GoDaddy VP Caught Bidding Against Customers 222
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?"
Here's What Can Be Done... (Score:4, Funny)
Pay a Congressman.
Cheers!
Strat
Re:Here's What Can Be Done... (Score:5, Funny)
Yeah, but I hear that even congressmen are bidding for themselves these days...
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Get the word out (Score:5, Insightful)
At a minimum, get the word out so everyone knows about it. Also, vote with your dollars by taking your business elsewhere.
Re:Get the word out (Score:5, 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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I agree and my original post is still relevant. What are the alternatives?
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The now corporate and corrupt (but, I repeat myself) ICANN doing nothing is just a big a problem. And you can't choose another Internet governing board.
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All it would take in this instance is the availability and choice of another registration system.
I'm surprised nobody has taken that idea to a point of popularity yet. I know there have been at least two attempts that flopped.
"They already screwed up one domain of mine" (Score:3, Insightful)
if there was an equal price competitor ... (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.
So... (Score:4, Insightful)
In other words, you would take a stand on principle, but not if it costs you a bit more money. Heh.
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Re:So... (Score:5, Insightful)
I would take a stand on principle, but there's no place to stand.
You're complaining about $2 a year per domain? Even for 200 domains that's only $400 more a year. If you really can't cover these costs, I have to wonder why you've got some many domains in the first place.
Your implication that people have endless dollars available to buy principle... a nice idea, but not part of reality for most of us.
You're really just thinking short term. How much is it going to cost you if godaddy suspends one of your domains because they want to? How much is it going to cost when you have to bid against godaddy? How much is it going to cost when they apply any of their other unethical practices?
If you can't afford $400 a year to not deal with scumbags, get out of whatever business you're in. Scambags always screw you over in the end.
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Re:So... (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).
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Re:if there was an equal price competitor ... (Score:5, Insightful)
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And? What is the name of your registrar. I have one domain with Go Daddy and one still with Register.com, and I'm looking to move both.
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Or you could save $2/domain/year and go with omnis.com. If you have 200+ domains, they drop the price to $6.95 for .com.
Re:if there was an equal price competitor ... (Score:5, Informative)
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If all of them are personal domains then I'd just have to say what the hell? Why would you need 200 personal domains?
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Can you say squatter?
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1&1 has better prices.
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$5/year for all domains (that's what I pay, YMMV).
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Isn't it possible that the only reason they have these 'low' prices is because they are ripping off customers by bidding against them?
So you save with one hand, and pay for it with the other.
Dubious savings.
Re:if there was an equal price competitor ... (Score:5, Interesting)
You sir are the perfect candidate to own a micro domain registrar.
I got mine about four years ago. I was frustrated with both NetSol ($$$$), GoDaddy (liked to play cat and mouse games with their customers) and the many hosts that included free domain names with terrible strings attached. A reseller web hosting account was $15/month (after four years they just raised it to $20), and a registrar account with an Indian domain wholesaler was free.
On day one I was able to sell domains for under $10 and still make money in every transaction. My then boss immediately stopped using NeSol, so as each of his 20+ domains needed a renewal, he transferred them to me. My friends took notice, so every single one moved his domains with me.
As I kept selling domains, the registrar moved me up in their sales tier, every time shaving a few cents off the wholesale price for each domain. I did not get greedy, every time I got a cut, I shaved my prices a little bit.
I call it my micro registrar company because we are talking just a few hundred domains scattered across 30 or so customers. But they love me because whenever something goes wrong, all they have to do is either IM, email me or even call me, and they get much better support than what they would get from NetSol or GoDaddy. In the rare case that I actually need the help of the wholesalers, their turnaround is pretty decent, and they are extremely polite and professional.
I am not saying that everything is perfect, or that it is a piece of cake, but it does not take a lot of work to make it happen. At least two of my friends liked it enough that they made their own micro registrars too, and as far as I know they are happy with it.
As for what the GoDaddy asshat did, it is at the very least a breach of trust. If one of my customers asks me to check a few domains for her and she tells me she wants to think about it, I am not going to buy them for myself and then ask her for more money, that's just wrong.
missed the point (Score:3, Insightful)
And if you [ go under a bus / get blown up / fall out with your customer / get overwhelmed ] all your customers will bitterly wish that they had gone with godaddy.
