Monkey Bites

Monkey Bites: "Yesterday's Monkey Bites post about a Slashdot user's domain name getting swiped out from under him generated a great deal of controversy. Not only here, but also on Slashdot and Digg, where the story was mentioned. We here at Monkey Bites were flooded with e-mail and reader comments alternately questioning the story's validity and offering evidence that the scenario is all too real.

I'd like to take a minute to respond to all of your feedback by pointing out a couple of things that seem to have gotten lost in the noise.

First, the aforementioned user, GoatMonkey2112, initially blamed GoDaddy for swiping his prospective domain name from him. As we reported in an update to the original post, this turned out not to be the case. Even though GoatMonkey2112 searched for the domain name on GoDaddy.com, a different registrar grabbed the name and parked it. Since the only company that knew of his interest in the domain name was GoDaddy, this would give most users the initial impression that GoDaddy was responsible for snatching up the domain name. A quick WHOIS search shows that GoDaddy was not responsible for buying and parking the domain, as we noted in the second update to the post. Also noted in that update was one possible explanation offered by the user shaggysurfs. His theory was both affirmed and refuted by readers."