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Is GoDaddy selling my personal details...???

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aditya agrawal

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I know this may sound weird here's my story.

Whenever I register a domain with godaddy, I get a spam mail from a web-designing company with the subject

"Aditya Agrawal, I'd like to discuss on your new domain purchase at GoDaddy"

Now I am ok with people spamming me coz its as easy as "delete" but what freaks me out is that it happens whenever I register a domain at godaddy and within 3 days of registration. Moreover, they even know the domain that I have booked.
I've registered domain with almost many registrars like namecheap, whois, name.com, enom but this never happened with them.

Guys help me if you know how this is happening?
 
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The views expressed on this page by users and staff are their own, not those of NamePros.
My most recent reg at GoDaddy, I received over 32 spam emails, 4 USPS spam mails, 5 phone calls and it's only been 6 weeks since I registered the domain. They started coming 2 hours after I registered the domain at Godaddy with a $1 coupon code & no whois privacy.
It's happened multiple times over the years when using a coupon code at Godaddy but i just ignored it. This time though it felt like harassment.

I've never had such a thing occur with any other registrar....


I completely understand daj . For once and twice its fine. If it happens again and again, it feels someones watching you which is breach of privacy.
 
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I am also getting similar email from those web designing and hosting companies within a day or soon, i also felt same
 
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are you choosing privacy guard while registring

I think most domainers don't use privacy for a variety of very valid reasons.

With regards to the OP's issue, I too get tons of these things. But lately I have been having fun turning it around. I crafted an email that mocks theirs and essentially asks if they want to buy a domain. Its a template so just a couple clicks and its on the way. With the language barrier I often get some very confused responses, but it has stopped a couple of the companies. The other thing I sometimes do is respond back and ask them why i would choose to do business with a firm that doesn't respect my privacy as exhibited by the spam? This too helps a little.

Overall it is just a normal part of the business and probably not much to be done other than configuring your email to send them to trash.
 
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Most likely it's probably not GoDaddy. Someone has figured out that the people who buy domains at GoDaddy are more likely to buy web design and other services, so I suspect that they're trolling the whois.

Another reason to use privacy when you register a domain...
 
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Godaddy markets to people who don't know anything about websites so wouldn't that make for the perfect opportunity to try and sell your services to the uninformed. I'm sure they are targeting people because of that reason and also the sheer volume of registrations on any given day.
 
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GoDaddy doesn't sell your info or provide information on who is registering what domains. People do scrape whois and I get a bunch of spam emails myself when I register domains or make some kind of whois change on any of my names without privacy. I use a different address and phone number on the whois than I have in my personal GoDaddy account info and I get these emails to the whois address. I can tell you we are not giving your information to the people who are emailing you, you are very likely getting spammed from he whois.
 
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I get the same kind of spam but only for domains regged at GoDaddy.
Don't really think the argument that only whois crawlers are used... I have domains regged also with other registrars without whois privacy and I don't get spam (or I get very targeted spam :) ).
There's something fishy with GoDaddy - it's one of the reasons I gave up using them.
 
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We don't sell any info to spammers. I cant speak to why you don't get the same volume of emails when you register domains at other places but I can assure you it is not because we give out your information. The whois is public information. Many people can access it.
 
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@aditya agrawal I also have to mention those sunglasses you're wearing are awesome. I wish I had a pair like that. I'm gonna have to keep my eye out.
 
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We don't sell any info to spammers. I cant speak to why you don't get the same volume of emails when you register domains at other places but I can assure you it is not because we give out your information. The whois is public information. Many people can access it.

Why is everyone in agreement here that it only happens with names they registered on GoDaddy?
For me it only has happened for domains I registered with a coupon code at GoDaddy which seems quite odd to me and made me wonder if an employee could be selling Godaddy WHOIS information to lead companies. Is WHOIS information of recently registered domains readily available in a file for a Godaddy employee to access?
 
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But is it as soon as you register a new domain.?
The problem is not the spam but how do they come to know that you have just booked a domain.

I think they are using just dropped tool, here you can check what today register and also checked reg. domain 90 days ago
upload_2015-7-31_4-41-24.png
upload_2015-7-31_4-41-24.png
 
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yes that is domain tools you can see all ( new reg., deleted etc.) here
 
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yes that is domain tools you can see all ( new reg., deleted etc.) here

Yep just checked it out, and it allows you to search for recent registrations at any registrar of your choice made in the last hour, last 4 hours, etc.

They charge $9.99 for 500 searches and $15.99 for 1000 searches.

Crazy.. didn't know such a tool allowed you to do that.

Also found this free tool which lists recently registered domains by name servers, most likely how they're doing it: http://www.dailychanges.com/

I wonder why they only focus on GoDaddy domains? I guess because GoDaddy holds the most amount of domains compared to other registrars.
 
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Whenever I change my whois (or even my nameservers) I'll get this for most of my domains, at almost any registrar. Someone just scrapes the whois changes.

same. for years now. i just hit the spam button.
 
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No one has to scrape. The info is readily available. Its right here:

http://www.dailychanges.com/new-domains/

Godaddy is at the top with the 38 million domains "DOMAINCONTROL.COM" and a few other name-servers "CASHPARKING.COM" etc.. you can download a CSV file of new registrations, transfers, deletes...

If it bothers you just hit SPAM and allow Google's spam filter to learn from your entries. My advice: spend your time on more productive things! :)
 
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@aditya agrawal I also have to mention those sunglasses you're wearing are awesome. I wish I had a pair like that. I'm gonna have to keep my eye out.
Maybe you can work him out a swap for GoDaddy credits! ;)
 
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cocaseco We all are domainers here and privacy would be disastrous for us. I dont think anyone would want to miss out on potential buyers making a direct offer on the domains because of few spammers.

deflee79 Possibly, you are right. Going through the thread I atleast know there are tools to find new registers. Now I am more interested in finding how do we segregate only godaddy domains.


DNVantage .com only. I've not bought many other Tld's at godaddy.

cm4150 daj thats a lot of help. I was aware that there are tools to check expired and expiring, but not the new regs..


Joe Styler Thanks for the compliment. I feel aviators would suite you nice.

With regards to godaddy, Now that I know the tools I am convinced that godaddy need not do it.

But if I was the one spamming, I would target everyone other than godaddy. Because most of the domains on godaddy are bought by domainers who only want to sell it further. So chances of reaching a potential client is very less.
I would target hostgator or ipage because domains bought there are bought with sole intention of developing. Chances of reaching a potential client is far more over there than here.
 
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If you have some new tlds in your portfolio I'd advise using one of them as your whois email contact info if you want less spam. Since I moved I haven't received one single spam email. My guess is the scrapers aren't registering them as email details.
 
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If you have some new tlds in your portfolio I'd advise using one of them as your whois email contact info if you want less spam. Since I moved I haven't received one single spam email. My guess is the scrapers aren't registering them as email details.

That sounds right. Nice input. I use Google inbox personally and keep a bunch of different emails for different reasons. Helps a lot with the spam.
 
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you gotta love indian spammers. i think spam would be reduced drastically if they just weren't online.
 
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I also got mail from aditya when i register domains. May b they check from whois that daily how much n who registers the domains and email is so written in whois details, so may be they fetch data with leads generator from whois sites by checking domains one by one.
 
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