Tell HN: Never search for domains on Godaddy.com - <AUTHOR> searched a few days ago for felons.io, looked for unique names for simple game didn't know if I wanted it or not
guess godaddy decided for me: 1 days old Created on 2020-09-16 by GoDaddy.com, LLC
just a warning if you have a special name do not use godaddy to check if its available <comment><USER2> There's a detailed response here: [https://www.godaddy.com/garage/godaddy- felons-io-unregistere...](https://www.godaddy.com/garage/godaddy-felons-io- unregistered-domain/)

currently discussed at [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24523901](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24523901).

</comment><comment><USER3> Ted from Namecheap here.

I cannot speak to GoDaddy's practices. However, I can say that for Namecheap, this is not something we would ever even consider doing.

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 "available" when it is actually registered.

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/or stale listings.

Lastly, you have to consider that some registrars handle the "drop window" 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.

It does not appear that Felons.io had ever been registered before, which makes this case pretty strange.

<comment><USER4> Hi Ted - can you speak to Namecheap's stance on bulk spam domain registrations and the fact that Namecheap does nothing to stop it?

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.

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.

Here's a recent article about the problem with bulk registrations and spam: [https://www.spamhaus.org/news/article/795/weaponizing- domain...](https://www.spamhaus.org/news/article/795/weaponizing-domain-names- how-bulk-registration-aids-global-spam-campaigns)

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.

To address some of the questions and comments below:

> 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.

Where do you draw the line on this? How do you feel about registering hate speech in a domain name, or someone else's trademark? Clearly there needs to be some level of regulation.

> do they have any obligation to investigate the purouse people want to use > the domains for

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's a shared responsibility to keep folks doing the right thing

> Are you asking Namecheap to take unilateral action against domain > registrations with no due process?

No - what makes you think that's what I was asking?

<comment><USER5> You really, _really_ don't want registrars to enter that game.

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.

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.

If the price of that is that they let abusers through too then fine, they're not the justice department either way and if they apply the judicial decision once those abusers are caught, that's all we should ask from them.

<comment><USER6> Registrars already deal with abuse complaints (and have done so since the 90s.) GoDaddy, eNom and other large registrars are happy to suspend domains with proof of network abuse.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> They are a bigtime scammers. Recently was assisting a friend to get access to a domain name which was registered in godaddy. They scammed him for a couple of hundred dollars for contacting the domain owner to get a deal on the domain and eventually nothing happened. Not even a mail was sent on behalf the scammed money as we found that the domain was owned by another friend and eventually got it transferred. He confirmed that he has not received any mail from godaddy's domain buy service since the contact was under privacy protection. Another scamming method to siphon money from people.

To make it more clear, if you need a domain which is registered in godaddy and has privacy protection enabled, please do not pay money to godaddy to broker a deal on behalf of you with the existing domain owner. They take huge sum of money, do nothing and stop responding. It's like giving your hard earned money for free to these godaddy scammers. One of the worst registrars and I don't want to open another can of worms with their really really bad service (hosting, emailing and all such services!)

<comment><USER8> If the domain was a a gTLD or new gTLD (more than 2 characters on the TLD), they could get sanctioned by the ICANN, if you decided to report them.

If it was a ccTLD (2 characters on the TLD), they could also be sanctioned, depending on the rules of the extension.

The sanction can range from a (huge) fee, to a revocation of their accreditation, so it's not nothing.

<comment><USER9> Why would they be sanctioned? If GoDaddy is the registrar for a domain, GoDaddy knows who the real owner is. They have to, per ICANN rules.

And if GoDaddy reaches out to that customer on behalf of another customer, they don't reveal any private information. Each customer only sees their own interaction with GoDaddy. They don't see each others' info.

<comment><USER8> The ICANN states that you must provide a way to directly contact a domain's owner. If I'm correct, the contact info must be freely available in the whole, whether it's an email address, an obfuscated email address, or a contact form on the website of the registrar.

Charging for this is really shady, but not contacting the domain owner when requested is a registrar agreement violation.

Note that it's also the responsibility of the registrar to ensure that contact information of their registrants are correct.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Back when I was in college, GoDaddy let my at the time close friend break into my account and steal several of my domains, including [https://strategywiki.org](https://strategywiki.org). This was while I was on an overseas study and couldn't regularly check in. GoDaddy gave me no recourse to dispute.

He had server access because I trusted him. He wasn't supposed to have access to my domain account, and I didn't share my credentials.

I had another friend on the account because I was paying for his domain and wanted to let him administer DNS. They conspired together and were able to leverage this access and the lack of account ACLs to transfer everything away.

This was well over a decade ago.

They never invested in StrategyWiki, so it never realized the vision I had for the site. I had started to pay contributors and invest in content to bootstrap.

This guy came from the MediaWiki purge of video game guides and felt like he owned and deserved the site, despite the fact that I had created most of the original content. He was ten years older, well paid, and threatened me with a lawsuit. I was a college kid and couldn't do anything.

I learned a hard lesson. It's stuck with me.

<comment><USER11> They defrauded you & violated your copyright. If the SoL hasn't passed you might want to consider filing a police report. It's possible that you could get the current registrar to give it back.

It seems like they are _still_ violating your copyright, so you might be able to go that avenue if the SoL keeps refreshing as they keep violating it (not sure though).

GoDaddy has terminated accounts on copyright grounds before, and you could also file a civil suit if you think you could withstand the cost / pain of it now.

(That said, sometimes it's better to just walk away)

<comment><USER10> Thanks for the feedback.

This happened back in 2008? SoL has definitely lapsed.

I think it's better to just walk away. It hurt a lot at the time, but that pain has largely healed. Thinking about it doesn't cause me pain or regret anymore, just... I feel sorry for them? It doesn't change what I accomplished then. I'm still proud of what I built, and I know it could have been better with me steering it.

Since then, I've continued to build really cool stuff and not let these folks hold me back. My projects have been bigger and have impacted more people. I'm at peace, and I've got a lot to look forward to.

<comment><USER12> > I'm at peace, and I've got a lot to look forward to.

Good for you! That's the healthy path.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> This sucks and I feel for you. But the sad fact is that domain registrars have been doing this ever since domain names became big business in the 90s.

As a PSA to everyone, you should only ever use whois in a terminal window to see if a domain is available.

It's included with macOS, Windows (?), Linux or any other OS anyone's likely to use. [Edit: a reply says it's not included in Windows. It seems you can download it free here: [https://docs.microsoft.com/en- us/sysinternals/downloads/whoi...](https://docs.microsoft.com/en- us/sysinternals/downloads/whois)]

I guess ICANN's lookup tool ([https://lookup.icann.org/](https://lookup.icann.org/)) is probably more trustworthy than commercially operated ones; it would be a terrible look for them to engage in this practice.

But I always feel much safer using whois in a terminal than any website that can see what I'm searching for.

<comment><USER14> I also wanted say "consider whois", but with a few more caveats. First, obviously the whois server you use matters. There is nothing magical about whois that stops GoDaddy from doing the same thing if you query whois.godaddy.com, you still need to talk to someone less likely to engage in this like going directly to InterNIC's, whois.internic.net (still I think under the US DOC, which whatever other flaws it has isn't really scrounging for change there).

> _But I always feel much safer using whois in a terminal_

Also as a minor FWIW, there are plenty of simple GUI's (often built-in) on whois as well so someone can just use one of those if they prefer. macOS for example still has some of the old useful utilities included for free including in this case Network Utility, though for whatever reason Apple moved them out of /Applications/Utilities and into /System/Library/CoreServices/Applications (that's also where a pile of other useful ones went).

<comment><USER15> Network Utility has been deprecated in macOS Big Sur.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> This is a scummy move. In the industry I work in, we call this front-running and it's a criminal act. If the same laws applied here godaddy would be looking at a nine digit fine and jail time for whoever thought this is a good idea.

<comment><USER17> 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.

<comment><USER18> They've been doing it for years, it's a pretty well known thing at this point which is long past the point of needing new evidence.

PS: Use gandi.net, both for search and registration.

<comment><USER19> Can you link some prior evidence? I can believe it but is there proof? Could some other data have led another party to registering OP's domain idea?

<comment><USER18> C'mon.. it's one google search away. [https://gnso.icann.org/mailing- lists/archives/registrars/msg...](https://gnso.icann.org/mailing- lists/archives/registrars/msg05077.html)

Lots of instances of it, I won't bother listing all of it here as I'm on a phone.

<comment><USER17> That ICANN thread is about domain transfers. Has nothing to do with the topic at hand, which the OP is claiming 'front-running' but GoDaddy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I had this happen as well in the past when researching domain names for a new product.

Pro Tip: Stay the hell away from GoDaddy for everything. I've had the unfortunate task of managing a server hosted with them and it's been consistently awful (ex. I literally cannot upgrade PHP because the VPS doesn't support it and there is no upgrade path without spinning up an entirely new VPS on a different, and of course more expensive, plan). The constant upsells on garbage are basically predatory at this point, too.

<comment><USER21> Recommendations for superior alternatives? I'm an indifferent GoDaddy user but would be happy to switch to something else since I've never liked them as a company.

<comment><USER22> I love [http://domains.Google](http://domains.Google)

You get free email forwarding (even wildcard), free domain privacy, free website forwarding (with ssl), Google infrastructure behind all of that and the authoritative DNS they offer.

Cloudflare also offers a registrar service and its good.

<comment><USER23> Interesting. I'd never considered Google for my domains.

Any idea if the '£10/year' is _every_ year? Or does it go up after the first year?

Also, I found it weird that they promote a .app and .dev TLD as 'More Secure'.

<comment><USER24> They call them more secure because the whole TLD is on the HSTS preload list, so no downgrade attacks.

