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

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

#501

Post by 1vuio0pswjnm7 » Thu, Sep 17, 2020, 11:49 PM UTC

This is why ICANN is a joke.

They proclaim themselves sui generis authority in charge of domain names, domain registries and domain name regsitrars on the internet (there is not and never was any legal basis for such "authority"), they turn domain names into a "business", they make up arbitrary rules that line their own pockets (initial gTLD application will cost $185,000), they allow registrars to do things like front-running, etc., etc.

Why things do not change: When a user gets screwed by front-running, the user calls for a boycott of GoDaddy instead of questioning the entire ICANN-administered system itself. The protection of ICANN's racket relies on security through obscurity.

Front-running is a very old practice amongst ICANN-approved domain name registrars.

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

#502

Post by mratzloff » Thu, Sep 17, 2020, 11:50 PM UTC

danellis wrote: post #330

jessaustin wrote: post #324

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If ".name" works the typical TLD way, you don't own anything. You merely have a business relationship with the owner of "ellis.name". That owner could transfer "ellis.name", but you don't own anything transferable. Of course, ".name" might not work in the expected way, but it seems a likely explanation for the issue you report.

The owner of yyy.name is the .name registry. That's just how they work. The intention was that people register first.last.name, and that multiple people could register under the same last.name.

Early on (nearly 20 years ago) it was possible to register a yyy.name by itself. For example, I own the domain for my last name.

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

#503

Post by timmit » Thu, Sep 17, 2020, 11:50 PM UTC

That is terrible.

I did get a very similar situation,

I searched one domain, and about a month later, when I searched again, it is registered.

I did not check how long the domain age was, but I felt so disappointed that time.

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

#504

Post by timmit » Thu, Sep 17, 2020, 11:51 PM UTC

ted0 wrote: post #226

Ted from Namecheap here. I cannot speak to GoDaddy's practices. However, I can say that for Namecheap, this is not something we would ever even consider doing. In my experience though, lookups are more complex than most think. We are querying so many different sources to give you availability status, some of which are less reliable than others. For example, with smaller TLDs like .ai or .is, lookups may be less relia…

I did transfer my names from GD to NC last month :) :) :)

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

#505

Post by abrichr » Fri, Sep 18, 2020, 12:02 AM UTC

Marc_Bryan wrote: post #64

They are a bigtime scammers. Recently was assisting a friend to get access to a domain name which was registered in godaddy. They scammed him for a couple of hundred dollars for contacting the domain owner to get a deal on the domain and eventually nothing happened. Not even a mail was sent on behalf the scammed money as we found that the domain was owned by another friend and eventually got it transferred. He confir…

> To make it more clear, if you need a domain which is registered in godaddy and has privacy protection enabled, please do not pay money to godaddy to broker a deal on behalf of you with the existing domain owner.

Thanks for the heads up! Any recommendations for alternative methods for accomplishing this?

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

#506

Post by wmeredith » Fri, Sep 18, 2020, 12:02 AM UTC

cloudwizard wrote: post #184

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…

Whenever I talk to startups, I check their domain. If they are on GoDaddy, it means that they are technically incompetent.

> it means that they are technically incompetent

That's a mixed signal. I can really help my technically incompetent clients.

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

#507

Post by edoceo » Fri, Sep 18, 2020, 12:04 AM UTC

bredren wrote: post #499

edoceo wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is another option here. I'm technically competent but have one domain on GoDaddy for a startup I'm handling. See, the domain we wanted was after market, and the purchase deal was done through a service that requires GD as the registrar. So, after $12000 for the domain, we have to wait before we can transfer into our AWS.

If you can afford $12k for a domain hopefully you’re not worried about the registrar signaling to an investor.

I'm one of the investors too.

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

#508

Post by erikig » Fri, Sep 18, 2020, 12:07 AM UTC

tsycho wrote: post #461

If this is what GoDaddy is doing, let's get back at them. Everyone can search for a variety of domains that we are not actually interested in, and waste their money if they frontrun us.

This is perfectly devious and would only work if what the OP said is true. I love it.

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

#509

Post by tzs » Fri, Sep 18, 2020, 12:11 AM UTC

dgellow wrote: post #69

I faced this ~6 years ago. Someone hired me for a project, at some point he told me some domain names he had in mind, and we looked them up together on Gandi, GoDaddy and other registrars to see prices and what was available. The next day he called me in shock, asking me why I bought the domain and if I'm trying to steal his company, etc (nobody else knew the names). Of course I didn't buy anything, we checked the wh…

The way I check prices at multiple registrars is to check the price on admrgbldflkrjanjscknadsc. instead of ., where admrgbldflkrjanjscknadsc is just a bunch of random keyboard mashing.

I do not enter . into any registrar until I am actually attempting to buy it from that registrar.

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

#510

Post by filmgirlcw » Fri, Sep 18, 2020, 12:13 AM UTC

rconti wrote: post #442

filmgirlcw wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I use a combo of porkbun, Namecheap, Google domains (primarily all the .dev stuff from that landrush), hover (some legacy stuff) and Isnic (the Icelandic registrar for .is domains). I like Porkbun quite a bit but sometimes Namecheap is cheaper or it’s easier to just add to that account. I think I can proudly say I’ve never used GoDaddy as a registrar, but I’ve been with some bad ones over the last 20 years so I can’t…

I found it interesting that Ted mentions Namecheap searching .is. I have a .is domain through Isnic (actually just renewed yesterday), and I'm using 1984 for DNS because Isnic requires a domestic NS provider. But Ted's comment implies you can register .is through Namecheap. I wonder how/if they get around the Icelandic NS host problem.

I believe that requirement ended. I had to get a different DNS at one point for my .is (registered in 2009) and I still maintain that account with DNSMadeEasy out of laziness), but when I helped a friend register a .is and when I got some additional ones more recently, I didn’t have to do that anymore.

I believe Namecheap offloads some of the info for .is back to ISNIC. The only reason I don’t do it under Namecheap is that I’ve had the ISNIC account for 11 years and it’s easy enough to get my annual email reminding me to renew, but I was able to get my friend’s registered through her Namecheap account without issue at the end of last year.