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GoDaddy VP Caught Bidding Against Customers

Posted by timothy on from the strong-accusations-so-consider-the-source dept.

An anonymous reader writes "A GoDaddy Vice President has been caught bidding against customers in their own domain name auctions. The employee Adam Dicker isn't just any GoDaddy employee; he's head of the GoDaddy subsidiary that controls the auctions. Dicker won some of the domains he bid for, and pushed up the bid price on auctions he didn't win. The conflict of interest is unethical, but could this practice also be illegal? Said a representative for a competitor, 'Even if controlled, that practice has bad news written all over it.' This comes hot on the heels of news that despite earlier promises to ICANN to end their 60-Day ban on transfers, GoDaddy quietly circumvented it by forcing customers to agree to the ban anyway. ICANN doesn't appear to be investigating or asking follow-up questions about this. What can be done to force ICANN to police the registrars for which it is responsible?"

16 of 222 comments (clear)

  1. if there was an equal price competitor ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    I would ditch my 200+ domains at GoDaddy in a heartbeat.

    The company is rife with unethical business practices.

    I have experienced this same thing where GoDaddy bid against me in an auction.

    They will also purposely not update your contact information / credit information for certain domains where they can grab them and sell them off at a profit. Which has also happened to me.

    For whatever reason, there doesn't seem to be an equal price competitor to GoDaddy. That's a shame as there are many people who want to leave.

    1. Re:if there was an equal price competitor ... by MidnightBrewer · · Score: 3, Informative

      I was personally burned by GoDaddy when I did a search on a name, waited to purchase it, and then came back a week later to find out that GoDaddy itself had purchased it (using a "private" WHOIS registration). Thing of it is, the name only means something if you happen to be a speaker of Japanese. I hardly think that somebody working for GoDaddy in the southwestern United States would appreciate the significance. Of course, the name still remains unused, except to generate ad revenue by showing the GoDaddy "parked domain" page.

      --
      "Give a man fire, and he'll be warm for a day; set a man on fire, and he'll be warm for the rest of his life
    2. Re:if there was an equal price competitor ... by pnutjam · · Score: 4, Informative

      Try Nearlyfreespeech.net They are damn ethical and domains are only $7.99 / year.

      --
      Cheap storage VM.
  2. Re:Its legal by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    Its Certainly Unethical, sometimes illegal. Where I Live, If you do it in Real Estate Auctions, you can loose any profits, and get a few fines, Auctioneer can loose their license.

  3. Employees by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    It is common practice at GoDaddy to bid on domains and resell them. So much so that the unwritten word was to open an account under a family members name in order to make it harder to trace back to yourself.

  4. Re:Recommendations for reputable registrars? by Organic+Brain+Damage · · Score: 3, Informative

    In my very limited experience, I've had no problems with domaindirect.com.

  5. Re:Get the word out by loraksus · · Score: 4, Informative

    Problem is... all the domain auction sites are full of scumbags.
    Virtually all of the "buy a lapsed domain" sites use a "give us a number, we won't tell you if you've beat the other bidder - or even if there is another bidder, but we will let you increase your bid if you want" bidding method. Oh... and you have to pay to for the privilege of bidding.
    Fucking scumbags, pure and simple.

    BTW... If you're considering Godaddy's "expiring domain" service, don't - because you might as well just take a $20 bill and burn it in a sacrifice to the domain gods.

    Godaddy tells you that if you don't get the domain you want, you can try another. Of course, they virtually never win anything (as the big domain auction houses get most domains, something that GoDaddy is well aware of) and when you try to register another domain, "it doesn't qualify" or you will be told you have to try and find another domain (which, of course, you also won't get) and so on and so on. I'd be surprised if godaddy has even caught a single expiring domain (from another registrar) in their entire history.

    Domain registrars are all scum.

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    1q2w3e4r5t6y7u8i9o0pqawsedrftgthyjukilo;p'azsxdcfv gbhnjmk,l.;/
  6. ICANN is I couldn't. The GoDaddy list: by Futurepower(R) · · Score: 5, Informative

    ICANN is a TERRIBLY badly managed organization, in my opinion.