I had a friend do what you did and he totally frazzed out under the stress, his "micro" business went under.
One of my associates, his customer, had to go to the hosting company and pay them so he could get his servers out; but before that it was a mad drive across country to find the guy who had just dropped off the map.
Sam
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You have a reselling account with a wholesaler that is fully accredited by ICANN. Their system allows you to run your own version of their site with your branding and domain name. What they charge you for a domain is a hell of a lot less than what you would get from NetSol, GoDaddy usually advertises domains under cost but with hooks to other products to make up the difference (hint: anyone selling you a .com for under $7, and letting you pay with a credit card, is probably losing money on every domain).
The
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There are a few. I switched to Monicker. Nodaddy.com has some suggestions for places to switch to.
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The company is rife with unethical business practices.
Yes, but they have sweaty, scantily clad babes in their commercials!
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You can watch the commercials without registering your domains there.
Re:if there was an equal price competitor ... (Score:4, 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.
ENOM ! (Score:2)
a great majority of hosting industry uses enom.com . its probably the biggest registrar out there. the only problem is acquiring a reseller account, because they dont sell like godaddy. but, you can acquire an account either directly through them by depositing a huge chunk of cash, or from their levle 2 resellers.
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Following the link above or in my sig doesn't give me any commission if you sign up, and I'll tell you that they seem to be an honest company trying to provide amazing service. I'll admit they sometimes have service problems, but they are always quick to get things back online.
Seth
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Unbelieveable... (Score:5, Funny)
Adam Dicker? (Score:5, Funny)
Wow, if Charles Dickens were writing today, he'd be all over that name.
Adam Dicker, quicker with the clicker than the clients he dicks o'er
Mr. Pinchloaf, known as a tight-ass most horribly, whose pucker snaps shut audibly
Nadia Rotchacokoff, who gives her love freely and her diseases venerally
Steve Ballmer, a rabid wombat would be much calmer, screaming, hurling chairs against the wallmer
President Bush and Vice President Dick, with names like that, someone's getting fucked right quick
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I doubt Charles Dickens would comment on anyones last name.
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I doubt Charles Dickens would comment on anyones last name.
Yes, how dare he besmirch the stylistic tropes of Mr. Dickens in the name of humor.
The mere thought gives me the vapors.
Thank you for doing your part to make the world right again, citizen.
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Charles Dickens? Is he the guy who created "Dickens' cider"?
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No no, you're thinking of Charles Dikkens, the well known Dutch author.
ICANN? (Score:3, Interesting)
More like ICANN'T!
Why is anyone surprised at unethical behaviour by GoDaddy?
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Even worse, they are a 'trusted' SSL Certificate Authority. Someone pointed me to GoDaddy for SSL before, I was wondering why they were so cheap compared to more respectable looking sites.. well, at least they pass savings on to some customers while screwing over others :s
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Even worse, they are a 'trusted' SSL Certificate Authority. Someone pointed me to GoDaddy for SSL before, I was wondering why they were so cheap compared to more respectable looking sites.. well, at least they pass savings on to some customers while screwing over others
Yeah, I've been using Dotster for a long time, now. More spendy than GoDaddy, but way cheaper than netSol, and Dotster has never tried to screw me. Must be run by a hot woman.
ICANN is I couldn't. The GoDaddy list: (Score:5, Informative)
I'm keeping a list of stories about GoDaddy on Slashdot, in order by date:
Go Daddy Usurps Network Solutions [slashdot.org] (2005-05-04)
GoDaddy Serves Blank Pages to Safari & Opera [slashdot.org] (2005-12-08)
GoDaddy.com Dumps Linux for Microsoft [slashdot.org] (2006-03-23)
GoDaddy Holds Domains Hostage [slashdot.org] (2006-06-17)
GoDaddy Caves To Irish Legal Threat [slashdot.org] (2006-09-16)
MySpace and GoDaddy Shut Down Security Site [slashdot.org] (2007-01-26)
That incident prompted this web site:
Exposing the Many Reasons Not to Trust GoDaddy with Your Domain Names [nodaddy.com]. 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 [wired.com]. See below for Slashdot's story about RateMyCop.com.
