It's offical, spies at Estibot OR Godaddy when searching for names, be warned!

[icedude]

I have proof, one second, I am trying to find my order confirmation email. About a year ago, I suspected GoDaddy was spying, so I just started BO'ing BS names. For example, I BO'ed SSEX.org(Check Whois) at GoDaddy. And guess what? It was "hand registered" at GoDaddy while I had the BO on it. I changed the BO about 10-15 times with different BS names that I knew no one was going to BO and out of those 10-15 times, 5-10 were hand registered at GoDaddy,

 

[Theo]

I know what's going on, so bear with me.

Bob Parsons started the company, but then he sold his ownership share and he's sitting at home all bored, and his wife paints her nails and gives him shit all day about how she wants to go to dinner to Tsotsky's because it's karaoke night and free martinis. So Bob looks at some old photos, he has the earring on, his rifle that he shot the elephant in Africa, and the Semper Fi logo with the Marines photo, then takes another look at the wifey who keeps nagging him about how he should get ready for dinner or they will lose the best spot. Anyway, I think the idea is that Bob decides at that point to walk towards the light, in a blaze of glory, and calls the GoDaddy tech support asking for a final request before he takes down everyone with a special device (cut to a cute little Shitzu dog eating Iams) but before that, he starts having this vision - he becomes a tech support person, only 20 years old and he's back in the saddle again, offering support and registering domains for customers. Well, at that point he lights a spliff and Focus walks in with two glocks asking for answers about some domains that aren't kosher. Bob looks up, he's clearly in agony as he wants to do the right thing, so he passes the ganja to Focus who smiles, "it's all good, brother!" - THE END.

 

[Focus]

You are officially more stoned than I am Theo, I thought I was reading an article on DomainGang there for a minute! :laugh: :lol:

Seriously though you are bugging me out, when did you talk to Bob? He promised to keep that all on the down low :smilewinkgrin:

 

[Theo]

Nah, I don't partake in that splendid veggie, but just finished watching Seven Psychopaths again. It's probably the best movie ever. Peace

 

[Focus]

Me neither but I did smell it once and it made me feel funny!

The best movie ever is GUMMO everyone knows that dude! :yes:

 

[Gerry]

Nah, I don't partake in that splendid veggie, but just finished watching Seven Psychopaths again.

Man, that will absolutely be a classic and cult hit. I loved it from start to finish.

 

[Theo]

So, to be honest, I don't know what is going on. Maybe GoDaddy employees want to make a buck on the side?

 

[Focus]

That or there is spyware or malware on their servers? Always a potential to have some trojan that does not disrupt anything and captures search data, it would not surprise me with Godaddy as buggy as their systems are most of the time. :uhoh:

 

[asfas]

I have proof, one second, I am trying to find my order confirmation email. About a month ago, I suspected GoDaddy was spying, so I just started BO'ing BS names. For example, I BO'ed SSEX.org(Check Whois) at GoDaddy. And guess what? It was "hand registered" at GoDaddy while I had the BO on it. I changed the BO about 10-15 times with different BS names that I knew no one was going to BO and out of those 10-15 times, 5-10 were hand registered at GoDaddy,

This is strong evidence, almost a proof. May I ask if you have many domains at GD and whether your GD account was registered many years ago ? I guess they would not bother to spy on new accounts or those with less than some hundreds names....

 

[icedude]

Look man. This has happened one to many times to me, at least 20 times last year alone. I am not the type of person to say something without backing it up. So I found proof of one of the many BS names I Bo'ed just to catch GoDaddy spying. Grill.biz(Check whois) Hand regged at GoDaddy!

 

[urlurl]

just check and compile the new owners - see if there are any names in common

 

[icedude]

This is strong evidence, almost a proof. May I ask if you have many domains at GD and whether your GD account was registered many years ago ? I guess they would not bother to spy on new accounts or those with less than some hundreds names....