    I'm keeping a list of stories about GoDaddy on Slashdot, in order by date:
    Go Daddy Usurps Network Solutions (2005-05-04)
    GoDaddy Serves Blank Pages to Safari & Opera (2005-12-08)
    GoDaddy.com Dumps Linux for Microsoft (2006-03-23)
    GoDaddy Holds Domains Hostage (2006-06-17)
    GoDaddy Caves To Irish Legal Threat (2006-09-16)
    MySpace and GoDaddy Shut Down Security Site (2007-01-26)
    That incident prompted this web site:
    Exposing the Many Reasons Not to Trust GoDaddy with Your Domain Names. According to this March 11, 2008 story in Wired, GoDaddy shut down an entire web site of 250,000 pages because of one archived mailing list comment: GoDaddy Silences Police-Watchdog Site RateMyCop.com. See below for Slashdot's story about RateMyCop.com.
    Alternative Registrars to GoDaddy? (2007-02-03)
    GoDaddy Bobbles DST Changeover? (2007-03-11)
    850K RegisterFly Domains Moved To GoDaddy (2007-05-29)
    GoDaddy Silences RateMyCop.com (2008-03-12)
    ICANN Moves Against GoDaddy Domain Lockdowns (2008-04-08)
    GoDaddy VP Caught Bidding Against Customers (2008-06-29)

    Any error or stories not included?

    GoDaddy's reputation is not just one of a negative stories. In my opinion, GoDaddy tries to confuse non-technical people by offering services they don't need that are presented as valuable.

    Here are some of the opinions of Bob Parsons, the owner of GoDaddy. He is pro-violence: Close Gitmo? No way!!

    1. Re:ICANN is I couldn't. The GoDaddy list: by hugecabbage · · Score: 4, Informative

      My singular experience with GoDaddy was absolutely unsolicited on my part, and highly predatory on theirs. They used the WHOIS info for a domain I had registered with someone else in order to email me an official-looking accounting document. The document stated that my domain was about to expire and it was time to renew it (with them, of course). I wouldn't be surprised if this is a very common practice, but from then on I knew that they weren't to be trusted, and they certainly were never going to get any of my business.

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      oO0Oo
  7. NoDaddy by sega01 · · Score: 5, Informative

    http://nodaddy.com/ has plenty of GoDaddy horror stories, along with recommendations and experiences for alternative companies. I say that we should all boycott GoDaddy.

  8. Re:Move domains from GoDaddy to ? by Skater · · Score: 3, Informative

    I've been using pairnic.com for all of mine. No jerking around, multiple warnings in advance of expiration, and I think I paid $50 for 5 years last time I renewed.

  9. Re:Recommendations for reputable registrars? by Skylinux · · Score: 3, Informative

    See my post further up, I have tried Godaddy, Dotster, Yahoo, Google, Dreamhost and a few other but now use http://www.omnis.com/ exclusively for Domain purchases.

    http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=598685&cid=23989845

    --
    Everyone who buys Wild Hunt will receive 16 specially prepared DLCs absolutely for free, regardless of platform.
  10. Re:So... by Vellmont · · Score: 5, Informative


    Where are you getting a price of $2 per year for a domain?

    $2 a year is the DIFFERENCE between the $10 godaddy price, and other registrars which charge $12 a year (I know Joker.com is $12/year).

    --
    AccountKiller
  11. Re:Move domains from GoDaddy to ? by kchrist · · Score: 4, Informative

    I've had good experiences with both PairNIC and Gandi. I wrote up some information about them, and compared them to a couple other registrars (including Netsol), but the upshot is that after doing a good deal of research I was unable to find any significant complaints about either one of them. They're both a little more expensive than the low-end registrars like Godaddy, but by nearly all accounts the extra cost is well worth it.

    My domains are all at Gandi currently.

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    Web consulting +
  12. Re:Move domains from GoDaddy to ? by JelloMaster · · Score: 3, Informative

    My suggestions is:
    http://www.buycheapdomains.com/
    It costs $8.95/year and they've been around for years. They are enom resellers so whatever happens, you will still be able to access your domains through enom.
    Or if you have the money, become an enom reseller (there's a $1000 setup fee for an $8.95/year account).

  13. Re:Its legal by UncleTogie · · Score: 5, Informative

    Unethical, but not the slightest bit illegal.

    You sure about that? From Wikipedia, on Shills in Auctions:

    Shill bidding may be a common practice on eBay. In his book Fake: Forgery, Lies, & eBay, Kenneth Walton describes how he and his cohorts placed shill bids on hundreds of eBay auctions over the course of a year. While many sellers consider shill bidding a harmless act, some believe that it may violate federal or state laws. Walton and his associates were charged and convicted of fraud by the United States Attorney for their eBay shill bidding.

    Yup. Sounds pretty illegal so far.

    --
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