Lawsuit Alleges GoDaddy “Stole” Domain Name Two Months After Purchase

TEMPE, AZ – A lawsuit filed by Sweden-based Crisby Studio AB alleges that the biggest Internet registrar in the world, GoDaddy, “wrongfully took possession of” a domain name, two months after it had been successfully purchased by the company earlier this year.

Crisby Studio  AB, a Swedish limited liability company, and Niklas Thorin, a Swedish resident  Plaintiffs,  v.  GoDaddy, Inc., a Delaware corporation, GoDaddy.com, LLC, a Delaware corporation, and 123-Reg Limited, a UK company.

A motion picture, video and television production firm located in the city of Stockholm, Crisby Studio AB paid $11,427.17 for the domain “calor.com” – calor meaning “heat” and/or “hot” in Spanish – after winning an expired domain auction in April, and developed a web page as well as at least one email address and began using them right away.

In May, Crisby Studio AB then entered into an agreement to develop the calor.com domain for another company, beginning a joint venture partnership with them after establishing that they fully owned the domain in question.

At this time GoDaddy reached out to Crisby, the lawsuit alleges, inquiring about the status of the domain and asking if it was available; the Swedish company noted that they replied in the negative, saying that they already had a deal in-place to develop and launch its site in early 2025 and that only a “high six-figure amount” would change their minds.

However, on June 4, GoDaddy sent an email stating that calor.com had been auctioned off by “unexpected error”, the registrar would be reclaiming the domain and refunding the winning auction bid, in addition to throwing in an additional $350 in GoDaddy credit for the company’s trouble.

The production firm filed a U.S. District Court lawsuit in Arizona, where GoDaddy is headquartered. This week, the judge overseeing the case put a freeze on calor.com, decreeing that the domain can not expire or be sold until the case is resolved.

“According to DNW.com,” Domain ‘claw backs’ occur from time to time, although, the vast majority of them take place almost immediately, and are done so before the buyer has taken possession of the domain in question; taking one back two full months after it had already been transferred to its new owner is extremely unusual.

In my opinion, whoever wrote up this lawsuit had an excellent understanding of the domain name registry agreement, ICANN’s role and whatever else is offered by registries being outside of that agreement.

Claims against GoDaddy:

Plaintiff is seeking damages in an amount to be proven at trial, but that exceeds $1,500,000 as well as additional punitive damages.

John Colascione

About The Author: John Colascione is Chief Executive Officer of SEARCHEN NETWORKS®. He specializes in Website Monetization, is a Google AdWords Certified Professional, authored a how-to book called ”Mastering Your Website‘, and is a key player in several online businesses.