<comment><USER25> Which means that an SSL certificate is _required_

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Called domain front running

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domain_name_front_running](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domain_name_front_running)

<comment><USER27> I was always _expecting_ something like this to be going on, so I'd never use any Web-based availability-checking tools but then I also tend to be a bit paranoid at times.

Yet now it turns out not only is this established practice, there is even a _Wikipedia_ entry on it.

"It's only paranoia if they're not really after you!"

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> I faced this ~6 years ago. Someone hired me for a project, at some point he told me some domain names he had in mind, and we looked them up together on Gandi, GoDaddy and other registrars to see prices and what was available. The next day he called me in shock, asking me why I bought the domain and if I'm trying to steal his company, etc (nobody else knew the names). Of course I didn't buy anything, we checked the whois and it was registered for GoDaddy... That was a quite bad experience...

<comment><USER29> The way I check prices at multiple registrars is to check the price on admrgbldflkrjanjscknadsc.<tld> instead of <name_I_want>.<tld>, where admrgbldflkrjanjscknadsc is just a bunch of random keyboard mashing.

I do not enter <name_I_want>.<tld> into any registrar until I am actually attempting to buy it from that registrar.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> This is just part of a long line of scummy practices by GoDaddy in its history. Bad PR for GoDaddy constantly popped up in tech news sites ~15 years ago, but it was never enough to stop their aggressive marketing. Still, I always wondered why anyone in tech would use them. Y'all know what they're capable of and what they do. Don't support that.

<comment><USER31> As far as I can tell, the general business model in domains is:

* Be the good guy, and establish a customer base. Provide low prices, good customer service, etc. Lose money on the razor-thin margins.

* Once you've got a ton of customers, turn evil, and milk your customer-base for all they've got. Engage in every nasty sleazeball tactic.

I've seen this cycle many times, starting with Network Solutions.

People use GoDaddy because they were the good alternative for a while.

<comment><USER32> That must have been a long time ago, as I've only heard about them as a bad business for the past ~10 years (= how long I've been loosely involved in tech).

I think their business plan is rather: Lure in general population customers via mainstream media advertising, and don't really care about anything else (including their reputation with tech people). No one in tech that I know would touch them with a ten-foot pool. Most of the non-tech people I know are running to GoDaddy when they have to register a domain for their business/project, because they are almost the only ones doing widespread advertising.

<comment><USER31> Yes. It was a long time ago. GoDaddy was where all the tech crowd went after Network Solutions circa the year 2000. They were great! Until they weren't.

Since then, I've gone through 2 more registrars which went down the same path. I'm gradually migrating to AWS since I'm hoping they have the same incentive structure to f- me over in a few years. The way I figure, if my DNS provider is also providing cloud servers, etc. they'll have more incentive to keep me as a customer.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Some TLD registries have policies to prevent registrars from front-running their clients by squat-registering their domain searches.

But, if you're working in a TLD where Freedom<tm> is more important than actual free markets, do your domain checks against the root servers yourself with _dig +trace_.

<comment><USER34> Be warned that a domain can be registered without appearing in the DNS.

In recent years IANA has run a whois server that provides referrals to the appropriate registry, so in most cases a whois client can start by querying whois.iana.org and follow whois: or refer: lines to the right whois server without leaking too much information. (whois is still cleartext and a very crappy poorly-defined protocol...)

FreeBSD's whois mostly works by following referrals with heuristics for filling in the ghen that doesn't work; Debian's whois mostly uses a built-in database of whois servers and heuristics for finding them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> I never experienced this, but I did wait too long to buy a domain. After I checked if the domain was available(it was), I started building the website. A month later the domain was bought by someone who eventually made the same thing I wanted to make.

My current process for checking if a domain is available is pretty basic. I first check it in the browser. If Firefox can't find it, then I use the `whois` command. If there is no match for "example.com" then I decide if I want to buy it, before starting to build anything. If I do decide to get it, I go to Hover.com do a final check and press "Add to cart".

These days, for me it's better to spend $15 on a domain that might not get used, than to regret not buying it.

<comment><USER36> I have a habit of collecting interesting yet vaguely generic domain names and holding onto them for future projects. (Which I almost never get around to.)

<comment><USER37> so do I. the other day I renewed a domain I got 5 years ago and I didn't even remember what I planned.

<comment><USER38> Then why did you renew? Domain squatters suck.

<comment><USER39> If it's a good domain it would be snatched by someone who wants to make a profit flipping domains. The domain business is broken.

<comment><USER40> Domains that are blocked by people not using them for years are just as bad.

<comment><USER41> Perhaps, but it's easier to deal with a user you can contact at [alias]@registrardotcom versus a corporation you can contact at spam@corporationdotcom

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> I learned this _years_ ago that Godaddy will steal your name for fun and profit. As the HN comments confirm, there are several shady outfits that do the same thing.

For years, I've gone to ICANN directly to check domain name availability: [https://lookup.icann.org/](https://lookup.icann.org/)

<comment><USER29> That doesn't work for all TLDs. I just checked a .us domain and it says "No registry RDAP server was identified for this domain. Attempting lookup using WHOIS service", and then "Failed to perform lookup using WHOIS service: TLD_NOT_SUPPORTED".

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> GoDaddy responded to this thread in the article here: [https://domaininvesting.com/godaddy-still-not- frontrunning-d...](https://domaininvesting.com/godaddy-still-not-frontrunning- domain-searches/)

> _"GoDaddy never has and never will register domain names based on customer > searches. This is an unethical and predatory practice that runs counter to > our mission of helping people bring their ideas to life online with the best > possible domain name."_

</comment><comment><USER44> And it's free for GoDaddy to do this: [https://www.icann.org/resources/pages/epp-status- codes-2014-...](https://www.icann.org/resources/pages/epp-status- codes-2014-06-16-en#addPeriod)

<comment><USER45> Can't be totally free. If we all would run random garbage through their search, at some point this evil mudy collapse somehow?

<comment><USER46> They have some systems that suggest words, word combinations, adjacent terms, and such for domains / related domains. I suspect that by leveraging those existing systems they can relatively easily tell if the names you're entering are complete garbage or not (length, any dictionary terms, high value words, etc).

<comment><USER47> Then someone cobble together a tool that automatically queries words from a dictionary on godaddy, maybe with variations like numbers appended, "the" prefixed or hip things like turning -er into -r.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> Wow, this is a blast from the past. I know Godaddy got busted doing this years ago. I forget whether they were sued or just hounded with bad P.R. but I thought they promised to clean up their act. I wish I could find the article now, but Google only pulls up stuff from the last year or so.

<comment><USER30> If I recall correctly, it was a VP at GoDaddy and some underlings that were busted for this. They were personally profiting from it. GoDaddy got bad PR, those involved got punished (maybe fired?) and people forgot.

It sounds like the culprits' big sin was pocketing the money instead of letting the company pocket the money.

</comment></comment><comment><USER49> I have a similar sorry about the scuzziness of GoDaddy. When Apple first announced the Swift programming language at their wWWDC i immediately went to GoDaddy to register every Swift related domain I could think of - learnswift.com, swift-tutorial.com type domains. I added several and in the process of checking out (which used to be like 7 steps as each step along they way they tried to trick you into buying something else), the price of the domains went from $14 each to $2000+ each. They had suddenly realized the value of the domains _while they were in my shopping cart_ and raised the price.

Another GoDaddy sucks story, which happened to me several times before I dropped them. Good luck canceling an SSL certificate - they will still treat it as a valid SSL very that needs to get re-cert'ed every year and they'll charge you full price, $79, up to 3 months ahead of its expiration! I'm 100% positive I canceled an SSL very and ensured it was removed from my Renewals and of course, they still charged for a renewal.

<comment><USER50> It is not like you're sitting on morale high ground by squatting domains

<comment><USER49> Who said I was squatting? You're assuming I couldn't put together a website with tutorials on Swift. It's literally what I do all freakin day.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER51> This happened to me too. I was searching the domain on a variety of tools to make sure it wasn't like, secretly a swear word in another language or whatever, then a couple days later it was registered by GoDaddy. I wasn't sure which tool leaked it, or whether that was actually GoDaddy or their domain holder protection. But it was pretty annoying.

And they registered it for two years.

</comment><comment><USER52> I used their broker service to buy a really expensive domain via a client (squatter).

They ranted about how it's done totally anonymous and had to do all the communication.

They transferred the domain to us revealing the seller's WHOIS information (email, phone, name, address).

Ended up being someone literally walking distance from me in Washington, DC. So that's some crazy sketch dangerous behavior... I couldn't imagine what would happen if they sold to a really pissed off client. People are crazy over their company and personal names. Like hello incoming pissed off dude who just forked over multiple $xx,xxx to a squatter and now has their address.

Then I couldn't replace the WHOIS information because you needed the seller to confirm via their WHOIS email (GoDaddy support could not understand this / or I suck at explaining).

I almost just called the seller up, but instead finally found out GoDaddy allows you to bypass the WHOIS process with the email of your GoDaddy account.

Disaster. Don't really buy domains anymore but probably Cloudflare or bust at this point.

</comment><comment><USER53> GoDaddy has been a bad actor for as long as I can remember.

This thread is a good indicator of how/why they keep doing it though. Every time I start to think people have finally caught on an realized how GoDaddy treats customers and potential customers, I see a new case of someone seemingly unaware of their vast history of stuff like this.

We think it is easy to disseminate information on the internet, but in the end it is really hard to really get anything into true general awareness.

</comment><comment><USER54> Amusingly, if you query GoDaddy for "godaddy-is-an-ongoing-criminal- enterprise.com", they claim it is "unavailable", although it's not in "whois" and other registrars say it is available. I was curious to see if GoDaddy would actually register that domain for themselves. Network Solutions used to do that, which was really annoying.

