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.
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.
It is amazing! API available for the beast mode type queries? I wanna build a domain name exploration tool and the kick it off to you guys for registration (perhaps referral kickback would be nice). Email in my profile.
Google Domains did the same thing to me a few years ago.
There's a reason my personal domain is nothingofvalue.org instead of .com. Because when I went to register the .com originally and backed out at the last minute to give myself time to setup a PO Box (didn't like the ICANN publicly displaying my mailing address), I came back two days later and noticed that someone had registered the .com domain.
No, only through Google Domains. And like I said, I got decently far along in the process before I stopped, due to privacy concerns. That probably flagged it as "of interest" to someone who then promptly squatted on it.
> You could be right that it's Google, but I doubt they would risk a scandal to make a few bucks like that.
I think this HN thread has shown that it seems to be something of an open secret among domain registrars, so I'm not sure it would necessarily be a "scandal", particular given how hard it would be for me to prove it.
Agreed. This is really bizarre behavior for HN. This thread reads like a paranoid Reddit post, and people who are requesting evidence are being downvoted into oblivion... Because it's more fashionable to jump on the "godaddy is a cartoon supervillain" bandwagon?
> This is a complete lie and total slander of GoDaddy
Respectfully, I stated an objective fact and nothing more, backed by an evidentiary link. As the other reply and yours seemed to have missed the context to which I was replying, "This is really bizarre behavior for HN" which was being contested by my reply - in hindsight I should have quoted it to be blatantly obvious to speed readers.
I should have been clear, I was referring to OP’s statements which were easily refuted by the Whois search. I thought that was relevant to tying this situation to some HN perceived history of this behavior.
Talking != proof. Some people at GoDaddy seem to have been busted for doing this independently, and were likely fired. Is it still happening since then? Nothing here would give you a clue.
In this case, felons.io, there is no registrant listed, even on who.godaddy.com. So how can you definitively say that GoDaddy saw that search from the OP and registered the domain?
I'm not saying they didn't do it, but I base my opinions on facts, not speculation or "they've been doing it for years".
I'm just not seeing any evidence in the WHOIS record that GoDaddy registered that domain--it could have been one of their customers.
It happens way too many times with Godaddy so even though it is still speculation, but seems very likely now that they do this stuff. I have seen this complain from people a few times in the past and they all mention GoDaddy.
It would be easy to test - query for some random domains on their site and see what happens. Which seems close to the story here.
(As a bonus - securities regulators can easily request business records, and will raid offices if they need to - it could be argued a more energetic approach like this in the tech space would not be a bad thing and I would expect travel in this direction as economies continue to rely on further on IT and if companies pull stunts like this it will be deserved).
Happens way too often to be coincidence and can occur on domains nobody else would want. I use GoDaddy and I'm happy with their services, but I never search for a domain before I buy it.
