GoDaddy Abusing Privileged Client information on Search Engines

[kerryplowright]

Godaddy.com is abusing privileged client information by listing information on search engines. After a new business acquires a domain through Godaddy.com, the company immediately posts the same domain name in other extensions ‘for sale’ and enables the name to be easily found on SERPs. They normally come up at the top of the page exposing their customer to competitors and domain predators. This is to extort and force the domain buyer, to purchase and protect the name in other extensions.

A customer of mine registered www.bellatutu.com as part of her www.downtowndoggy.com business. Moments later a search for the name reveals:

Coming Soon!
Go to the GoDaddy.com Home Page! www.bellatutu.net, Save on: Domain names, Web hosting,
email accounts, secure SSL certificates, ecommerce products AND MORE! ...
www.bellatutu.net/ - 24k - Cached - Similar pages

This listed at the top of the Search Page! It appears they rush off and register the alternate extensions and because the name is not ranked can expose the new name to competitors for purchase!

A company that predates on its own customers, exposes their intellectual property, and extorts money, is absolutely unworthy.

Have any of you experienced the same thing? Would be interested in your thoughts.

[Jenstar]

That .net version has been registered to someone for nearly a year, so no one could actually go and register it. It just happens that the person who registered it decided to park it at GoDaddy, and that page got indexed in the serps (probably because of a link from somewhere). It doesn't appear that GoDaddy is doing anything shady at all.

[kerryplowright]

Many thanks, this makes me feel a lot better. Funny they would buy the .NET though?

[wkw]

Many thanks, this makes me feel a lot better. Funny they would buy the .NET though?
Maybe not (so funny). .com may have been taken when the .net owner was out shopping for a name, then later it was released.

[Chris Boggs]

I once ordered some business cards from Vista Print. I was a consultant and used my company name on the card. The next day I went to register.com or networksolutions (I can't remember which) and tried to purchase the .com of my name but it had mysteriously been purchased the day before! I figured one of the methods that Vista Print uses to make money is to sell "Company" names to register or ns...I could be wrong, but that was so frustrating. I ended up buying the .us domain instead...

selling this kind of information or using it in other methods like you describe is I guess not illegal, no matter how "shady" it may seem.