One of the tools I use on a regular basis is the Brand Monitor tool at DomainTools. This tool allows people to track domain name registrations (and deletions) using keywords such as brand names. This allows brands to track third parties who are registering domain names with their brands in them, and the tool also allows third parties, such as journalists, to track brand-related domain name registrations.
Yesterday evening, GoDaddy announced it was acquiring Neustar Registry. Once the acquisition is complete, the Neustar team would be called GoDaddy Registry. Had I, or others, been tracking GoDaddy related domain name registrations, we may have been alerted that something was up almost a month ago.
According to Whois records, GoDaddy registered the following domain names on March 13:
- GoDaddyRegistry.com
- GoDaddyRegistry.net
- GoDaddyRegistry.org
- GoDaddyRegistry.biz
Using the DomainTools search tool, I can see that there are other registered domain names with the GoDaddyRegistry phrase, including .uk, .co.uk, .ru, and possibly others.
From the looks of it, these domain names are registered under Whois privacy proxy. It does not look like these domain names are being used for anything yet. With the formation of GoDaddy Registry, the company will likely use GoDaddyRegistry.com independently or forward the domain names to the registry page within the GoDaddy website.