<comment><USER55> GoDaddy is likely blocking registration of any domain with the string "godaddy" in it, likely for entirely legitimate anti-phishing reasons. If someone got e.g. godaddyauth.com (or similar) and started phishing with it to try to get people's login details, and a WHOIS even revealed GoDaddy as the registrar, a lot of people might fall for it. Keep in mind that many people don't understand all the distinctions between registry, registrar, and registrant, and that WHOIS output often gives you details on all 3.

</comment></comment><comment><USER56> This presents an interesting attack vector. If you know that a competitor is looking at purchasing a particular domain name, type it into godaddy. It costs nothing and the act can't be traced back to you.

</comment><comment><USER57> After doing a lot of research, I would recommend Dynadot as the best domain registrar at the moment.

My main criteria were: fair prices without any coupon codes, no-upselling, free whois privacy as standard, most ccTLDs supported, REST API for everything, and at least 15-20 years of history.

I would normally prefer a European company, but Dynadot has been the registrar of _wikileaks.org_ since 2006.

<comment><USER58> I switched over to Dynadot about three or five years ago and I have never regretted it. Very solid service IME.

I've also heard good things about Gandi.net but I haven't tried them myself.

<comment><USER57> Gandi.net used to have a cult-like following in its early days, was the registrar of _reddit.com_ up until recently, and is still the registrar of _ycombinator.com_.

But its ownership has changed multiple times over two decades, and the company is now owned by a private equity firm. The most recent reviews have been far from great[1].

I would recommend INWX (Germany) as the best European alternative to Dynadot.

[1] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22001822](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22001822)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> As someone who works at a somewhat big registrar, it always amazes me how opaque the whole domain ecosystem and politics is to anyone not in the business.

Even some "basic" stuff like the difference between registrar and registries is widely unknown to the public.

It's a shame really, because knowing how it works is extremely empowering. Knowing where and how to escalate complaints (registrar -> registry -> ICANN if not a ccTLD) for instance is just mandatory.

</comment><comment><USER59> This was ten or more years ago, so I cannot speak for their current practices, but I hosted a domain on a godaddy VPS, and they hijacked the robots.txt file to exclude the site from getting indexed.

Another issue that I remember was that they provided a free SSL cert that I did not want. They then charged me for renewal the following year. All it took was a phone call to get the charge reversed, but it was a phone call that I should not have been forced to make.

</comment><comment><USER60> This is why ICANN is a joke.

They proclaim themselves sui generis authority in charge of domain names, domain registries and domain name regsitrars on the internet (there is not and never was any legal basis for such "authority"), they turn domain names into a "business", they make up arbitrary rules that line their own pockets (initial gTLD application will cost $185,000), they allow registrars to do things like front-running, etc., etc.

Why things do not change: When a user gets screwed by front-running, the user calls for a boycott of GoDaddy instead of questioning the entire ICANN- administered system itself. The protection of ICANN's racket relies on security through obscurity.

Front-running is a very old practice amongst ICANN-approved domain name registrars.

</comment><comment><USER61> Relevant from 13 years ago: Network Solutions sued for domain tasting.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=123899](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=123899)

<comment><USER61> This is the outcome of the settlement:

[https://www.icann.org/resources/pages/agp-status- report-2009...](https://www.icann.org/resources/pages/agp-status- report-2009-08-12-en)

The question is whether they are still enforcing the policy.

</comment></comment><comment><USER62> The .io namespace is a lot shadier than Godaddy. It's for occupied territory and managed by a for-profit company of vague ownership. [https://www.icb.co.uk/](https://www.icb.co.uk/)

</comment><comment><USER63> GoDaddy is the worst company, ever. I once registered a domain there and had to cancel it three times. Two times out of those, they silently reverted my cancelation and just kept renewing it against my will. I don't care if this was malicious, our just a system failure: They refused to acknowledge this and charged me anyways.

Never again.

</comment><comment><USER64> GoDaddy is imo the literal worst registrar. It's unfortunate how often they're a go-to name for people, but hopefully it won't last forever.

<comment><USER65> An example where marketing to average person works quite well.

</comment></comment><comment><USER66> GoDaddy has been doing this since they have existed, I assume. I first used them after the superbowl ad to search for a domain name and they registered it. Never again.

<comment><USER17> The registrar is GoDaddy, not the owner of the domain as far as I can tell. I don't see any evidence that GoDaddy did anything wrong in this case.

</comment></comment><comment><USER67> Here's GoDaddy's response, which denies this occurred or has ever been their practice: [https://www.godaddy.com/garage/godaddy-felons-io- unregistere...](https://www.godaddy.com/garage/godaddy-felons-io-unregistered- domain/) ([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24523901](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24523901))

</comment><comment> B-Con Pretty sure I first heard about them pulling these tactics over 10 years ago. Sad it's still ongoing.

IIRC, after Godaddy blew up with their Superbowl commercial they've been ratcheting up the scam factor in every way possible. Just avoid them completely.

</comment><comment><USER68> Yes. If you search it 2-3 times, they buy it in most cases.

<comment><USER69> I wonder if they have any logarithms that would attack this vulnerability? Someone could write a script to simply search several times for 1000's of names and bankrupt godaddy...

<comment><USER70> Their domain cost as a registrar is a fraction of retail pricing.

<comment><USER6> No it's not. GoDaddy has to pay the domain registry (verisign, donuts , etc) for the registration plus a small fee to ICANN. Domains are typically extremely low margin and profit is made up on add-ons.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER71> I have a theory that GoDaddy also sells domain search quieries to HugeDomains. After the third domain I finally learned. Basically would mash two words together that were brandable, low letter count and all three times, within 24 hours HugeDomains purchased and put up a landing page selling said domain for $1.5k-$3k. Wtf, but doesn't surprise me if so. GoDaddy is the king of funnels.

</comment><comment><USER72> I'm sorry for the OP, and at the same time a bit relieved that I'm not paranoid.

I've always feared that registrars would do that, so I've never really trusted them. The way I do it is to check only once I'm ready to buy. Of course the first thing I look for is always taken on .com, but nowadays with so many top level domains is feasible to find something good.

</comment><comment><USER73> I've never had a problem using who.is for this purpose.

GoDaddy is the SourceForge of hosting. I'll never trust them again, and I don't think anyone should. Not only do they still pull the shenanigans of registering domains you search for, but I've had terrible experiences in the past where they just decided to shut down my hosted sites for no good reason. I once woke up to discover that my web forum was shut down, and I got an email from them telling me that they decided that I had used a nulled/cracked version of paid software, which simply wasn't the case. No matter how much evidence I provided, they didn't change their minds and took days to get back to me. I took my business elsewhere, obviously.

Even for the average person, there are tons of better options than GoDaddy nowadays. If you need a website for your business, just use Wix or Squarespace or the like. GoDaddy is shady, even though they've tried to rectify their image.

</comment><comment><USER74> They also say "domain unavailable" if you include "godaddy" in the domain name. Any other site will let you register profane domains with "godaddy" in them.

<comment><USER75> I wonder if they'd allow you to transfer such a domain to them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER76> Also got this happen with me on Namecheap, but aint mad since they got top notch customer support anyways (if you've tried their live chat, thats what im talkin about).

Trick is to NOT include the domain extension, in your case just search for "felons" and dont add to cart anything at all unless you're ready to pay for it immediately. These sites naturally got behaviour analytics behind them that they lever up against their customers for a higher ask price for their domains. If you behave in a way they can precisely predict your real wants, well that is exactly what happens.

Edit: some guy from Namecheap just commented claiming they dont do this. That is possible imo, maybe its all just coincidence and we're all conspiracy theorists, but eitherway err on the side of cautious if you want og domain names, lol.

</comment><comment><USER77> Just so you know, this is a complete lie and total slander of GoDaddy.

[https://domaininvesting.com/godaddy-still-not- frontrunning-d...](https://domaininvesting.com/godaddy-still-not-frontrunning- domain-searches/)

The whois information is masked, because that's what we do to protect customer privacy.

[https://domaininvesting.com/godaddy-whois-records-no-more- co...](https://domaininvesting.com/godaddy-whois-records-no-more-contact- information/)

It's registered to someone in New York, not to GoDaddy.

Registrant Organization: Registrant State/Province: New York Registrant Country: US

</comment><comment><USER78> Is there a cost for them to do this? If so, perhaps they would like to own every available word in the dictionary with every TLD? Sounds like a script kiddie could add a couple million TLDs to their operating expenses for the year.

</comment><comment><USER79> Not really familiar with submission rules and customs here, but shouldn't that headline be prefixed by "Tell HN:"?

<comment><USER80> I agree, I was confused as there was no url following the title.

</comment></comment><comment><USER81> Namecheap did me wrong in a major way. In 2018 I registered a domain, all went fine. I register a second domain a few minutes later. In addition to the confirmation email I received an additional email requesting personal information. I assumed it was optional. Nope! The domain was not registered. When I looked into the matter the domain had been registered by domainbright. I'm not sure what to make of it. Although compared to all other domains I have registered with namecheap this was probably the most coveted, valuable. Never again namecheap. You make me angry!

</comment><comment><USER82> Is there a way for us to waste GoDaddy's money by searching for domain names that we don't actually want? If they waste enough, they'll have to stop this practice.

They're probably not buying every domain that's searched, but if you appear likely to buy the domain by having an existing account, only searching for a single domain that's based on an english word, and getting most of the way through the checkout flow, that might trick them into buying a garbage domain name.

<comment><USER83> afaik there is something in ICANN that allows them to do this completely for free for some period or super cheap, not paying the same price customers pay.

