I don't understand how that could possibly be profitable. Imagine how many searches there must be for new domains every day. There is no way they could afford to buy all of the domains that people searched for.
And if they had any means of measuring how "good" a domain name is, in order to filter the searches that people make, and front run only the ones looking for good domain names – I don't think that would make sense either. If you were able to reliably measure how good a domain name was you could just buy the domain name right away without waiting for any customers to search for the domain.
Anyway, for anyone that is looking for a registrar to use I recommend that you stay away from GoDaddy. Register your domains with Gandi.net, they are nice and good. https://www.gandi.net/en-GB
Because registrars have the power to "reserve" domains they like for some time either for free or for only a pennies.
https://domaininvesting.com/godaddy-still-not-frontrunning-d...
I have no information on whether they are or aren't front-running, but every time I've seen a specific allegation, it's been disproven. That doesn't make it factual either way, but I like Godaddy for enough other reasons to not use them, so I don't particularly care if they are or aren't, but I've yet to see a specific allegation be found credible.
Its because it used to happen and people are convinced it is still happening usually due to the aftermarkets. Its just not economically feasible anymore.
Doesn't sound like much of an investigation. It has happened to so many people (including myself) that either they do it themselves, allow third party access to domain search or their employees are able to do it.
But like I said, these allegations crop up all the time, and investigations are done all the time, and every single time I have seen them, they have been quickly disproven. I am not an oracle, so it's possible that I've missed the cache of definite proof that exists, but I have seen lots and lots of debunking of the notion.
To your point though, there are numerous ways that could make someone feel like they were front-run, whether or not they had been.
* Before the ubiquity of SSL, I think it was common for people to buy search traffic from ISPs. If there were domain-squatters paying for this data, it would be trivial for them to buy anonymous traffic data, filter by "godaddy.com?domain=" and collate the reports. If they also cross-referenced the ${domain} part of that query with the number of people who attempted to go to ${domain}, it would be a good signal that owning ${domain} could be profitable
* Obviousness. It's not always, but often enough that when I see these allegations arise, they're related to The New Thing. e.g., 3 years ago, a lot of people felt like they were front-run for domains they were considering that started with "nft," or "crypto." Now, I'd wager that a lot of people feeling like they were front-run were considering domain names with "ai" in them.
* Selling search volume. I have no idea if Godaddy is or isn't doing this, but it's definitely a possibility. If they are, it isn't front-running, but the effect is just as nefarious IMO. I believe they've said that they don't, but that's from a vague memory and I have no idea if they can or should be considered credible
(I do not actually believe this.)
If you imagine ordering all the domains in order of desirability, where the most desirable are long gone, and nobody wants "nsejrx8oesrjasrjb.com" (and even if they want an obfuscated domain, they don't want that obfuscated domain), there is a middle ground where it's not worth pre-registering but if you see an indication of interest it may push you over, especially if you have a cheap back door for registration as registrars do. In that case, the only ones sensible to front-run are the ones in that middle ground. It is possible that I never chose a domain that triggered such an algorithm. That said, as I was aware of this possibility at the time, I did deliberately try to come up with a combination of tasty & tempting words in a new format that looked like maybe someone would really want it, and I never could get the hypothetical algorithms to bite.
Take a crack at it if you're interested; it really isn't that hard or a big investment in time.
I can confirm this experience, on 2 occasions when I looked up a very specific (and definitely not common) domain, they were suddenly reserved by GoDaddy and sold for a premium price. Not hundreds, but like 50-150 instead of 12.
I can't prove it, of course, but after hearing about those problems with GoDaddy multiple times it just seems too convenient for them to be a coincidence.