Alternative Registrars to GoDaddy? [slashdot.org] (2007-02-03)
GoDaddy Bobbles DST Changeover? [slashdot.org] (2007-03-11)
850K RegisterFly Domains Moved To GoDaddy [slashdot.org] (2007-05-29)
GoDaddy Silences RateMyCop.com [slashdot.org] (2008-03-12)
ICANN Moves Against GoDaddy Domain Lockdowns [slashdot.org] (2008-04-08)
GoDaddy VP Caught Bidding Against Customers [slashdot.org] (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!! [archive.org]
Re:ICANN is I couldn't. The GoDaddy list: (Score:4, Informative)
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What amazes me is that even though they are a US quasi government company performing this badly
"You're doing a great job, Cannie..."
Employees (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.
Market Mess (Score:4, Insightful)
The whole domain name market has gotten out of control. Most unused domain names are now being used as nothing more than garbage linklists to generate ad revenue, while they sit at auction sites for $1,000 or more. It amazes me to think these garbage sites can generate more revenue than it costs to register the name. And then to sit on these names waiting for thousand dollar payoffs is outrageous. If ICANN intends domain names to be like real-estate then they need to provide permanent ownership. Otherwise they need to raise their own registration fees to prevent this kind of domain abuse. I for one tire of Google searches that return a list of b.s. sites.
Re:Market Mess (Score:5, Insightful)
It's kind of interesting that the only reason that most of these sites have value is because they show up in google searches. If google fixed its algorithms then the problem would go away. Unfortunately the ads on these sites are most likely google ads... google is making money so they have no incentive to change anything.
And just think... (Score:5, Insightful)
With this recent disclosure, I can no longer trust them. In my opinion, unethical is not a strong enough word to describe the act being reported.
Superbowl (Score:4, Funny)
They've got to pay for those Superbowl adverts somehow. :)
Not Surprising (Score:2, Interesting)
Move domains from GoDaddy to ? (Score:5, Interesting)
I have about a hundred domains with GoDaddy.
This is the last straw - the company is entirely unethical and I wish to no longer support them, or take chances that their unethical bullshit will one day burn me.
The reason I originally chose GoDaddy (which was quite a while ago when they were smaller) was because they had good prices and seemed reputable enough. If anyone has any auggestions on where the best place to move my domains to would be I woluld love to hear it.
I would like to avoid Network Solutions and their ilk, between their pricing, alphabet agency ties (and other things) it does not appeal to me - I would also like to avoid small fly-by-night "register your domain for 69 cents" places that may disappear or be purchased by other companies. Basically I am hoping to find a reputable, ethical registrar.....Any suggestions?
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We use joker.com based in switzerland.
Re:Move domains from GoDaddy to ? (Score:4, 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.
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I use Joker.com and have done for many years - and have not had problems with them as a registrar (though see below...). They have replied to my (very) occasional emails in a timely and rational manner.
They are $12 for a .com, but if you have a lot of domains you can set yourself up as a reseller and pay around $7.20.
They did get DDOSd a few years ago, which WAS a problem for a day or two but I guess they have better redundancy sorted out now. They don't mess you around with trying to add on loads of extras
Re:Move domains from GoDaddy to ? (Score:4, Interesting)
Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
enom (Score:2)
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My suggestions is:
http://www.buycheapdomains.com/ [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).
Re:Move domains from GoDaddy to ? (Score:4, Interesting)
1and1 are a bit slow (sometimes takes hours to do simple additions to DNS), and their control panel sucks.
BUT there are two great things about it: Generally cheap, and you have your authcode right in their interface if you want to move to another registrar. No hostage situation to worry about.
I give them thumbs up, despite being very simplistic.
NoDaddy (Score:5, Informative)
I finally escaped GoDaddy a couple of weeks back.. (Score:2, Interesting)
Transferred my last seven domains away from that awful place. I can't stand their attitude and customer-unfriendly literal interpretations of ICANN's rules.
