Here is a basic warning to the uneducated masses of (us) normal people out here. Be very, very careful where and how you do a domain name search when you are researching buying a domain name. I know people will dispute what I am about to write, but, what I am writing absolutely true. This has happened to me many, many times now. I do not know how to fight or protect against this unscrupulous business behavior that www.godaddy.com is doing. Maybe someone else knows how to stop it. Ok, so what happens: You visit go daddy's site or another web-hosting provider's site (which may well be a front for go daddy) and enter or "search" for a potential domain name & you may not have decided on your domain name for sure yet & your just checking availability. You return the next day or so after thinking the names over and re-enter the domain name you have decided to go with. Blammm... Your unique name you have chosen is now taken, yet, you can buy it as a premium domain name - this $6.00 domain name is now "taken / reserved" and is for sale at an inflated price maybe $1,000.00 or more. Your screwed! I am writing this because I just found out a domain name which I bought (paid for) and bought domain privacy on back in October through another hosting company (which I naively trusted) somehow didn't correctly process my transaction ~ thus, I don't actually own the domain now (yet I have a receipt for it). After running a whois check on the domain I disturbingly found out that a company (domains by proxy - affiliate / subsidiary of godaddy) has the domain. This domain name was for a private attorney client of mine. Attorney web names are pricey. I am a small web developer myself and own a couple hundred domain names. A few years back I would research domain name variations I was interested in. When I would return to go daddy (literally the next day) the domain (s) I were researching were premium names $1,000.00 and up.
This practice happens and I don't know how to protect against it. This is just a warning. One place I have found safe to search on is yahoo.
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