Telemarketing spam after registering domain name

Thread Starter

strantor

Joined Oct 3, 2010
6,782
Anyone else get flooded with telemarketing calls after registering a new domain name? I purchased a .com domain 1 year ago through godaddy. I went to renew it yesterday and godaddy threw an offer at me to purchase the .net, .biz, and .info for the same domain name for a great price, so I took the bait. At checkout, there was some privacy protection option enabled for all 4 domains that jacked the price up 4X what i thought it would be. So I turned that option off. Today my phone has been ringing off the proverbial "hook."
Screenshot_20171124-182954.png
Most of these if I answer it's just silence. One time an Indian guy was there peddling something about my .info domain and I hung up on him.

I've had similar experiences before, like when I bought my house. They are still sending me spam (refinance offers, and crap that's supposed to look like it's from my bank or the IRS) to my physical address. They get my contact info from the public record that is generated when you buy a house.

I didn't get all this crap when I registered my .com domain last year so I must have paid for the privacy protection. So now I'm wondering (with my typical level of paranoia) if I am merely getting these spam calls because of public records, or if it's because godaddy actually sold or gave my contact info to these spammers because I didnt pay for some BS feature.

Anybody have the inside scoop?
 

JoeJester

Joined Apr 26, 2005
4,390
Your info is also on the whois database. I know I get emails about the .info .biz et al domain names that I am not interested in. Since they opened up the extensions from the old .net .com .org one can spend a lot of money securing their names. With the 2020 election coming up, those that even think of running are buying up their names, to prevent others from securing them and making the politico pay more than it's worth.

No fret, if you didn't get the name, some sex site might be interested if your domain became too popular. Look at whitehouse.gov ... whitehouse.com was a sex site. .com is the most common extension. Many have been caught by that little error in typing.
 

Thread Starter

strantor

Joined Oct 3, 2010
6,782
I got the name, no worries there. I'm justcurious how immediately after registering it, I get all these spam calls. Is it more likely spammers scan the entirety of the whois database every single day looking for newly registered domains to spam, or is it more likely that godaddy sold them the lead?
 

JoeJester

Joined Apr 26, 2005
4,390
Tough to tell. GoDaddy seems like the culprit especially since they offer an OPT OUT program for cash.

It took a while for the spammers to find me.
 

GopherT

Joined Nov 23, 2012
8,009
I got the name, no worries there. I'm justcurious how immediately after registering it, I get all these spam calls. Is it more likely spammers scan the entirety of the whois database every single day looking for newly registered domains to spam, or is it more likely that godaddy sold them the lead?
It takes about 10-minutes to write a web scraping script in python, pull the newly added domains and their registered owners contact info.
For a list of new domains
https://domainpunch.com/premium/daily.php

Then enter into a WHOIS search tool (all access the ICANN database).
 
Last edited:

Thread Starter

strantor

Joined Oct 3, 2010
6,782
It takes about 10-minutes to write a web scraping script in python, pull the newly added domains and their registered owners contact info.
For a list of new domains
https://domainpunch.com/premium/daily.php

Then enter into a WHOIS search tool (all access the ICANN database).
Thanks for pointing that out. I was under the misconception that you had to have a domain name in mind to perform a whois search.
 

Thread Starter

strantor

Joined Oct 3, 2010
6,782
Ok I've gone ahead on payed the godaddy Mafioso for "protection" on all my domains. Hopefully I stop getting the calls. But no less than 30 spammers already have my phone number.
 

WBahn

Joined Mar 31, 2012
29,976
Once your info is in the wild, it's in the wild.

I've got a LOT of domains via GoDaddy and I've never paid for the privacy protection. I bought my first domain through them about 20 years ago (perhaps a bit less). I've had some spam to the e-mails associated with the domains, but no phone calls. The spam e-mail is at a low enough rate (a few a month total) I can tolerate it.
 
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