Does GoDaddy Support Internet "Kiting"?

Has this ever occurred to you?

1. You think of a domain name you would like to register (for a business or other organzation).

2. You go to a domain registrar (like godaddy.com or register.com).

3.  You search for the domain and see that it is available, but you don't immediately plonk down your money to buy it (perhaps you are considering several domain names, and would just like to know which ones are available).

4. You go back a few days later to register the name that you decided on, and it's already been registered (a name that hadn't been registered for 10+ years is now "coincidentally" snatched up).


It's not your imagination. Companies out there are sniffing your web searches and squatting on domain names that you come up with. The biggest offender seems to be a company called Metapredict.com.

Bob Parsons, the CEO of GoDaddy, has come out against this practice. But he didn't actually say that his company, the world's largest domain registrar, has done anything to stop it.

I wrote to Bob Parsons at GoDaddy and got an email including the following:

“We can tell you that GoDaddy.com is no way associated with Metapredict.com or UltraRPM dba. However, we cannot comment on this practice with any further details.”

In other words, GoDaddy and Metapredict don’t have a direct financial relationship. But, it seems to me that GoDaddy has a financial incentive to support Metapredict, and isn’t going to do anything to stop them. The fear that Metapredict will hop on your domain name forces many people (myself included) to always immediately register any name idea, instead of just searching for it — a habit that greatly increases the revenue of domain registration firms like GoDaddy. Shame on you, GoDaddy! And if I'm wrong, then you need to change your stance that you "cannot comment on this practice".