<story><title>Tell HN: Never search for domains on Godaddy.com</title><text>searched a few days ago for felons.io,
looked for unique names for simple game
didn&amp;#x27;t know if I wanted it or not&lt;p&gt;guess godaddy decided for me:
1 days old
Created on 2020-09-16
by GoDaddy.com, LLC&lt;p&gt;just a warning if you have a special name do not use godaddy to check if its available</text></story><parent_chain><item><author>timcederman</author><text>Hi Ted - can you speak to Namecheap&amp;#x27;s stance on bulk spam domain registrations and the fact that Namecheap does nothing to stop it?&lt;p&gt;There has been (at least in the Bay Area) a large increase in text spam. They all have a very similar format, e.g. pretending you missed a delivery, and try to get you to click on a link, usually a .info domain.&lt;p&gt;They are all hosted on Alibaba Cloud, but they are registered in bulk via Namecheap. Your legal and abuse team says they have no obligation to prevent such registrations, but to instead take it up with the FTC or the hosting, both of which do nothing either.&lt;p&gt;Here&amp;#x27;s a recent article about the problem with bulk registrations and spam: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.spamhaus.org&amp;#x2F;news&amp;#x2F;article&amp;#x2F;795&amp;#x2F;weaponizing-domain-names-how-bulk-registration-aids-global-spam-campaigns&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.spamhaus.org&amp;#x2F;news&amp;#x2F;article&amp;#x2F;795&amp;#x2F;weaponizing-domain...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;edit: I highly recommend reading the article for more context on why bulk domain registration is problematic. Note the DOJ filed a temporary restraining order again Namecheap, and the office of the NY AG also contacted them due to their role in spam and scams.&lt;p&gt;To address some of the questions and comments below:&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; A registrar is simple: request a domain, they check you match the requirement for said domain rules, take your money and register the domain for you. Very simple, very stupid, very non-opiniated.&lt;p&gt;Where do you draw the line on this? How do you feel about registering hate speech in a domain name, or someone else&amp;#x27;s trademark? Clearly there needs to be some level of regulation.&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; do they have any obligation to investigate the purouse people want to use the domains for&lt;p&gt;Do domain hosts have any obligation to investigate what people are hosting? Does Google have an obligation to remove results from search? There are clearly multiple parties to hosting content on the web, and it&amp;#x27;s a shared responsibility to keep folks doing the right thing&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; Are you asking Namecheap to take unilateral action against domain registrations with no due process?&lt;p&gt;No - what makes you think that&amp;#x27;s what I was asking?</text></item><item><author>ted0</author><text>Ted from Namecheap here.&lt;p&gt;I cannot speak to GoDaddy&amp;#x27;s practices. However, I can say that for Namecheap, this is not something we would ever even consider doing.&lt;p&gt;In my experience though, lookups are more complex than most think. We are querying so many different sources to give you availability status, some of which are less reliable than others. For example, with smaller TLDs like .ai or .is, lookups may be less reliable than a well-oiled machine like Verisign, which operates the .com and .net TLDs, among others. As a result, sometimes with a less reliable registry, there can be false positives, resulting in the registrar showing a domain as &amp;quot;available&amp;quot; when it is actually registered.&lt;p&gt;In addition to registry connection reliability, there are also many different aftermarket sources that registrars often pull from. You know when you see a Premium domain (registered and usually higher priced) in search? That could be coming from any number of 3rd party aftermarket platforms, which also can have varying reliability and&amp;#x2F;or stale listings.&lt;p&gt;Lastly, you have to consider that some registrars handle the &amp;quot;drop window&amp;quot; differently than others. If a domain deletes and is removed from the zone, ergo, becoming available again, some registrars have a buffer period before they show it as available again.&lt;p&gt;It does not appear that Felons.io had ever been registered before, which makes this case pretty strange.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>nolok</author><text>You really, &lt;i&gt;really&lt;/i&gt; don&amp;#x27;t want registrars to enter that game.&lt;p&gt;A registrar is simple: request a domain, they check you match the requirement for said domain rules, take your money and register the domain for you. Very simple, very stupid, very non-opiniated.&lt;p&gt;If registrars start deciding who is worthy of domains, what arbitrary set of rules they want you to follow on top of the real ones, what set of laws they act as judge for ... Things would go wrong insanely quickly.&lt;p&gt;If the price of that is that they let abusers through too then fine, they&amp;#x27;re not the justice department either way and if they apply the judicial decision once those abusers are caught, that&amp;#x27;s all we should ask from them.</text></comment>
