cool for founders and a smart play from @dottechdomains. No better way to nudge folks to your TLD than by helping them succeed and fund their companies.
OPPORTUNITY‼️: $100K for your startup. No equity, no SAFE, no board seat.
@dottechdomains just launched a $1M No Excuses Fund for builders from day zero to pre-Series A.
What you get:
- grants of $10K, $50K or $100K
- any stage can get $100K
- no deck, working builds only
- bootstrapped / seed-funded teams
- cloud, AI and dev tool credits
- mentorship and support
Who can apply:
- 18 or older, in eligible locations
- working build, day 0 to pre-Series A
- work you own outright
The catch: your product has to run live on a .tech domain. Redirect doesn't count.
Submissions close Dec 15 👉
noexcuses.get.tech/
A startup's first domain often comes with a small caveat attached every time it’s brought up in conversation...
The name has an extra word, the extension isn't the one you'd expect, or the address describes the company before they pivoted.
Eventually “those” explanations start appearing more regularly, like a relative who wasn't invited to your house, but brought a suitcase “just in case,” for an extra long stay.
Here are five domain upgrades we like – all for different reasons.
@NotionHQ kept its name and moved from the TLD notion.so to notion.com.
@RocketOTD gave home search, financing and servicing a shared front door at Rocket.com.
@loom retired the "Use" in UseLoom.com
@owner moved from ProfitBoss.com to a name that points to its customers
@cryptocom went from Monaco at Mona.co to the name of the entire category
Loom's deal is one worth highlighting.
According to cofounder Shahed Khan (@shahedkhan), the company paid $75,000 for their Loom.com domain, and $75,000 to ANOTHER STARTUP (who was competing for the domain) to walk away from the deal.
Dig deeper into the upgrades ⬇️
snagged.com/post/top-5-domai…
Testing a new fulfillment vendor for our swag store. Giving away three (3) free Snagged Bobbleheads to get some reps.
swag.snagged.com/products/sn…
Use code BOBBLE2 at checkout (just pay shipping). Enjoy, nerds!
wow!
SpaceXSi.com sold for $174,000 USD via Spaceship to @elonmusk 👀
Ghost.ai
🥰
Ghost announced Monday its official emergence from stealth and an $11 million seed round led by Andreessen Horowitz.
spr.ly/6011BGLWTB
Snagged retweeted
Thanks for the love @jordihays @johncoogan always fun working with you guys!
