It’s been an interesting couple of days, to say the least, since I published the terms of the Green.com domain name transaction on Saturday. The response suggests that some people in the domain name industry are finally beginning to think more seriously about attribution in the modern era, and about the need to properly recognize those who do the underlying work required to uncover original information. That is a welcome development, but it is only a beginning. There is still much more to do, including correcting past failures of attribution.
I have publicly criticized Elliot Silver and his sites, among others, in the past on X/Twitter, as was noted in the Grok analysis of “parasitic journalism” at the bottom of Saturday’s post. To Mr. Silver’s credit, he did retweet my latest article. However, that does not go nearly far enough.
He then proceeded to do something that could have been done long ago. Recall that I have effectively been “on strike” since 2022 (4 years ago!), withholding many of my research findings, with only a few exceptions. After Saturday’s post, Mr. Silver finally went looking himself — and found one.
He reported on the sale of MC.com, citing an August 2025 financial statement. This is quite revealing, but not in the way Mr. Silver perhaps intended. This transaction was actually known to me on May 10, 2025 (more than a year ago!), as it was documented in a quarterly filing of that week. Page 28 of that filing stated “The third quarter ended March 28, 2025 includes other income of $2.7 million, related to the sale of the mc.com domain name.”
I keep a record of all those deals, and mail them to myself, for record keeping. Below is a screenshot (my Gmail account redacted) of how I recorded it that day, followed by an update today noting it was finally discovered by others.
Indeed, if you search for “mc.com” on EDGAR, ignoring the false positives, that was the very first week it was disclosed.
I would see it repeatedly being disclosed on EDGAR, including on May 5, 2026, i.e last week! See page 29 of the May 5, 2026 filing to find it. So, why did others finally find it today, more than a year after I found it?
The answer is uncomfortable but straightforward: too many people who publish in this industry have not been doing the work. The timing of this discovery is not coincidental. My post on Saturday evidently embarrassed some of them into making a temporary effort to demonstrate that they, too, could uncover original transaction data.
By contrast, I put in the work methodically, systematically, and diligently and have been doing it for a very long time. Below are some scans from a notebook I keep, recording when I last checked EDGAR in detail.
In practical terms, this means checking nearly every weekend and spending substantial time reviewing filings in order to avoid missing important transactions. It also helps reduce overlapping searches, since few results are reported on weekends. The work involves going through large numbers of false positives to find the occasional high-value transaction — the needle in the haystack — which is then often copied, summarized, or repackaged by others.
This is not yet easily automated. AI tools still miss many of these transactions. Nor is this a recent practice on my part. The notes shown above are merely the front and back of one sheet (I have discarded prior sheets once they were full).
It is also worth examining what Mr. Silver did not do. Grok specifically called out the Embrace.com lack of attribution, as per the screenshot below made at the time of this blog post.
The page relegates major original discoveries to “other reports.” That is not adequate. Many of the largest domain name transactions are known only because of my research and reporting. Referring vaguely to “other reports” when the original source is known is intellectually dishonest and ethically deficient.
The appropriate response would be to correct the historical record: each domain transaction report should identify and link to the original reporter and original post wherever known. That standard should apply not only to Mr. Silver’s sites, but to every outlet that reports on domain name transactions. It should have been standard practice from the beginning.
Instead, rather than undertaking the harder task of fixing years of inadequate attribution, Mr. Silver appears to have tried to seize a moment of credit by reporting a transaction that had been sitting in public filings for more than a year. That choice is revealing.
What it reveals is not diligence. It reveals that MC.com could and should have been reported long ago if industry publishers had been doing systematic research. It also reinforces the broader point: much of what passes for domain name journalism has relied too heavily on repackaging the work of others, while failing to properly credit the people who actually found the information.
There are numerous other high-value domain name transactions that remain unreported. Perhaps others will eventually put in the work to find them. Alternatively, if the industry adopted fair attribution practices, I might be more inclined to disclose the many transactions I have already found and withheld.
Publishing those transactions would benefit the domain name industry. Known sales data is valuable. It improves valuation methods, strengthens market transparency, and helps serious participants make better decisions.
But as the conversations over the past few days have shown, too many people in this industry remain focused on short-term traffic, personal credit, and fast-follow articles rather than long-term credibility, proper attribution, and the development of a more serious market infrastructure.
That is the problem. And it remains unresolved.
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