</comment></comment><comment><USER84> Well, I just tried a few searches on godaddy...

fuckgodaddy.com Fuckgodaddyhard.com Fuckgodaddyreallyhard.com Fuckgodaddyproper.com Fuckgodaddyproperly.com

Now, gandi:

All available except for fuckgodaddy.com

edit:

Maybe profanity triggered something?

reamgodaddyproperly.com

Unavailable on godaddy, available on gandi.

Finally, I searched on some of the same, arguably in poor taste names, using gandi instead of godaddy, and all were available to register.

Was hoping godaddy would squat on one of these. Got denied.

Tried a rando domain too:

biggodaddybomotoys.com. nope

Nothing containing "godaddy" appears registerable at godaddy. Pity.

Make of it what you will.

<comment><USER85> If they are actually front running it's probably for single word dictionary domains. They're not going to register everything people search for.

<comment><USER84> Agreed. That and something catchy might be worth doing for them.

Still, it a lousy practice.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER86> So .... how can we use this to our nefarious purposes.... anyone want to build an API Tool and random name generator and get GoDaddy to register tons of bogus names.

<comment><USER87> It's almost free for them, so there's very little downside for them to register thousands of domains. I'd love to see how long it took them to block malicious searches, though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER88> Godaddy has been doing it for at least decade now, i just searched a domain i think 10 years ago that I in fact needed, however didn't want to use Godaddy for registration, anyway the only mistake I made was, i searched for its availability on their site, and it was available, then i went to namecheap to register it. (im from Pakistan no way affiliated with Namecheap anyhow) .. and to my surprise it got registered within i think 10 min, I was quite shocked, and then I tried to look for its whois and found Godadday had registered it, and I can swear, this was the last time i visited their website.

this godadday practice story keeps showing up every now and then everywhere reddit or HN etc.

Some people say it's great, they 'secure' your domain than hijacking.. blah blah. nonetheless it's a creepy behavior.. in the past such discussion i guess it only cost them few cents to register it for a month period etc.. not sure exactly, some peeps had suggested to make a bot to search tons of them.. but I think it doesn't cost them much... somehow....

</comment><comment><USER89> Funny that this is on the front page right now.

GoDaddy a few years ago broke their domain forwarding, which prompted us to build our own forwarding service, NavHere, which we are shutting down and is also on the HN front page:

Shutting down NavHere [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24505232](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24505232)

</comment><comment><USER90> Not to advertise, but easywhois.com have a no front-running policy, which prevents exactly this issue. I'm a happy customer

</comment><comment><USER91> It doesn't even have to cost them very much. Nothing or a few cents at most.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domain_tasting](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domain_tasting)

[https://icannwiki.org/Domain_Kiting](https://icannwiki.org/Domain_Kiting)

</comment><comment> python-3 Seen Louis Rossman talk about this thread in his latest video this morning. Wanted to chime in.

I have stopped using Godaddy for a while now because I had suspected that was happening. I wasn't 100% sure, but when I would spend hours looking for a domain name and searching through hundreds of names, I noticed a few of them with the least amount of characters and words they might consider more "premium" were taken. The few I noticed were some of the top choices I was considering using.

I do suspect they have some sort of algorithm where they take domains you might consider buying, but I can't prove it.

I've stopped searching on there for a while now and just stick with Namecheap. Never have any problems with Namecheap and their customer service was pretty good/fast when I got locked out of my account 1 time.

Now days I'm pretty paranoid about searching for domains on any domain site...

</comment><comment><USER92> This is unfortunately old news, though I can't remember where I heard GoDaddy engaging in this behavior. Anecdotally, I've had the same thing happen to me.

Now I only use the Internic DNS lookup when I want to search.

[1] [https://lookup.icann.org/lookup](https://lookup.icann.org/lookup)

</comment><comment><USER93> Fucking sexist elephant murderers.

GoDaddy's most infamous ads

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u7yFCqOAb9Y](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u7yFCqOAb9Y)

GoDaddy CEO Kills Elephant

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YnM5yTW2B3g](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YnM5yTW2B3g)

<comment><USER94> I had been unhappy with godaddy but not gotten around to moving - this news got me to move the week the story broke.

Went to easydns.com and been quite happy with them!

</comment></comment><comment><USER95> Don't even fill out a form -- I did that for a friend, decided not to press "click here to purchase".

Turns out they had keystroke-logged me as I filled out the form. They got name, address, credit-card #, domain name.

I was peppered with website "designer", "logo", "SEO" spam for years afterwards.

</comment><comment><USER96> .io almost always shows AVL on GD and then when added to cart its often registered because the search for that one doesn't seem to connect properly to the actual registration process for .io

A 6 letter word that can be well branded and is immediately memorable? I would be more shocked if it were actually avl

<comment><USER97> This is so much more believable than the idea that GoDaddy have chosen to perform front running.

</comment></comment><comment><USER98> Hmm, someone beat me to it:

"Sorry, f___yougodaddyforstealingthesesearches.com is unavailable"

<comment><USER99> Ha ha, I was also putting in rude queries aimed at them. Perhaps someone in a backroom somewhere will see them in a log and have a laugh.

</comment></comment><comment><USER100> I had this issue with a registrar (I assume it was Network Solutions because they kept it in holding) many years ago. My firstnamelastname.com domain was registered and I had to get firstname-lastname.com instead. A year later, the domain wasn't renewed BUT Network Solutions did this gross thing where they kept the domain in their own escrow/holding area for 90 days before releasing it.

Twitter was very early at the time (this was late 2007 or early 2008) but I happened to have a follower who worked at NetSol who released the domain name so I could get it.

Scammy industry.

I usually trust Namecheap not to do this (porkbun too), but this is why I've become accustomed to doing incognito domain searches or searches via the command line and whois to try to curb this sort of stuff.

</comment><comment><USER101> This is a topic that has come up before (i.e. HN thread from 2011: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2326790](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2326790)), and while GoDaddy continues to deny this practice ([https://www.godaddy.com/community/Domain-Aftermarket/Is- Goda...](https://www.godaddy.com/community/Domain-Aftermarket/Is-Godaddy- Stealing-Domains-out-from-under-us/m-p/129107/highlight/true#M1472)) I tend to think that where there's smoke there's fire. Too many instances over the years to not be at least a bit suspicious.

[edit] spelling

</comment><comment><USER102> I've heard of this technique way back in the 00s. Just as I heard about GoDaddy being crappy registrar and crappy hoster. Namecheap and Gandi essentially rose as alternatives to GoDaddy that don't suck. So the surprising things here are that someone still uses that scam and that someone still uses GoDaddy.

BTW, I now remembered that this isn't even the main reason why GD sucks. IIRC perhaps the main reason is that their support is susceptible to all kinds of social attacks and transfer domains left and right. Basically, account security is rendered poof by support people who don't care. So probably don't want to use GD if you like to at least keep your purchases after paying.

</comment><comment><USER103> I always use gandi.net for searching for domains. They are honest brokers. Never had an issue.

</comment><comment><USER104> It happened to me too, while I was trying to find the domain name for the new project. It was free and the next day it wasn't.

But, what godaddy does with the domain they registered? Do they try to sell it to you for an exorbitant price? What's their deal?

<comment><USER105> That's what I'm thinking as well. You'd think that's counter to their business model to keep on buying domains.

</comment></comment><comment><USER106> For those who have been directly affected, file a complaint with your state's attorney general. For California, here's a link: [https://oag.ca.gov/contact/consumer-complaint-against- busine...](https://oag.ca.gov/contact/consumer-complaint-against-business-or- company)

I would think that Attorney Generals love clear cut cases that affect a vocal and voting portion of their constituencies.

Second, what are the better alternatives? I use Namecheap and so far have been happy with them. Proud to say that a domain name I was researching months ago is still not registered.

</comment><comment><USER107> A few years ago I found a desirable domain for a friend. I told her in person, pulled it up on hover for the first time right on her machine and had it ready to buy and told her to buy it right then. She said she wanted to first ask her designer about the name. I warned her to tell the designer to not search on the domain name. The designer did a search anyway and when my friend clicked "buy" fewer than 20 mins later, the status had changed from "available" to "taken." The name was taken by Tucows. Either the act of searching on hover or the google search spilled the beans.

</comment><comment><USER108> I thought the same thing a few years ago. Since then I'll use dig or nslookup in my computer to check if a domain is available. I don't use Godaddy or similar service anymore for checking domain's availability.

</comment><comment><USER109> I've used hover.com for probably 10 years. Pretty great. Simple UI, no upselling/spam and they have customer support. I've never called, but it's nice knowing it's there. I then use CloudFlare for DNS

</comment><comment><USER110> Plausible, but not likely. [https://domaininvesting.com/no-domain- frontrunning-godaddy/](https://domaininvesting.com/no-domain-frontrunning- godaddy/)

</comment><comment><USER111> I recall there was a massive boycott [0] of GoDaddy about a decade ago over their SOPA position.

Whenever a company does something sufficiently offensive, they earn a lifetime boycott from me.

It's an especially easy commitment to make in crowded marketplaces (laptops & mobile phone manufacturers, DNS registries, fast food chains, etc).

[0] [http://godaddyboycott.org/](http://godaddyboycott.org/) and [https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-16320149](https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-16320149)

</comment><comment><USER112> I have a similar story with Github. I filled the website field on the Github repo settings. The project was new and the end was not near and didn't register the domain. After a year or so decided to register but figured that the domain is already registered a month ago. I can't prove it but somebody in Github could have been checked website domains if it is already registered. (Or I was unlucky) The domain was never used and released after 2 years. The lesson here is: register your domain when you have a chance.

</comment><comment><USER113> Been there, seen that.

Some good domain names I found were suddenly not available and were up for auction on GoDaddy.

