The Jiohotstar domain drama that took over social media later last month has a new episode, with YouTubers Jivika and Jainam Jain offering up the domain for no cost to the Ambani-owned conglomerate Reliance.
In October, a techie who allegedly domain-squatted on ‘jiohotstar.com’ in the hopes of funding studies through its sale became all the rage on Reddit. Later that month, the domain changed hands and was taken over by Dubai-based siblings Jivika and Jainam Jain.
When THE WEEK reached out to the Jain siblings, they responded, “We bought it from him (the unnamed app developer). The deal happened via namecheap.com,” verifying the purchase through the ICANN-accredited domain registrar Namecheap Inc.
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However, on Sunday, the siblings released a video on YouTube stating that despite getting many offers, they never intended to sell the domain. They also added that they were ready to hand over the domain free of cost to Reliance, which recently was in the news for the Hotstar brand acquisition from Disney. “If Reliance doesn’t want it, that’s fine too. We’ll continue sharing our updates..” said the siblings in the video posted yesterday.
So far, no one from Reliance has contacted them. “If Reliance is interested, they can contact us… and we will handle the transfer smoothly,” read the siblings’ statement on the website hosted at the disputed ‘jiohotstar.com’ domain.
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“Over the last few weeks, there has been a lot of talk and even some videos about why we own the domain and if it connects to a possible business deal between Jio and Hotstar. We want to clear up any confusion: we never expected this attention and never meant to cause any controversy. Our only goal was to support the developer and share our seva (service) journey,” said the Jain siblings.
“With all the discussions happening, we now think it might be best for Team Reliance to have this domain, if they want it. We are happy to give jiohotstar.com to them for free, with all the proper paperwork. To be clear, this is entirely our choice. No one from Reliance or any legal group has contacted us or pressured us in any way. We made this decision on our own, without any pressure from friends, family, or anyone else,” reiterated the children.
