GoDaddy has been buying up companies for years. Some of the acquisitions happened fairly quietly and without fanfare, while others have been fairly seismic in their impact on a particular market segment. When they bought NeuStar, for example, they went from having no registry services to having a big chunk of that pie.
In the domain name aftermarket space GoDaddy has been a heavy hitter for a long time. However they were not the only show in town. Today, however, they’ve announced a move that removes a significant player from the market. If we were talking chess the acquisition would be akin to taking a rook or a bishop – for they were definitely a lot more than any pawn.
Dan.com started life as “undeveloped” and over the past few years has grown to be one of the more popular domain name marketplaces that was not owned by GoDaddy or Sedo. It has been one of the few tools that domain name investors all seemed to speak positively of and they were adding new features on a fairly regular basis.
Post-acquisition Dan.com’s team will become part of GoDaddy.
I suspect that GoDaddy will let them continue to operate as they are now – at least for now.
Here’s the official announcement from Dan.com and a longer piece by Andrew over on DNW.
Mergers and acquisitions are normal and as the internet matures we were going to see more of them over time, however that doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t be a little concerned when a small number of companies end up with such a large slice of the pie. Competition is healthy. Everyone benefits.
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