After a couple of times, I have completely ditched them for search.

Namecheap is good. Also use Google Domains for checking now.

</comment><comment><USER114> Moved all my domains to namecheap a few years ago and have never looked back. I hate godaddy, they are a horrid trash company. Domain theft is just one of the many reasons to never touch them.

</comment><comment><USER115> 100% same as my experience with GoDaddy several years ago. Checked for domain availability, found an open one, didn't buy it and it was registered the next day.

I hope they go down in flames. Their whole business was built on misogyny and preying on ignorance. Their products are rough to work with, and their service hasn't been kind to me. Super Bowl ads and loss leaders have worked to hook a lot of people into the type of subpar website ownership experience that gave rise to social networks in the first place.

</comment><comment><USER116> That happened to me in the past, the short and concise name I tried was quickly taken and becomes unavailable, I since lost interests in using godaddy.

anyone has better options to try new domain names?

</comment><comment><USER117> Just a quick plug for DNSimple. If you need a blazing fast tool to register domains, they've got it. Beats GoDaddy 1000x, no exaggeration.

I just did a quick interview with their founder, judge for yourself - [https://www.raddadshow.com/episode/anthony- eden](https://www.raddadshow.com/episode/anthony-eden)

They really run the company for the sake of providing the best service, even if that doesn't make them the biggest or richest.

</comment><comment><USER118> Something similar happened to me while buying a domain for my company abtesting.ai using namecheap.

I was trying to decide between abtesting.ai and abtest.ai (both were free while checking). Luckily I decided to go with abtesting.ai and got the domain right away. A week after that I decided that it may be a good idea to buy abtest.ai anyway so someone else wouldn't try to impersonate our company. However, when I checked again the domain was already sold...

<comment><USER3> abtest.ai had expired and was auctioned off by the registry: [https://auction.whois.ai/auctions/view/2541](https://auction.whois.ai/auctions/view/2541)

It's possible that the registry incorrectly showed it as available due to its redemption/expired state.

<comment><USER118> Thanks for that info Ted. Anyway, the timing seems like too much coincidence. I didn't want to imply that namecheap was at fault here, I don't really know how the domain lookups are implemented.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER119> Since this seems very common, I would suggest use GoDaddy to search for Domains, whenever you are sure, that you never would buy it. Let them eat their own dog shit.

</comment><comment><USER120> I had the same experience with GoDaddy. I searched a domain name, which was available. The next morning I attempted to purchase the domain and it was owned by GoDaddy.com. I also had a domain with them for 9 years, which expired for a day and when we tried to renew, they owned it and were selling it for a much higher rate. BIG, BIG WARNING! Do not use GoDaddy to search for domain names. I would stay away from them period.

</comment><comment><USER121> A very quick and safe way to check if a domain is in use is to query for NS records (e.g. $dig ycombinator.com NS). This will give some false positives though.

<comment><USER122> Sorry to sound pedantic, Im just trying to make sure I understand correctly. A false positive would be domain doesn't exist but it has NS records, and a false negative would be does exist but doesn't have MX records. Is that right?

This would only create false negatives, correct?

<comment><USER121> Positive for me would be that a domain is free, so a false positive is a domain that seems to be free (no NS record) but is in fact taken (because it is registered but nothing has been added to the DNS). But you're right, my wording wasn't precise.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER123> This happened to me on two occasions about two years ago, I can't remember the domain names I was trying to register. In my case, the godaddy website I used was Godaddy.co.za (probably because I was based in South Africa). I thought it was a fluke or mistake from my side at the time, but seeing that others have experienced the same issue then I would say it's a deliberate bad business practice by godaddy.

</comment><comment><USER124> This just happened to me today with Epik, another old-timey registrar. Added a .com to their shopping cart yesterday, then went to pay for it this morning — no need, it's been registered during the night to someone in Japan. Not a super great domain either, just a brand extension for our company.

Feels like either they or some other party are looking at the stream of purchase intent to do this. Awful practice.

<comment><USER125> Well at least you didn't automatically assume the worst. Epik has more care and support for their customers - and more ethics and common sense - than the rest of them combined in my experience. Sounds like bad timing, but you would have a higher chance of falling victim to malware and a keyboard sniffer than seeing their team go out of their way to thwart your registrations. They would be more likely to go and convince the new buyer in Japan to give it to you for free, then figure out a way to make you both happier in life. Just saying.

</comment></comment><comment><USER126> Wow, I thought it was widely known.

I had this back in the days, or should I say back in the years, when I was still awake staying late at night to have a decent ADSL speed.

Searched a domain name for a project, it was free. Searched the day after, it wasn't. I was naive enough to think that other people had the same idea at the same time! When it happened the following days, I got it. And immediately told everyone around me.

</comment><comment><USER127> I just got done looking for a new domain and I told my team this exact thing (but in a more paranoid "anywhere on the internet" way).

If I find a domain candidate I think we might want and its available, I buy it as soon as humanly possible (I.e. Route53 tab on the other half of my monitor). ~$12 is not a big deal if we end up never using it. I'll just go through and uncheck the auto-renew option.

</comment><comment><USER128> I had this happen a couple of years back too. At least I think this is exactly what happened. It was an obscure'ish name too, and it seemed like within 30 minutes it was gone and registered by GoDaddy.

I know this is statistically possible as just coincidence and bad luck, and I thought about it that time and concluded they must have just nabbed it (wrote an angry message to support that went nowhere).

</comment><comment><USER129> I was always suspicious of godaddy and you never know which domain registrars would go rogue in this respect in the future.

So I created a simple shell script from which I do all my domain availability searches now. It is also way faster than using any web based searches.

Link [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17824665](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17824665)

<comment><USER130> Maybe this works presently, but under the hood whois must still be querying some server who could use your query to buy it? I guess the purchase intent is lower with whois, as you may drown in other queries.

</comment></comment><comment><USER131> I have experienced this too, more than once, and thought it was just me.

I found the explanation provided here by GoDaddy itself....inadequate at best.

[https://www.godaddy.com/community/Domain-Aftermarket/Is- Goda...](https://www.godaddy.com/community/Domain-Aftermarket/Is-Godaddy- Stealing-Domains-out-from-under-us/m-p/95191#M862)

</comment><comment><USER132> I'm feeling old when I remember the original domain name frontrunning scandal in 2008 when Network Solutions was cought doing it: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domain_name_front_running](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domain_name_front_running)

Ever since I've been using whois in terminal for domain name lookups.

</comment><comment><USER133> Always use the command line whois tool to check domains, never go through any registrar :)

Domain Name: FELONS.IO Registry Domain ID: D503300001186478247-LRMS Registrar WHOIS Server: whois.godaddy.com Registrar URL: [http://www.godaddy.com](http://www.godaddy.com) Updated Date: 2020-09-16T21:06:29Z Creation Date: 2020-09-16T10:42:26Z

Yep, created 2 days ago.

</comment><comment><USER134> Never search for full domain names anywhere. Find a service that can search for a substring in the domain name (e.g. [https://www.namedroppers.com/](https://www.namedroppers.com/)), and search for substrings instead of the full name.

For example, if you want to see if DogHeaven.com is available, search for "ogheave".

</comment><comment><USER135> If that is true, does that mean that we/somebody can make them spend significant amount of money by searching for random domains?

</comment><comment><USER136> GoDaddy has always been doing this. They used to do it by forwarding the search to a company that was just a cloaked subsidiary who would buy it and offer to resell it to you. I guess now this sort of unethical practice can be out in the open for all. Once upon a time you would have to be ashamed of this sort of business practice.

</comment><comment><USER137> I wouldn't take the risk of checking a domain name with any domain registrars, use ICANN WHOIS. I even made a simple automated domain/website checker that helped me find a great 3 letter .co domain, registered it with GoDaddy then transfered to Namecheap for the cheap/free SSL cert and better practices.

</comment><comment><USER138> I had mozillazine-tr.org I think I have created it in 2007. Few years later I have stopped renewing it. But it still looked like it was registered to my fake name and creation date was same however it wasn't in my account. It had gihg Google page rank. I think thus Godaddy decided to keep it for themselves

</comment><comment><USER139> Wow this is amazing, I just checked right now and this same just happened to me. I searched a week ago on NameCheap for a name it was available, and now it is registered to GoDaddy.. Is there any way that GoDaddy would be able to see searches from NameCheap or is that just a really big coincidence?

</comment><comment><USER140> good luck trying to move your domain out of godaddy. the amount of bullshit they throw at your face is ridiculous. disable domain lock >> oh can't because "enhanced privacy" is turned on >> disabled "enhanced privacy" >> oh we sent you an email click the link >> click the link >> oh can't you need to contact support >> contact support >> sent you a link >> ok now you can cancel "enhanced privacy" >> another link >> ok enhanced privacy is cancelled >> disable domain lock >> can't you need to wait few hours until enhanced privacy cancelling takes effect .....

initially i wanted to move 1 domain ... i ended up moving ALL my domains and my company domains .. and advised others to move their domains.

</comment><comment><USER141> Another data point here. Happened to me ~7 years ago. FWIW, I haven't had any issues with Ghandi.net.

<comment><USER142> > Ghandi.net

I think you meant Gandi.net?

I definitely agree with the sentiment, Gandi has not done this to me in the past -- I've looked up short domains weeks before purchase -- and in general provide an outstanding service.

</comment></comment><comment><USER143> Yup, I searched for a desired domain name on GoDaddy once. It was available at the time (at the standard price), but when I checked again the next day it was registered to some reseller and said I could buy it for ~$2000. I had to wait 2 years for that registration to expire.

</comment><comment><USER144> GoDaddy recently billed be $6 for domain protection renewal for my domain which I no longer host with GoDaddy. Now I have to get on the phone to have these charges reversed because if I don't ,they will keep on billing this amount till the day my card expires.