The last straw was when they were going to cancel my domains because my phone number was invalid. "Update immediately or we will seize your domains!" an ominous email reported.
Well, my area code changed and well -- there you have it!
Rather than let them "seize" my domains, I moved them over to another registrar. They are much smaller (only maybe half a m
It's called "shilling" and it's illegal (Score:5, Interesting)
Selling Domains (Score:3, Interesting)
I can't believe GoDaddy is still in business. I can't remember ever reading anything good about them and every time I do see some article, it's always about their unethical business practices.
However, I think the core of the problem is that something ICANN needs to sort out by forbidding the resale or auction of domain names. They should only be allowed to be leased from accredited registrars at a fair price, with clear restrictions on artificially inflating the price. IMHO, the auDA has got this right for all .au domains.
consider dyndns.org... (Score:2)
they're $15 for com/net/org domains and offer custom dns and mail hop/relay services at varying prices. dns changes propagate quickly, and their servers are stable and reliable...
at the end of the day, you get what you pay for, so why would anyone be surprised that the street whore of registrars would actually try and fuck over their clientele?
changeIP (Score:2)
I've been using changeip.com for dynamic DNS and have had no problems with it. Domain name registration is $15 (or $13 if you have more than one) and adding Dynamic DNS is $6.
A better question to ask would be .. (Score:3, Insightful)
What can be done to police ICANN?
Netsol (Score:2)
I've taken a lot of shit over the years for suggesting Netsol is still the only safe place to
have domains.
Congratulations, you caught one. Now what about the others? It's been a decade, after all.
I may not like Netsols rules but at least they stick to them, Even 12 years ago it was in the company rulebook said anybody doing this would be terminated instantly. And sued.
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I've taken a lot of shit over the years for suggesting Netsol is still the only safe place to
have domains.
And you will catch a turd from me.
NetSol, also known as Verisign back when domain wild cards were an issue. While they have since sold off NetSol, I have no way of knowing who took the idiots that thought of answering up all queries to *.com etc. The DNS issue was circa 2003.
When they tried that stunt, I went to BuyDomains and transferred my domains away from Verisign and NetSol. Since I was responsible for about 250 domains at the time, that cost them. I also wrote a letter to Verisign and NetSol. I
If domain names were covered by the UCC (Score:3, Interesting)
If domain names were covered by the Uniform Commercial Code (UCC) there might be imputed into the contract an obligation on the part of GoDaddy to engage in good faith behaviour. But it is unclear whether domain name rental falls under the UCC, and the UCC is not all that U(niform) across the states.
This is called 'shill bidding' (Score:5, Interesting)
... and it is, roughly speaking, illegal as hell in many jurisdictions.
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Re:Its legal (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.
Re:Its legal (Score:5, Insightful)
it should be illegal (depends where you live).
if you want a minimum price then set a reserve, not all this BS.
or just make this a law; if you are in any way financially associated with the auction, it must be declared on every bid you make.
otherwise, how is this not bait and switch or thuggery?
thug: "give me $10!"
person takes out wallet containing $30
thug: "give me $30!"
Re:Its legal (Score:5, Interesting)
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A reserve verses a minimum bid works in that lower amounts of bids can be placed to sort of determine a value of the item without an influence of the seller. A reserve price doesn't influence the end price and locks out some people not sure about taking a risk.
If you were selling a T-shirt or a book signed by someone famous and set a reserve price, I can offer money below the reserve comparable to what I think it might be worth to me. Someone else comes around and offers more and so on until the reserve pri
Re:Its legal (Score:4, Interesting)
At least to me, your minimum/starting bid is the same as what you said.
I think that reserve amounts are set in the hope of getting a 'bidding war' started, get more people interested and bidding, and therefore end up running the price above what the item would have sold for with a minimum bid.
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reserves are not known by the people in the auction. minimum bids are. when the information available to you changes, so does the 'game theory'.
Re:Its legal (Score:5, Interesting)
That's pretty much what I said, right?
