GoDaddy gave a domain to a stranger without any documentation

Likely an inside job. I had a similar experience with AWS where my account was compromised despite the fact that I had all the proper security features enabled. It was later discovered internal contractors were responsible. But up to that point AWS blamed the issue on me with no proof. A call to the AG office in my state got the ball rolling and initiated an investigation that finally got a manager to take the case seriously.

Flagstream should still get lawyers involved

> They're more likely to have established processes that work for all sorts of cases.

In my experience the sentence is only correct this way: "They're more likely to have established processes for all sorts of cases"

They have lots of clients. They have big opportunities to streamline support (which is a cost center). ... do you see where it leads? Read the OP, if not!

It does sound snarky, maybe GoDaddy was the cheaper option at one point and they stuck with it. I get that.

I use some square space for a lot of stuff, but it's largely because Google Domains sold out and the price is "fine." Sure, I could use something else, but this works, the cost is correct, and - I can't stress this enough - it already freaking works. I also use a python as a service tool I point at frequently. Their customer service is great, so I doubt this would ever happen there? But yeah, I'm not manually configuring a server somewhere most of the time.

Is it the "best" possible tool for the job? Not really, but it works well enough for the stuff I use and my workflows are already rock solid to deploy code to prod, etc. Is it because it's impossible for me to spin up a VPS or I'm too stupid to figure out Hetzner? Probably. But no, I've done it before, I could do it again, but that would take me X hours that I'm not getting paid for to migrate for limited utility, possible customer interruptions, and stress. I might need to migrate in a year or so, but until then, I'm not going to bother.

I reckon that's a similar sort of thing that happened here and depending on what they're doing business-wise, Lee could be insanely competent IT person and was just unlucky because the hammer he reached out for with GoDaddy actually turned out to be a foot gun that took years to fire.

It happens, it's not ideal, but it happens - I'm just glad they got it figured out and I'm glad that these sorts of events percolate up in the hn zeitgeist, because I definitely know who I won't be turning to in the future. Like, I kind of already knew GoDaddy was trash? I used them something like 10 years ago to spool up a website for a friend of mine. The whole experience was garbage then and I said, "never again" - but also that was kind of at the beginning of me even learning about how this stuff works? But I could totally see a scenario where I get snared into a product ecosystem and the opportunity cost of switching out of it outweighs staying put until it blows up in my face.

What's good about MarkMonitor? All I see is Gartner-friendly buzzwords and AI generated "business people".