</comment><comment><USER145> I'd recommend nobody use GoDaddy, ever.

[https://web.archive.org/web/20070829115722/http://www.nodadd...](https://web.archive.org/web/20070829115722/http://www.nodaddy.com/)

</comment><comment><USER146> Never use GoDaddy for anything. They're well known as being scummy in virtually every way.

</comment><comment><USER147> On this topic, if it's a domain that seems highly desirable (single word, good TLD extension), I typically register it for the max period (10 years), just in case the registrar's system has a glitch and doesn't auto renew when it should.

</comment><comment><USER148> I use domainr.com often and never had this problem. Just in case you need a nice alternative.

<comment><USER149> I've found Porkbun to be pretty good as well.

</comment></comment><comment><USER150> Have any big name registrars committed publicly to refrain from "front running"?

</comment><comment><USER151> I've got all my stuff at Directnic. Never had an issue in the 15+ years that I've been doing business with them. I've searched for thousands of domains over the years and never had them mysteriously pick it up after a search.

</comment><comment><USER152> I experienced this a couple days ago with porkbun.com .I wanted to register a domain and the checkout failed. Shortly after that the whois showed that it had been registered and populate with porkun nameservers. Extremely infuriating...

</comment><comment><USER153> Equally, it's a single English word, spelled correctly. It's not unreasonable that someone else in the world purchased it in that time. And given GoDaddy has decent market presence it's not unreasonable they purchased it through them.

</comment><comment><USER154> I've seen this happen multiple times to people I know.

Always check for individual domains via the whois command, and if you need to do searches across a few TLDs use [https://njal.la](https://njal.la)

</comment><comment><USER155> This is something I was always worried a registrar would do, but I always told myself not to be so silly. That they had better things to do. I guess godaddy don't have anything better to do. Very crappy behaviour indeed.

</comment><comment><USER156> I figured they would do exactly that, had to be a combination of algorithm and human analysis to see if it's worth it to front run searches. From your case it probably uses a dictionary of popular words as matches

</comment><comment><USER157> You may be right but they were already on my questionable list after using boobs during the Super Bowl to advertise for 5+ years straight rather than saying _anything_ about their product or business.

</comment><comment><USER158> Just came up with a word with thisworddoesnotexist.com and searched a .com domain at godaddy (was available, not a completely new word, there seems to be hits in the internet) Let's see what happens.

</comment><comment><USER159> This was a thing back in the day where shady Adwords advertiser registrars would 'register' any unregistered .com that was searched.

That is when I learned my lesson to use a 'trusted' registrar for searching.

</comment><comment><USER160> You can use a tool like this one to search for domain name securely. [https://www.domainhamper.com/](https://www.domainhamper.com/)

</comment><comment><USER161> I've had this happen plenty of times to be before in the past. Back when I did freelance web services, I used to tell my clients to never search on GoDaddy in advance for domains.

</comment><comment><USER162> If this is what GoDaddy is doing, let's get back at them.

Everyone can search for a variety of domains that we are not actually interested in, and waste their money if they frontrun us.

<comment><USER163> This is perfectly devious and would only work if what the OP said is true. I love it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER164> That is terrible.

I did get a very similar situation,

I searched one domain, and about a month later, when I searched again, it is registered.

I did not check how long the domain age was, but I felt so disappointed that time.

</comment><comment><USER165> Surprised not to see more mention of the CEO killing elephants and posing with the photos all smiley happy. Fuck the godaddy CEO who killed innocent animals for pleasure.

</comment><comment><USER166> I have very unique name for which no domains would exist until I searched on GoDaddy. After a few days it was taken. This happened in 2017 so this is definitely not new.

</comment><comment><USER167> Hover and AWS Route 53 don't do this either. It's just the GoDaddy scumbags, and same (GoDaddy jacking a searched domain name) has happend to others I know.

</comment><comment><USER168> I knew it. I literally knew it. That's the only way they have to register so many good domain names that would be difficult to automate (plays on words, etc).

</comment><comment><USER169> I use Hover for the past 10 years. Clean UI with no ads or up sell. Free whois privacy is really nice. Only contacted support once and was positive experience.

</comment><comment><USER170> I tell everyone who will listen to use DNSimple. The best.

<comment><USER171> The DNSimple API for updating records makes me super happy. Easy to roll your own little DDNS script or to have proper domain names set in your Heroku Pipelines builds and test apps.

</comment></comment><comment><USER172> I left godaddy for hostgator but it's just as scammy. They gave my phone number to local web developers who cold call me! Is that normal, or atrocious?

<comment><USER173> Sounds pretty atrocious to me. Giving away a customer's contact info without their express permission is never ok, no matter how the company frames it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER174> Also, don't use a GitHub page as a test for a client. Set up a reasonable bootstrap page and suddenly the domain by the same name was bought up.

</comment><comment><USER175> I use to use GoDaddy and the same experience most here had. I switched to Google Domains and has been a great experience. No upsell, one price.

</comment><comment><USER176> I must be extremely naive then because I've always assumed this is what would happen when you do a namesearch via any of these providers.

</comment><comment><USER177> Two registrars I like:

internet.bs inwx.net

gandi.net has a terrible interface. But free Email hosting included. If you need email hosting only, try swiss based infomaniak.com

</comment><comment><USER178> As much as godaddy sucks for just about anything, I would suggest not searching for domains unless you are prepared to buy it on the spot.

</comment><comment><USER179> I use name.com for this reason. I trust them more.

</comment><comment><USER180> Felt this happened to me once before too. Could have been a coincidence but... since then try to be careful not to search on GoDaddy.

</comment><comment><USER181> Fortunately, they stole a domain from me well over a decade ago, before I really got into domains, so I've known to avoid them.

</comment><comment><USER182> Literally stunned that no one has mentioned Namesilo in this thread. Simple, cheap, been using them for years without any issues.

</comment><comment><USER183> Without reading, I even know what you are going to say, yes, that shady tricks Godaddy already doing it for at least 10 years lol.

</comment><comment><USER184> Honestly, they've been doing this for a decade or more. The good news is they usually only stay registered for a few days.

</comment><comment><USER185> It's odd I search on GoDaddy every other day and never had this happen. I wonder how they decide you fit the buy profile.

</comment><comment><USER186> Is there a safe method to search for domains?

<comment><USER187> I've been using iwantmyname.com both as a registrar and domain search engine. Never had a name sniped from me.

<comment><USER188> Agreed. Plus whoisprivacy is free if the tld supports it. Autorenewal is nice also. Only gripe is that they use authy for 2fa. This is a big gripe though.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER189> Seems like something someone could definitely abuse... it would cost Godaddy more to register a bunch of junk domains.

</comment><comment><USER190> Could you flood their logs with nonsense domain searches? Would be fun to do a coordinated effort around that.

</comment><comment><USER191> What would happen if someone would write a script to query random domain names via godaddy? Just wondering.

<comment><USER192> It doesn't cost them anything to do this, see domain tasting or [https://www.icann.org/resources/pages/epp-status- codes-2014-...](https://www.icann.org/resources/pages/epp-status- codes-2014-06-16-en#addPeriod)

</comment></comment><comment><USER193> One workaround for that is, search for domains no-one would ever use. They'll register them, losing money.

<comment><USER194> As a registrar they probably pay a very tiny fraction of the retail price so even if only 10% of the registered domains end up selling they still make a profit.

</comment></comment><comment><USER195> Does anyone know the story behind 'Godaddy' name? It's a weird name for a domain registrar.

<comment><USER196> I'm not sure if this is authoritative:

"The company's original name was called "Jomax Technologies," named after an old dirt road Parsons used to drive by on the way to work. Two years after founding the company, Parsons wanted to change the name to something more fun and memorable.

An employee suggested the name Big Daddy, but the domain name was already taken. The reason? The movie "Big Daddy," starring Adam Sandler. Parsons suggested GoDaddy to the team. Luckily, the .com was available and the name has stuck for just about two decades."

[https://www.rewindandcapture.com/why-is-it-called- godaddy/](https://www.rewindandcapture.com/why-is-it-called-godaddy/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER197> I deleted my godaddy account a month ago, transferred my domains to namecheap. Better features.

</comment><comment><USER198> I have had exactly the same thing happen to me, fucking GoDaddy so shady. Hate it. Never use it

</comment><comment><USER199> Will see many domain ADs when you browse websites in the following days after search the domain

</comment><comment><USER200> Use

[https://viewdns.info](https://viewdns.info)

for name searches (no affiliation)

</comment><comment><USER83> First time I noticed this was in 2008. Over a decade later, they didn't change :/

</comment><comment><USER201> I also got burned trying to buy a domain from GoDaddy a couple of days ago. Never again ...

</comment><comment><USER202> I had this happen to me with instantdomainsearch.com, which is owned by GoDaddy, I believe.

<comment><USER203> Hi, I own/operate Instant Domain Search. We make plenty of money from GoDaddy and other partners by helping them find domain names.

We show results quickly because we check if your search is in the zone file. We keep a copy of the zone file in memory, and check searches against that. Some names are "unconfigured" for a variety of reasons, and do not appear in the zone file. So this means we might show a name as available, but when you go to register it, it's gone. This sometimes leads people to believe that we've registered it for ourselves. If you check the WHOIS record, you'll usually find that it's been registered for years before you searched for it.

The only major registrar that I know of that did this was Network Solutions. They did it for a few days in 2008 before getting trashed in the press:

[https://arstechnica.com/uncategorized/2008/01/network- soluti...](https://arstechnica.com/uncategorized/2008/01/network-solutions- defends-frontrunningto-stop-frontrunners/)

More recently, when we show a name as available, we'll check again with VeriSign (who runs the .com registry) to make sure. And if it's not available, we'll switch the color from green to red -- a good example is eager.com. It's not in the zone, but not available to register.