I put item X up for auction. I want at least $20 for it. If I put a minimum bid on it I get one guy who puts $20 down on it. Or I set a $20 reserve, bidders 1-10, smelling a deal start bidding, it quickly exceeds $20, but since 1-10 were already looking at it, at least some have their competitive side awake and are looking for a 'win'. Next thing you know it sells for $50.
Re:Its legal (Score:4, Interesting)
I generally am never on the owning side of an auction. I'm typically on the bidding side with the exception of one thing that went through a real auction house which I got roughly 200 times what I expected.
But from my perspective, a reserve means I need to cover at least this much or I take a loss. A minimum bid says it is worth this much at least. Perhaps it is more perspective then anything and some could be wanting to start a bidding war. And your right in that the reserve promotes bidding were it wouldn't be possible with a minimum bid. All the auctions I have been to, the reserve price has always been a secrete until after the item has been auctioned too. It might be different at some auctions but from my perspective, I see it differently. I can see however, where your opinion is just as valid if not more giving some insight into the owner's mental workings as mine.
BTW, the piece I auctioned was an antique dresser I got as partial payment for helping the family of an elderly neighbor clean up after she passed on. I only took the thing because they were talking about not having any place to store it and they didn't like the looks of it. I traded $25 of the $125 I got for moving stuff into a truck after they packed it up and it sold for $7,000 plus at auction because the maker was local and in demand. I though it would bring a couple hundred or maybe even close to a grand if someone was crazy. I never saw seven grand coming from it.
Auction types. (Score:2)
Well, it sounds like you have more bidding experience than I do. Currently I refuse to do business with Ebay, for example, due to some of their ethics practices.
Still, I view it in terms of game theory and statistics.
For example, I think that selling popular concert tickets(you know, the 'sold out in 5 minute' types) at dutch auction would be a good idea. You put your bid in, knowing that you won't be screwed, in that you'll end up paying the same as everybody else. At the same time, you're encouraged to
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Reserves are the
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Re:Its legal (Score:5, Insightful)
Summary: "We didn't do anything wrong, but we're going to stop doing it."
Quit being a weasel. Take a stand. Make a choice and stick with it.
Either say that it was ok and you are going to continue to allow your employees to do it, or say that it is not ok and that Mr. Dicker did something wrong.
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Re:Its legal (Score:5, Insightful)
It may be legal, but it is unethical.
And when you are a registrar, by far your most important asset is trust. GoDaddy no longer has mine, and I will no longer recommend them.
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Indeed. I was a big GoDaddy fan until I found out they are the largest domain squatters in the world. Then I did some shopping around and found out I was paying $20/year for WhoIS privacy protection that my webhost / registrar includes for free with every domain.
I've attempted many times to migrate my main domain away from GoDaddy to my current webhost and for some reason it fails. The webhost says that GoDaddy is blocking the transfer - even though I've unlocked the domain and followed the rules.
Come to fi
Re:Its legal (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, in the simplest terms you are wrong, but the explanation is more complicated.
Knowing allowing shill bidding (whether by yourself or others) is cause for revocation of an auctioneer's license or fines by state regulators. The state law most often says that a business cannot conduct auctions without an auctioneer's license, so the leverage for fines and punishment is generally against continued ability to conduct auctions and not strictly a legal matter aside from maybe breach of contract claims or similar.
Shilling itself may or may not be illegal state by state, but just because you can't go to jail for it alone does not preclude you having your ass handed to you in a courtroom. Again, you can be sued under breach of contract or for violation of the UCC for which law may allow certain claims.
In this particular case, ICANN probably has some type of contract governing the auctions that GoDaddy is probably also violating. I would imagine that their hole is pretty deep in this matter.
Re:Its legal (Score:5, Informative)
Unethical, but not the slightest bit illegal.
You sure about that? From Wikipedia, on Shills in Auctions: [wikipedia.org]
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.
Re:Recommendations for reputable registrars? (Score:4, Informative)
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See my post further up, I have tried Godaddy, Dotster, Yahoo, Google, Dreamhost and a few other but now use http://www.omnis.com/ [omnis.com] exclusively for Domain purchases.
http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=598685&cid=23989845 [slashdot.org]