Tell HN: Never search for domains on Godaddy.com • Hacker News Board

Re: Tell HN: Never search for domains on Godaddy.com

#81

Post by mrec » Thu, Sep 17, 2020, 5:01 PM UTC

innocenat wrote: post #55

tomhoward wrote: post #24

This sucks and I feel for you. But the sad fact is that domain registrars have been doing this ever since domain names became big business in the 90s. As a PSA to everyone, you should only ever use whois in a terminal window to see if a domain is available. It's included with macOS, Windows (?), Linux or any other OS anyone's likely to use. [Edit: a reply says it's not included in Windows. It seems you can download i…

> It's included with macOS, Windows, Linux or any other OS anyone's likely to use. Is it? I don't think it is included on Windows --- it is available on sysinternal, sure, but not included. (Unless something has changed from when I stopped using Windows)

Not by default, definitely. Unless you count via WSL, but WSL isn't installed by default either.

Re: Tell HN: Never search for domains on Godaddy.com

#82

Post by _verandaguy » Thu, Sep 17, 2020, 5:03 PM UTC

scrollaway wrote: post #54

bhartzer wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But I don't see any proof that GoDaddy is the registrant of that domain, they're just the registrar. I don't see any evidence of front-running in this case. I see it more as coincidence if anything else.

They've been doing it for years, it's a pretty well known thing at this point which is long past the point of needing new evidence. PS: Use gandi.net, both for search and registration.

Seconding Gandi. I spent the past year transferring my domains over (as registrations lapsed with Route53, which is a Gandi frontend with fewer features).

Their interface is very clean, their business model is no-nonsense, and I dig the managed DNSSEC.

Re: Tell HN: Never search for domains on Godaddy.com

#83

Post by scrollaway » Thu, Sep 17, 2020, 5:04 PM UTC

owlninja wrote: post #60

scrollaway wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They've been doing it for years, it's a pretty well known thing at this point which is long past the point of needing new evidence. PS: Use gandi.net, both for search and registration.

Can you link some prior evidence? I can believe it but is there proof? Could some other data have led another party to registering OP's domain idea?

C'mon.. it's one google search away. https://gnso.icann.org/mailing-lists/archives/registrars/msg...

Lots of instances of it, I won't bother listing all of it here as I'm on a phone.

Re: Tell HN: Never search for domains on Godaddy.com

#84

Post by betteryet » Thu, Sep 17, 2020, 5:05 PM UTC

This just happened to me today with Epik, another old-timey registrar. Added a .com to their shopping cart yesterday, then went to pay for it this morning — no need, it's been registered during the night to someone in Japan. Not a super great domain either, just a brand extension for our company.

Feels like either they or some other party are looking at the stream of purchase intent to do this. Awful practice.

Re: Tell HN: Never search for domains on Godaddy.com

#85

Post by kkotak » Thu, Sep 17, 2020, 5:07 PM UTC

miroz wrote: post #18

It happened to me too, while I was trying to find the domain name for the new project. It was free and the next day it wasn't. But, what godaddy does with the domain they registered? Do they try to sell it to you for an exorbitant price? What's their deal?

That's what I'm thinking as well. You'd think that's counter to their business model to keep on buying domains.

Re: Tell HN: Never search for domains on Godaddy.com

#86

Post by josefresco » Thu, Sep 17, 2020, 5:07 PM UTC

Have any big name registrars committed publicly to refrain from "front running"?

Re: Tell HN: Never search for domains on Godaddy.com

#87

Post by pkphilip » Thu, Sep 17, 2020, 5:08 PM UTC

mdorazio wrote: post #33

I had this happen as well in the past when researching domain names for a new product. Pro Tip: Stay the hell away from GoDaddy for everything. I've had the unfortunate task of managing a server hosted with them and it's been consistently awful (ex. I literally cannot upgrade PHP because the VPS doesn't support it and there is no upgrade path without spinning up an entirely new VPS on a different, and of course more…

I have had serious issues with Godaddy as well. Absolutely horrible performance as well.

Re: Tell HN: Never search for domains on Godaddy.com

#88

Post by mark-r » Thu, Sep 17, 2020, 5:08 PM UTC

whatch wrote: post #71

mark-r wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have no choice, they bought out my hosting provider a year ago.

Why not to migrate to another one? There are plenty of them nowadays

Eventually I probably will, but I'm not looking forward to the effort. I'm paid up for now so there's no rush. Luckily my domain service is with a different company.

Re: Tell HN: Never search for domains on Godaddy.com

#89

Post by juandazapata » Thu, Sep 17, 2020, 5:08 PM UTC

Another data point here. Happened to me ~7 years ago. FWIW, I haven't had any issues with Ghandi.net.

Re: Tell HN: Never search for domains on Godaddy.com

#90

Post by thunfisch » Thu, Sep 17, 2020, 5:09 PM UTC

GoDaddy is the worst company, ever. I once registered a domain there and had to cancel it three times. Two times out of those, they silently reverted my cancelation and just kept renewing it against my will. I don't care if this was malicious, our just a system failure: They refused to acknowledge this and charged me anyways.

Never again.