Another Scandal in Domainville: My Thoughts on Scandals and Controversy

Well I told myself I wasn’t going to jump in today but I just can’t help myself. I usually stay-away from covering scandals and controversy but after reading some comments on TheDomains I thought I’d say my piece. Michael did a great and informative story about the Moniker snafu that took place this week. In his comments I noticed a few people pointing the finger at Oversee and questioning the company. Since I’ve been silent up until this point I thought it was time to share my view on all this controversy and scandal rocking the Domaining world.

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To make my point I’d like to use an example, a company we all might soon forget – Enron. This company befell what might be considered the largest accounting scandal ever and started a chain reaction. At the time I remember thinking how terrible it was that Enron had done this, all behind the backs of their employees and shareholders – it was corrupt from the top!

However…and this is a BIG however, Enron wasn’t the only company with funky accounting practices. A lot of companies still cook the books and some get caught others don’t. My point is that Enron wasn’t the only one doing it, but they were the biggest and they got caught. It was not a single Enron employee who destroyed the company but the executive leadership themselves.

Now let’s fast-forward to the present day. Oversee has now had two controversial events take place first with Nelson Brady and now with an individual Moniker employee. In both cases Oversee has come-out and been completely open and honest with the community and in the case of Nelson Brady, paid a small fortune to right the wrong. Plus do we all really think that Oversee is the only company that has ever had issues with auction fraud? Couldn’t this be happening all over the place and only one person has taken the fall so far?

The same is true for this recent event at Moniker. There are tons of registrars out there and I don’t think Moniker is the only one this has happened to. The different here between Enron and Oversee which is so important to point-out is where the scandal and controversy begins. At Enron it was the leaders of the company who were corrupt and screwing-over the employees. At Oversee I think they have an all-star cast in their leadership starting with Jeff at the very top. I trust Jeff and the leadership team and don’t think that either of these events should reflect negatively on them at all – this is the nature of running a big company.

One of the hardest things about running a business is finding good employees. Heck I’ve only run my business for three years and I’ve already hired and fired over a dozen people to get the team I have now. When hiring people you are left with just that – people. You might find the brightest hard-working person in the world, but you don’t know how that person will respond to every situation or when that person will do something out of character. This is the risk all of us take when hiring employees and trusting them with our company and clients.

I have never once thought of doing anything that could potentially harm my clients and I never will. However if I have 100 people ten years from now and one of them steals money from a client what can I do as a good leader? As the face of the company I would come right out and tell the world what happened, be completely open and honest, and then charge forward with my business. This is exactly what Oversee has done in each of these cases – they have taken the high road.

So when it comes to scandal and controversy I try to look for the real scandal, the real controversy and I’ll tell you this – it’s not Oversee. No, the real scandal surrounds a company you haven’t heard of, or maybe one you have but just isn’t in the news that much. When these companies discover issues they might keep it a secret, you’ll never know, the leadership may be involved in covering it up…that’s a problem. When a company has an employee who breaks the rules that is life, it happens, it is how the company deals with it that matters.

I want to applaud Oversee in their swift and communicative approach to this issue, I would do the same if it was my company and I hope all of you would too!

Morgan Linton

Morgan Linton