My main GD account is about 3-4 years old. I have more than 10K in sales at GD auction last year from hand regs, so I think I would be a good candidate to spy on. But, who knows, I highly doubt GoDaddy itself has the motivation or need to spy on domains, either a virus or a dirty GD employee(s).

 

[urlurl]

I guessing its a bot trolling the internet spitting out names people have recently searched for.

 

[Focus]

Don't underestimate the power of greed because it's like a terrible infectious virus and makes people do shit they normally would not do! (registrars included)

I mean just look at the new .bullshit domain extensions, pure greed and evil and no good will come of them. They might be the devil himself. :uhoh:

 

[NameYourself]

GD did have a sub-entity called Standard Tactics, LLC a few years ago which would warehouse expired names that received traffic (that made a + yearly revenue), which did not sell in the expired auctions. This became a bit controversial after some several thousand names or so began building up. If I remember correctly Parsons himself said that they were discontinuing that program. It does however show that in the past they have monitored the data on the domains registered to them to warehouse for themselves. Here's a link for further reading: http://domainnamewire.com/2008/12/03/standard-tactics-llc-how-godaddy-profits-from-expired-domains/

I have had instances where my godaddy backorders did get registered at GoDaddy but were not in my caught panel, nor did they go to auction as they should do when multiple people place the same backorder. I always figured it was something running a script to catch directly using their registrar connection.. is this possible at GoDaddy? I do know many registrars offer such feeds to do catching yourself.

I would doubt a company with the size and weight of GoDaddy would do this themselves.. it would just cause more damage than good and just doesn't make much sense. Most likely it is 1 or 2 people who have access (either legitimate employees with access or someone who has infiltrated their servers and is scraping the data). It's most likely this or something in their agreement that allows them feed recently searched for terms out in suggestion tools that go to various other registrars.

 

[Focus]

Well Bob isn't gonna like it when it's on the front page of all the domain blogs. Whatever it is, it's definitely shady as a palm tree. If it was not for the $1.99 coupons I wouldn't even bother with GD.

 

[asfas]

If it was not for the $1.99 coupons I wouldn't even bother with GD.

Ditto :smilewinkgrin:

 

[icedude]

Well Bob isn't gonna like it when it's on the front page of all the domain blogs. Whatever it is, it's definitely shady as a palm tree. If it was not for the $1.99 coupons I wouldn't even bother with GD.

Exactly! Name.com and Dynadot are so much better. GoDaddy are actually cutting back and the promo's, waiting for Name.com to run that transfer special again.... and bye bye GoDaddy....

 

[Focus]

Sometimes I actually register names for like $10 at other places just because it's so aggravating to try to register a name at Blowdaddy, I recently bulk reg'd over 500 domains at moniker (spread out over about a week) for this exact reason and because I could not play Godaddy games or risk losing names I had searched for and wanted to make sure I got without issue. Plus at Moniker I get privacy for $1 so that kinda makes it all equal out, not that their support has been very helpful lately but at least my names are safe there and I dont have names in my cart snagged by some sneaky inside spy. So yeah sometimes I pay extra for less headache and the lowest price is not always the best option. The vast majority of the time the damn coupon codes don't work anyways and it takes me 15 minutes to register one name, time is money and I can't sit there all day screwing around with lame Godaddy codes praying that one is going to finally work. I think it's a bit unfair actually what they are doing, because a lot of people don't use them and pay much more to register names. I wish they just had flat no non-sense discount prices and did away with the childish codes. All they have to do is give everyone flat $8 pricing across the board or something for renewals and lower their privacy prices and they would have many more domains moved to them. $9.99 for privacy or 7.99 sometimes is absolute highway robbery (online) :uhoh: Then they charge you if you have a name dispute! Unreal, the more I think about it the more shady GD seems to me.

 

[Gerry]

I would doubt a company with the size and weight of GoDaddy would do this themselves..

When it involves billions of dollars in the secondary market, I have little doubt about the power over greed of individuals and corporations.