<comment><USER202> Okay, I suppose that's plausible. I just had a few questionable situations and it seemed fishy.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER204> GD is just overpriced. Since then I move away all my domains to local registrar. thanks.

</comment><comment><USER205> This always has been one of my concerns when checking for a domain with a registrar.

</comment><comment><USER206> I've always wondered about the possibility of search tools sniping like this.

</comment><comment><USER207> Yeah, faced something similar few years ago. Since then, switched to command line:

whois felons.io

</comment><comment><USER208> I've had good experience with hover.com which is a subsidiary of Tucows.

</comment><comment><USER209> networksolutions did this a long time ago too. They stole a domain from me searching. So I testing it by searching for random name and 20 minutes later they registered it.

They got caught and said sorry. That was about it.

</comment><comment><USER210> This. Never use them, and never work with people who insist on using them.

</comment><comment><USER211> Had this happen as well. Use whois in the console instead: whois felons.io

</comment><comment><USER212> Didn't we learn to stay away from GoDaddy after their SOPA stance?

</comment><comment><USER213> Yees, it happened to me.

More bad news: it's not just GoDaddy.

How's this not an FTC violation?

</comment><comment><USER214> I'm old enough that I always just typed 'Whois' at a Unix prompt.

</comment><comment><USER215> This happened to me... in 1998. Network Solutions. Never again.

</comment><comment><USER216> Next time use porkbun, the only sensible choice

(not affiliated, just mindblown)

</comment><comment><USER217> I've been using hover.com for years. never had a problem.

</comment><comment><USER218> so can you DOS godday with that ? create a script that take a word of the dictionary, add a great and search for it on godaddy

wait for godaddy to buy them!

e.g. I just searched for greatfelons.io

</comment><comment><USER219> I had the exact same experience with Godaddy 10 years ago.

</comment><comment><USER220> Have some fun and search for millions of domains per day!

</comment><comment><USER221> I guess I am one of the few who thinks GoDaddy is a decent service. Yes, they front run, which sucks. Could I move? Sure. Moving a large amount of domains with differing end dates is painful and expensive.

</comment><comment><USER222> We intentionally have our test domains hosted with godaddy to make sure our product works with the worst possible DNS tools on the planet. If it'll work on godaddy - it'll work anywhere...

</comment><comment><USER223> 100%. Has happened to me too. SUPER scammy company.

</comment><comment><USER224> The godaddy search works while Namecheap is slow

</comment><comment><USER225> Happened to me too. In my case it was sslnx.com

</comment><comment><USER226> well all corporations rise and fall, guess the direction for godaddy - tbh I wonder how they managed for so many years ..

</comment><comment><USER227> Or perhaps someone else had the same idea. Domains get registered all the time. For someone else to want the same domain you want on the same day may seem like a low probability event but when multiplied by the number of people and domains purchased through godaddy every day the rate of low probability events happening is quite high. Experiences like yours probably happen to multiple people every day through no malicious activity on the part of godaddy.

tl;dr never attribute to malice that which is bound to happen because statistics

</comment><comment><USER228> +1 happened to me as well with GoDaddy.

</comment><comment><USER229> This sounds like something that could be easily exploited - search for a bunch of nonsense domains on godaddy, let them register every one of them, at some point that becomes unprofitable. Use the xkcd algorithm - horse-battery- staple.com, parrot-bananna-nachos.com, dog-cat-chicken.com, etc. Even if they only pay a couple dollars each it becomes unprofitable at some point.

Front running domains used to be a widespread practice but I thought it was abolished at some point before all the new TLDs were added.

</comment><comment><USER230> you know, this explains why I have lost a couple domains in the past. What a shady shitty thing to do.

</comment><comment><USER231> Where would you recommend searching?

</comment><comment><USER232> True. Heard this story many times.

</comment><comment><USER233> I lost my .com in a similar way.

</comment><comment><USER234> Hover has been great for me.

</comment><comment><USER235> godaddy is ran by crooks...

</comment><comment><USER236> Just use whois on the cli

</comment><comment><USER237> well known. only use domains.google (for searching).

</comment><comment><USER238> How the fuck is this bullshit fake news still here.

It's just not true and is also pretty close to liable.

It's understandable OP mightn't understand domain front running and how Go Daddy will NOT be doing that.

But Go Daddy has addressed front running before and also this specific incident [π]

Is everyone here mentally ill?

No one able to even talk about how this might have come from a side channel so we all actually learn something rather than whatever this is?

[edit] And wow, the account claiming this, was created to post this. No other comments. Not even on this thread. We don't even know if they are 12 and also searched for the domain on another site but forgot. This is what we are basing this liable on?

[π] [https://domaininvesting.com/godaddy-still-not- frontrunning-d...](https://domaininvesting.com/godaddy-still-not-frontrunning- domain-searches/) [https://twitter.com/GoDaddy/status/1306731693710204928](https://twitter.com/GoDaddy/status/1306731693710204928)

</comment><comment><USER239> I hope someone from Godaddy responds to this.

</comment><comment><USER240> I wonder if I search for extremely offensive domain names, will GoDaddy register those too? Worth a try!

</comment><comment><USER241> This should be illegal and they should get sued by the US govt.

</comment><comment><USER242> Obviously.

</comment><comment><USER17> The registrar of that domain is GoDaddy, but that doesn't mean that the owner of the domain is GoDaddy. If you look at who.godaddy.com you'll see that it's not GoDaddy that owns the domain.

In this case, I don't see any evidence of front-running. It's more likely that it's a coincidence that someone registered the domain name a day after you searched for it. In fact, I personally would consider that to be more of a 'premium' domain, so it's logical that someone simply also searched for it and bought it.

Personally, when I search for domains, and it's available, I usually just register it and don't wait. I only wait and not register it right then and there if I'm OK with not getting it.

<comment><USER243> Do you happen to be Bill Hartzer, contributor for GoDaddy?

You might want to disclose your affiliation on these kinds of topics, especially when you're arguing the company's side.

<comment><USER244> Searching (on DDG) for "Bill Hartzer" and "GoDaddy" doesn't turn up any obvious affiliation.

There are DNS related articles by "Bill Hartzer", but they seem more to be calling out places for doing shady crap. Including GoDaddy (for front running?). eg:

[https://www.billhartzer.com/domain-names/godaddy-caught- regi...](https://www.billhartzer.com/domain-names/godaddy-caught-registering- domains-after-availability-lookup/)

That's just an initial impression anyway. ;)

<comment><USER243> I ran into an article on GoDaddy's blog [1], that's why I thought of an affiliation. Might still be a random coincidence, there are probably quite a few people sharing the name with a certain German cheese.

[1] [https://www.godaddy.com/garage/what-is-deep-linking-and- how-...](https://www.godaddy.com/garage/what-is-deep-linking-and-how-can-you- use-it-to-boost-promotions-for-your-online-store/)

<comment><USER244> Oh, that does look like there's a relationship between them.

Good find. :)</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Gary Vaynerchuk and Hustling - Don't Underestimate Effort - <AUTHOR> http://www.fuzedmarketing.com/social-media/dont-underestimate-effort-gary-vaynerchuk-and-hustling/

<comment><USER2> This is the real truth when people talk about how they work very little and make a lot. They redefine "work" to conveniently ignore the huge amount of self-promotion that goes on.

I often wonder how much Tim Ferris, Mr. 4-hour workweek, spends promoting all his shit. I'm going to guess that it's significantly more than 4 hours a week.

Engaging with a community is extremely time consuming, but is also very rewarding. It definitely translated to increased sales on my site, which was a huge surprise to me.

<comment><USER3> That's good to hear. Actually I'd like to see more self-promotion from you here, or at least less fear of self-promotion.

When I read your comment I immediately wonder what kind of site had community engagement translate into increased sales. Rather than make me go to your profile and figure out which site you're referring to, please just put in a link. That makes it a lot easier for me. Don't fear self-promotion when you're on topic.

<comment><USER2> One of the things I've found about effective promotion is choosing your audience. While I'd love more attention and respect from the HN crowd, it doesn't really translate to sales for me. So, I don't put a lot of effort into promoting myself here. I think it's an important point that a lot of us tech geeks miss: Unless your product is aimed at fellow tech geeks, don't worry what HN people think of it (or of you).

But, since you asked, on <http://www.obsidianportal.com> we saw a significant uptick in premium subscriptions when we hired someone to manage our Twitter and Facebook account. We brought in someone from our community and he did a great job increasing engagement.

We have a reputation for being very easy to engage, and I do as many interviews/guest-spots on podcasts and blogs (roleplaying game blogs, not tech stuff) as people will have me. I love the subject material, so it's fun to talk about, but it's still "work" and takes a lot of time.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> We geeks habitually look for shortcuts in everything. We love the "viral" concept because other people do the hustling for us. But sometimes there's no substitute for effort.

Case in point: Metcalfe/Ethernet: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1418874>

<comment><USER4> You have to seed the market even if you have a viral coefficient exceeding 1.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Loved his talk at RailsConf. Was a longtime fan of his show and he seemed like a real genuine dude. Great off the cuff too.

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-QWHkcCP3tA&feature=playe...](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-QWHkcCP3tA&feature=player_embedded)

</comment><comment><USER6> Seems like they've underestimated the effort it needs to keep a database server running.

</comment><comment><USER7> Vaynerchuk is neither an anomaly nor is he wildly successful. He's a guy who talks about himself that way, a lot, but in the end knows very little about many things.

