3 ms·
Note: I own registrar and we are a competitor of godaddy. That said a few points: 1) As others have pointed out the sheer volume of domain lookups that are do
by larrys 14y ago
Note: I own registrar and we are a competitor of godaddy.
That said a few points:
1) As others have pointed out the sheer volume of domain lookups that are done at godaddy make it unlikely this would be profitable for GD to do not to mention the PR problem for that matter. Registrars do pay for domain names. Currently the cost (including ICANN fees) are $8.03 per domain (plus some other minor type costs as well). All registrars pay the same price .com .net, volume doesn't matter. Very often registrars sell below cost btw.
2) "but their employees certainly could be, or they could sell domain query data to a 3rd party to keep their hands clean. Some Godaddy employees certainly have access to the data of who is looking for what."
Is possible of course. So far no proof of that. Important point of course is that even the info (as I pointed out in another comment) when you do a command line whois to the Verisign whois server can be sniffed and/or it's possible someone at Verisign is getting at the data (or that Verisign is selling it for that matter). Since GD is the largest registrar it is quite possible the info is sniffed elsewhere and registered at GD.
3) "algorithm that looks that those domains for dictionary words and possibly look at Google keyword search volume on each one and only buy the ones that pass some minimum criteria" Exactly the way back in the 90's that I registered domain names. Except it was by excite or yahoo I don't remember. I can vouch for that personally although most good names as we know are taken long ago.
4) "or there isn't some low level tech or manager who isn't doing this on their own." Then the culprit isn't GD but someone who works for them (in all fairness). So this could easily happen at any registrar. It is possible to setup a system where a rogue employee can't get at the data of course. But that doesn't prevent what can happen as detailed in #2 above.