[Arqu]

This is a known trick of many registrars, but GoDaddy has to be the leader. Happened to me on two occasions as well. Recently it's supposed to be a bit cracked down on as they have strict quotas on how many domains they can reserve without outright buying.

As for my case, it was a couple years ago where they would also host a small site redirecting to the auction. It states that it is owned by some XYZ entity, but if you peel enough layers of the onion scheme you can get to their name.

You can read more about the practice and measures here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domain_tasting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domain_name_front_running