<comment><USER8> @jsavimbi I am super sorry you feel that way about me, it's funny I do talk a lot but what I am proud of is what i do when I am not talking. I hope we can meet one day and talk, I am not really looking to change your mind but I am hoping you may look at me in a different light, I wish you well and hope to prove you wrong ;) ( In a good way )

<comment><USER9> Hey gary, any quick tips for us on how you manage notification about you/your brand? Ie how do you find threads about you and reply so quickly? Google alerts seems ok but not as real-time as I'd like.

<comment><USER8> Alerts and search.twitter are huge for me, not much else I see

<comment><USER9> Thanks Gary!</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: WordPress plugins to submit new posts to HN automatically? - <AUTHOR>

Hi guys I was looking for a plugin to publish my essays and blog posts directly to HN. I know that HN does not have an API, therefore I played a little bit with scraping requests etc and just got banned (emailed @pg about it).
Anyway, is there a proven to be working WordPress plugin to get articles posted to HN automatically? Or would someone be interested in developing one?
Thanks. <comment><USER2> There's a reason there isn't an api or plugin for auto submission. Think about it.

<comment><USER3> Well abusers actually get banned very quickly. So if anyone might abuse, this will be discouraging. However I have an ifttt recipe that does some post- publishing hooks and makes life easier. I am not sure it is purely an evil idea.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This sounds like just what HN needs. Sites shouldn't have to rely on manual spam or the goodwill of auto-submitters like iProject and evo_9 to get their precious content spammed on HN anymore, it's 2012!</comment>


Accident: Westjet B738 at Orlando on May 18th 2019, laser injures pilot - <AUTHOR> http://avherald.com/h?article=4c845b48&opt=0 <comment><AUTHOR> Accident applies because of injury to persons, if it were a gear up landing it'd be a 'serious incident'. [https://pilot-protection- services.aopa.org/news/2016/may/04/...](https://pilot-protection- services.aopa.org/news/2016/may/04/did-i-just-have-an-accident-or-an-incident)</comment>


Microsoft Selling Office 365 Within iPad Apps, and Apple Is Getting Its 30% Cut - <AUTHOR> http://recode.net/2014/03/27/microsoft-is-selling-office-365-within-ipad-apps-and-apple-is-getting-its-30-percent-cut/ <comment><USER2> This could just as easily backfire for Apple.

Lets assume Office 365 is a runaway success and two or three years from now it becomes a must have, essential piece of software for business iPad users.

At that point Microsoft starts having the power.

It can start adding _must have features_ to Office 365 that only work with Windows Phone or features that turn up first on Windows Phone.

It now has a Trojan Horse that allows it to slowly but surely chip away at that particular iPad user group, working hard to move then away from Apple and back to Windows.</comment>


Ring: Advanced cache interface for Python - <AUTHOR> https://ring-cache.readthedocs.io/ <comment><USER2> Every example seems to follow this pattern

      client = pymemcache.client.Client(('127.0.0.1', 11211))  #2 create a client

      # save to memcache client, expire in 60 seconds.
      @ring.memcache(client, expire=60)  #3 lru -> memcache
      def get_url(url):
          return requests.get(url).content

How are you supposed to configure the client at 'runtime' instead of 'compile time' (when the code is executed and not when it's imported)?

Careful placement of imports in order to correctly configure something just introduces delicate pain points. It'll work now, but an absent minded import somewhere else later can easily lead to hours of debugging.

<comment><USER3> You can use a closure to pass in the configuration.

        def configure_memcache(client_ip, port):
            client = pymemcache.client.Client((client_ip, port))
            @ring.memcache(client, expire=60)
            def get_url(url):
                return requests.get(url).content

            return get_url

Then in your code which imports the above library:

        get_url = configure_memcache('127.0.0.1', 11211)
        result = get_url('https://www.google.com')

<comment><USER4> I'd rather have a sane API.

        def configure_ring():
            if DEBUG:
                return Ring(backend='debug')
            else:
                return Ring(backend='memcache', ...)

        ring = configure_ring()

        @ring.cache(expire=60)
        def get_url(...):
            ...

Tons of other libraries out there that implement this exact pattern.

<comment><AUTHOR> agree

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Extremely poor design:

* Not DRY. What if I want to use a cache for production but disable caching in development? And I have 10s or even 100s of functions that rely on the cache? Because the decorators contain implementation/client-specific parameters, I now have to add another entire layer of abstraction over this.

* Implementation is tied to the decorator, e.g. `ring.memcache` -- seriously? Why does it matter?

* What about setting application defaults, such as an encoding scheme, a key prefix/namespace, a default timeout?

I'm sorry but this is over-engineered garbage and good luck to anyone who uses it.

<comment><AUTHOR> I agree they are missing features but still they are easy goal with small refactoring so it will be solved soon. Issue #129 is about application default. After that, dryrun is just replacing default action from 'get_or_update' to 'execute'

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Is there a python equivalent to php's apcu? Apcu, in the PHP world, leverages mmap to provide a multi-process kv store, with fast, built in serialization. So it's simple and very fast for single server, multi-process caching.

<comment><USER6> It's not necessary in python (or many other server frameworks), because python doesn't typically follow a model of process-per-request. You can just stick it in memory available to all of your threads.

<comment><USER5> I imagine there are python users doing multi-process, aren't there? (since the GIL is limiting for some use cases).

<comment><USER6> Yeah - if necessary you can use something like uWSGIs caching interface ([https://uwsgi-docs.readthedocs.io/en/latest/Caching.html](https://uwsgi- docs.readthedocs.io/en/latest/Caching.html)). For most of these sorts of things you'll typically be fine caching the object in question once per process though, because the processes are still persistent. If you truly need shared memory between processes (rather than just an in-memory version of an object used for a lot of requests) there's other options, and it's infrequent that you need something that's shared between request processes but is not shared between other web servers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Great project. There is only one angle that I feel is missing: multiple requests for the same resource could cause duplicated work, especially if the value generating function is slow.

I wrote a sample solution to that problem, feel free to reach out if you ever consider adding a similar feature, I'd be happy to contribute. (fyi: the current implementation is in Go)

[https://github.com/kristoff-it/redis-memolock](https://github.com/kristoff- it/redis-memolock)

<comment><AUTHOR> Actually it is common requests from the users but it wasn't solved yet. I will check the project, thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Looks extensive and I'll likely try using the module at some point.

One thing, why not stash all the function methods under a "ring" or "cache" attribute, eg

      @ring.lru()
      def foo()
        ..

      foo.cache.update()
      foo.cache.delete()
      ..

This might be less likely to clash with any existing function attributes (if you're wrapping a 3rd party function say).

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the great advice. I never thought about this problem.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Like this a lot.

How could only invalidate everything related to a specific client/customer/account?

I wonder how they cascade these invalidations at bigger and more complex systems.

<comment><AUTHOR> It doesn't have any cascading feature for now. @ring.redis_hash can be helpful for certain cases, but it is not a generic solution.

In future, there is a plan for indirect invalidation. It will use another key to decide expiration. Though this is not designed for cascading, but it will probably work for a part of them

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> The api doesn't seem to be fleshed out compared to dogpile.cache yet.

Normally you don't want to pass cache backend instance to decorators on module level.

</comment><comment><USER11> How does this compare to dogpile?

<comment><AUTHOR> I reviewed a few cache libraries, but this is the new one I didn't checked.

Roughly, Ring consists of 6 key features - sub-functions, universal decorator, data coder, asyncio support, consistent and readable key generation and abstract-transparent back-end access. I will check dogpile soon, thanks.

<comment><USER12> Any blogpost or link to your review? Thanks

<comment><AUTHOR> Because I didn't write one before, I made a new one with the projects I remember: [https://github.com/youknowone/ring/tree/feature- table#featur...](https://github.com/youknowone/ring/tree/feature- table#feature-table)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> >Cache is a popular concept widely spread on the broad range of computer science but its interface is not well developed yet.

This sentence is grammatically incorrect. Replace "Cache" with Caching".

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, I will fix it

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I needed something like this that allows access to and manual manipulation of the cache, and I ended up forking functools.lru_cache code. This library definitely fits the bill.

</comment><comment><USER15> > Memcached itself is out of the Python world

Don't know why this bothers me so much... but it's actually from Perl. It was born at LiveJournal, a well-known Perl shop.

<comment><USER16> I actually read this as _outside_.

<comment><AUTHOR> Will it be correct expression if I fix it to outside? [https://github.com/youknowone/ring/pull/133/files](https://github.com/youknowone/ring/pull/133/files)

<comment><USER16> Yeah, I commented on the PR as such.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> To me, mocking of the caches for testing is super important and missing.

I searched the article, the linked "Why Ring?", and this page of responses for "mock", but no results.

Maybe it's just me!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks. I didn't think adding them to the why page. For now, the actual projects work like:

      if DEBUG:
          ring_cache = functools.partial(ring.dict, {}, default_action='execute')
      else:
          ring_cache = functools.partial(ring.redis, client)

      @ring_cache(...)
      def ...

Which is not very good solution at all. I will fix the design and properly document it. Thanks for suggesting why page and mock section.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> no dogpile lock support?

<comment><AUTHOR> I want to say "not yet". It is shame that I didn't know docpile lock.</comment></comment>


Human Terrain: Visualizing the world's population in 3D - <AUTHOR> https://pudding.cool/2018/10/city_3d/ <comment><USER2> Very impressive - well done!</comment>


How to Ace Amazon's PM Interview: A Bar Raiser's Advice - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@crawlwalkrun/how-to-ace-amazons-pm-interview-a-bar-raiser-s-advice-d6369fd36cff <comment><AUTHOR> We are two Amazon veterans with over decade of experience at the company. We tried to write down everything we wished candidates who wanted to work there knew before walking into their interview day.</comment>