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General discussion

GoDaddy - Prince of Thieves?

Mar 20, 2007 12:51PM PDT

This is a Public Service Announcement...

BadDaddy!

I just did a search for 3 URL's in a row at GoDaddy.com. None of them related to the other, and none of them common names. One of them, for testing purposes, was a search for the availability of 'qwerqwerqwer.com'. Within the hour, 'qwerqwerqwer.com' was suddenly unavailable - the same fate for the other 2 URL's attempted. I understand that "tasting" is common, where these places hijack a URL for a couple days, test the popularity of it, then release it, or try to sell it for much more than they pay for it - but the fact that GoDaddy's searches resulted in purchased URL's so quickly, leads me to believe something more shady is afoot here.

Some believe that GoDaddy sells their search results. Others (more defenseive of GoDaddy), claims that these people can somehow access the search logs. Either way, this doesn't strike confidence in me for their level of security.

Test for yourself. I dare you to make up some random URL (the more jibberish the better), and see how long it stays Available. Then tell your friends, so they don't get scammed by GoDaddy's shady practices.

Here's my problem with it. You do a search. You hesitate for a bit for Any reason, then decide to purchase it. Now, instead of paying the $8 you could have paid right there, you now have to pay $18 to backorder it (wait a year, potentially), and still never be guaranteed you'll get it. Or... you pay them over $60 for someone to try to buy it from them, pay commission on top of that, and Still never be guaranteed you'll get it. And there are several suckers desparate enough to pay it too.

My opinion? This shouldn't be legal. The internet is too new still for good laws to govern it, and its pretty much anarchy when it comes to the web. But still - this is absurd.

The one thing I've found everyone to be in agreement on though - if you're going to search a URL - don't go to GoDaddy. Only go there if you have credit card in-hand and ready to buy right then. Everyone also seems to agree that GoDaddy is the worst offender.

I used to like them a lot. But this isn't good business. Maybe they should be called HoDaddy? hmm.

Discussion is locked

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GoDaddy - Prince of Thieves?
Mar 26, 2007 8:51AM PDT

I have to take the time to confirm the same suspicions. About 6 months ago I visited GoDaddy for some domain name searching. I found that some I might want were available. The next day when I returned, and entered the same searches, lo and behold, they were now "unavailable". I knew from that result that a sham was being perpetuated, in which search entries were actually or fraudulently-reported-as not being available because that way they could try to sell the desired domain names for a lot more money. I'll never trust those morons for any services. How stupid do they think people are? ...like even an idiot couldn't see through such a tactic.

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Whois?
Mar 28, 2007 3:02AM PDT

On these tests, after you have checked back and the domains were not available, have you checked the whois data to see who the registrar is?

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Bad search algorithm?
Mar 28, 2007 3:14AM PDT

I just did a whois search for 'qwerqwerqwer.com' and it shows that it was registered on November 10, 2006, about 5 months prior to your search.

I am not saying that GoDaddy isn't snapping up domains that you search, but this one looks like it has been owned for a while. Is it possible that they have a bad search algorithm that shows domains available when they aren't? Of course, in this isolated case, you could have made a typo between the two days.

I will run some test of my own and see what the results are.

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Go GoDaddy
Mar 28, 2007 6:49AM PDT

Ok. As for qwerqwerqwer.com, I checked it again, and saw the creation date - which really makes me wonder how it came up as "available" the first time I checked it. That one in particular proved to be a bad example, but that makes the fact no less true that the URL's I wanted were not available within hours after checking the availability on GoDaddy. It seems as though these 'tasters' use -some- discretion when choosing.

To answer the question about checking the whois - yes, I did that. They were all different registrations, different companies, but ultimately performing the same task - tasting.

Update: I ended up getting the URL's I wanted, but I had to wait for 5 days - when the tasters realized they weren't going to make money on the URL alone. Even then, when I did purchase it - half of the domain lookup places I went to said they were taken still, and some said they were available. When I ultimately bought the URL's I wanted, GoDaddy in particular said they were still "Unavailable" - yet I purchased them elsewhere without difficulty.

heh. So very reliable.

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Same here...
Mar 29, 2007 5:49AM PDT

I searched GoDaddy for ropl.org back in January '06 on a Friday for my library, Royal Oak Public Library. It was available. On Monday, when I wanted to purchase it, it said that it was not available.

I looked up the WhoIS and it was some "company" in "Peurto Rico". I contacted this pseodo-company directly saying "woe is me... we are a public library... can you donate it to us?" Their response was that we can buy it for $1200US. I replied by saying that I have my City Attorney drafting a suit to sue them. I didn't get a response but, ropl.org was available an hour later. I quickly bought it and am using proudly.