<story><title>Tell HN: Never search for domains on Godaddy.com</title><text>searched a few days ago for felons.io,
looked for unique names for simple game
didn&amp;#x27;t know if I wanted it or not&lt;p&gt;guess godaddy decided for me:
1 days old
Created on 2020-09-16
by GoDaddy.com, LLC&lt;p&gt;just a warning if you have a special name do not use godaddy to check if its available</text></story><parent_chain><item><author>timcederman</author><text>Hi Ted - can you speak to Namecheap&amp;#x27;s stance on bulk spam domain registrations and the fact that Namecheap does nothing to stop it?&lt;p&gt;There has been (at least in the Bay Area) a large increase in text spam. They all have a very similar format, e.g. pretending you missed a delivery, and try to get you to click on a link, usually a .info domain.&lt;p&gt;They are all hosted on Alibaba Cloud, but they are registered in bulk via Namecheap. Your legal and abuse team says they have no obligation to prevent such registrations, but to instead take it up with the FTC or the hosting, both of which do nothing either.&lt;p&gt;Here&amp;#x27;s a recent article about the problem with bulk registrations and spam: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.spamhaus.org&amp;#x2F;news&amp;#x2F;article&amp;#x2F;795&amp;#x2F;weaponizing-domain-names-how-bulk-registration-aids-global-spam-campaigns&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.spamhaus.org&amp;#x2F;news&amp;#x2F;article&amp;#x2F;795&amp;#x2F;weaponizing-domain...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;edit: I highly recommend reading the article for more context on why bulk domain registration is problematic. Note the DOJ filed a temporary restraining order again Namecheap, and the office of the NY AG also contacted them due to their role in spam and scams.&lt;p&gt;To address some of the questions and comments below:&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; A registrar is simple: request a domain, they check you match the requirement for said domain rules, take your money and register the domain for you. Very simple, very stupid, very non-opiniated.&lt;p&gt;Where do you draw the line on this? How do you feel about registering hate speech in a domain name, or someone else&amp;#x27;s trademark? Clearly there needs to be some level of regulation.&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; do they have any obligation to investigate the purouse people want to use the domains for&lt;p&gt;Do domain hosts have any obligation to investigate what people are hosting? Does Google have an obligation to remove results from search? There are clearly multiple parties to hosting content on the web, and it&amp;#x27;s a shared responsibility to keep folks doing the right thing&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; Are you asking Namecheap to take unilateral action against domain registrations with no due process?&lt;p&gt;No - what makes you think that&amp;#x27;s what I was asking?</text></item><item><author>ted0</author><text>Ted from Namecheap here.&lt;p&gt;I cannot speak to GoDaddy&amp;#x27;s practices. However, I can say that for Namecheap, this is not something we would ever even consider doing.&lt;p&gt;In my experience though, lookups are more complex than most think. We are querying so many different sources to give you availability status, some of which are less reliable than others. For example, with smaller TLDs like .ai or .is, lookups may be less reliable than a well-oiled machine like Verisign, which operates the .com and .net TLDs, among others. As a result, sometimes with a less reliable registry, there can be false positives, resulting in the registrar showing a domain as &amp;quot;available&amp;quot; when it is actually registered.&lt;p&gt;In addition to registry connection reliability, there are also many different aftermarket sources that registrars often pull from. You know when you see a Premium domain (registered and usually higher priced) in search? That could be coming from any number of 3rd party aftermarket platforms, which also can have varying reliability and&amp;#x2F;or stale listings.&lt;p&gt;Lastly, you have to consider that some registrars handle the &amp;quot;drop window&amp;quot; differently than others. If a domain deletes and is removed from the zone, ergo, becoming available again, some registrars have a buffer period before they show it as available again.&lt;p&gt;It does not appear that Felons.io had ever been registered before, which makes this case pretty strange.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>ted0</author><text>Thanks for the question. I can assure you that our legal and abuse team do their very best to address bad actors. In fact, they are one of the hardest working teams in the company. We put a lot of time and due diligence into each case and do not takedown domains without sufficient evidence. We believe that taking domains down without proper cause can be a slippery slope.</text></comment>