Ask HN: Is GoDaddy lying to me about .tv domains?

11 points

2 years ago

I'm looking at buying a .tv domain. Let's say, for example, it's smell.tv. I did a search on whois.nic.tv, and the following comes up for smell.tv:

    Reserved Domain Name
    URL of the ICANN Whois Inaccuracy Complaint Form: https://www.icann.org/wicf/
    >>> Last update of WHOIS database: 2024-08-29T17:48:44Z <<<

So... reserved by the registry, yeah? Like a premium domain name they want to sell at a higher price. That's fine, but it wasn't showing up with a premium price on any of the registrars I tried. So I paid GoDaddy $119 for their "Domain Broker Service." Probably a scam, whatever. I was kind of thinking it might just bounce back with "the registry is not selling it at this time" or something. Instead, I got this:

> Broker: "I heard back from the domain owner and they are willing to sell which is great news. They are looking for $10,000 USD for the name."

Okayyy.

> Me: I’m a little confused who the current owner is. The domain says it’s reserved by the registry. Does GoDaddy own it?

> Broker: No, GoDaddy is the registrar the domain is registered with. The domain is owned by a third party apart from GoDaddy.

So like. Either the WHOIS registry is lying or the broker is lying, right? It can't both be a "Reserved Domain Name" and "owned by a third party." That "ICANN Whois Inaccuracy Complaint Form" emphasizes they don't have jurisdiction over ccTLDs, but I guess I hope there'd be some recourse for straight-up falsifying a WHOIS entry? Maybe not.

Here's the part that complicates things. Just who is the .tv registrar, anyway? According to Wikipedia, it's... GoDaddy!

> As Verisign opted not to renew its contract, on 14 December 2021, GoDaddy signed a contract with the government of Tuvalu to manage .tv registrations, increasing yearly payments to the government of Tuvalu to $10 million. In 2023, an agreement between the Government of Tuvalu and the GoDaddy Company outsourced the marketing, sales, promotion and branding of the .tv domain to the Tuvalu Telecommunications Corporation, which established a .tv Unit.

The only charitable interpretation I can think of is that the "third party" in question is this Tuvalu Telecommunications Corporation and they're the ones on the other end of the negotiation?

TLDR: Notoriously shady company is probably lying to me to make money

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