Correct. Specifically, I am talking about the checkout process. If all you want to do is buy a domain, you do have to zip through pages saying “WAIT! Don’t you want to add hosting for just $4.95/month?! You sure? You can get ALL of this with your hosting! Buy it now!”
That’s what I mean. You learn really quick where the “No thanks, continue checkout” button is.
Their domain and hosting stuff is all straight up, once you buy it.
I still stand by godaddy being slimy. Not just for holding control-z’s domain hostage. Even if other registrars charge an extortion fee, that doesn’t make it ok. I’ve used godaddy for a bit, and have tried to stop using them, but failed [see below].
Reasons why they suck and/or they’re slimy:
That’s just off of my head.
It must be a frame of reference thing, then. I have fought my share of battles with several other registrars (Network Solutions, ATI Domains, DirectNIC, joker, register.com) and other than the marketing, they all suffer from the same problems you list.
In my experience, domain registration has always been a total pain in the ass. With GoDaddy, it’s much less of a pain in the ass - and much cheaper - than anywhere else.
Full disclosure: I have some connections with Go Daddy and I’m a customer.
After seeing the history of how high prices were for registration until recently, I have to disagree.
Every domain that is kept in redemption is not making money if there are other parties interested in getting it. Before there was redemption, the big registrars were only happy to switch the domains to the new owners that paid. Only that many former owners screamed that the time for losing a domain was too short and where reports of abuse, then ICANN decided to add the new redemption rule/time. Now the domains are put for bids or back orders with the understanding that if the owner decides to redeem then it is time and money wasted for both the possible future registrants and the registrar.
What I see here is that what you are calling “holding hostage” is in reality a fee for denying the registrars other forms of revenue when the registration price has fallen.
Sounds like a company that is making money then. For slimy you need to check what happened to RegisterFly
I’m willing cut slack to Go Daddy for the reason that it is one of the few companies that has the support people still located in the USA. There is a price for that.
Meh, it’s just a matter of scale. $10 is a reasonable fee. $80 (or 8x the cost of a years registration) is 'holding hostage".
I’m not saying there are worse companies than godaddy, i’m just saying there are better. Companies can make money and not be slimy. And i patronize those. Heck, my registrar is only about a buck more than godaddy, and it’s so worth it for that extra buck (for a low volume of domains). It makes money. It’s not slimy.
Their terms are nothing but a money grab.
I suggest you go fuck yourself and pay me $80 for your goof of being a corporate shill.
I just read that Network Solutions fee is $150. So it could always be worse.
Following up on this, I’ve been checking my expired domain name since Nov 2007, it was held up by GoDaddy until last week. Then it said:
Registrant:
Temporarily assigned to Eurobox Ltd.
p.o. box 108
St. Petersburg 197022
RU
I said “Oh shit”, that ain’t good. So for the hell of it I checked again this morning and it was available! I took the recommendation of fifty-six and registered with namecheap.com, their site was very hassle-free to use.
I knew I could wait out those bastards. 
I am glad it all worked out for you.
Heh. $80 is NOTHING. We charged $180 because that’s what we were charged by our registrar partners.
The deal is this: usually it’s more like a month – 29 days in the case of Tucows, I know that. Generally if the domain is used frequently, someone is going to notice in that 29 days if they suddenly stopped getting email/traffic/sales/whatever. If it’s a website they update more than once a month, they’ll notice the updates aren’t going through. Et cetera.
Redemption periods can pretty much last however long the registrar wants. They are, basically, holding the domain hostage. Their reasoning? There’s probably someone out there who wants to buy it. Heck, ONE guy at least wanted whatever it was, otherwise the domain wouldn’t have been registered in the first place. People have been known to pay in the thousands of dollars for a prime domain name. They aren’t going to perform independent valuations on every domain they’ve registered, so they figure an average and charge you somewhat less to get it back. If it’s a cool domain it ends up being a deal for you since if someone else buys it, you’re SOL unless they want to sell it back to you.
After a domain expires, the first thing that usually ends up on that page is a randomly generated ‘placeholder’. This is the page that has random links on it related, probably, to your webpage’s content. Generally when you see this page it means you can get your site back with minimal fuss.
They aren’t trying to screw you over personally. Even if they were, there isn’t much they can do about it. At this point, you don’t own the domain. Sad but true. They’re holding it right now out of courtesy. Unfortunately, they’re SO damn courteous that they’re going to keep holding it for a while. I’m sorry to break it to you, but your choices are to either pony up or hope nobody buys it when the time is up. Ask them how long their redemption periods last; they should give you a roughly two week window of time that your site will become available again.
GoDaddy yes they rob I…