It's abuse and theft, plain and simple. Replace "domain" with literally any physical object. You can't just take someone else's shit, no matter how high-and-mighty you think you are (excepting governments, of course).
Oh, if anyone wants to argue that it’s “in the TOS” that sounds like a contract no normal person would sign and likely not enforceable (IANAL) if pushed. No “sane” person would say, “yeah, if you think I’m doing something wrong, just sell all my shit!”
It’s sickening. They are committing a massive crime here and getting away with it. It’s time somebody alerts the media and blow the whistle on Cloudflares abusive actions.
I wonder how many customers domains Cloudflare stole/deleted who’s owner didn’t have the luxury of knowing the Hacker News publicity trick?
Indeed, this might likely fall into criminal behavior and not civil (though they’d be liable for civil damages as well). Someone should let a few jurisdictions that have cloud flare customers and theft is illegal know about this.