Digg.com as a spam tool or registrar blackmailing customer?

This article describes an apparent case of GoDaddy blackmailing a customer. I actually think it may be one of the first new tactics by that clever bunch we all know and love.. spammers.. (more)

The guy's entire website is dedicated to online viral marketing and how you can use your blog to increase revenue. The key to this obvious plan is traffic. What better way to increase traffic than to get your story dugg enough to land on the front page? Couple this with people's recent fascination with blog vs. evil extortionistic corporations and viola we have a winner!

I think we will see a lot more of this in the future. I wonder if this guy works for or receives money from GoDaddy? If he does not, GoDaddy really does seem to be extorting him.. so which is worse, a spammer creating a stupid link site then promoting it via spam, GoDaddy telling him that they will look the other way for $199 or that the spammer is getting a boatload of free press and traffic from digg?

Something smells fishy to me about this whole thing so I decided to try and find some ties between Will Hanke and GoDaddy. Here's a summary of what I found:

• On the president and founder of GoDaddy's blog Will posts a comment
  Will Hanke (Aug 11 2005) wrote:

  Hi Bob,
  Been using GoDaddy exclusively for several years now, keep up the great work.
  Interesting how he makes sure to mention the company name.
• On the Ryze business networking site he posts a comment about how the very same tatics he uses in the story are spam!
  Will Hanke (Nov 25, 2003) wrote:

  It looked to me like an affiliate site of some type, maybe GoDaddy. They provide all of the content, he simply changes the site name, etc and sells the domain names, etc.
  
  My question is, why is he posting this to a web dev network? Wouldn't it make more sense to post it to other groups? (although that's not necessarily a good idea neither, since this is borderline spam)
  Notice how he mentions GoDaddy again!
• Will has his own company Lighthouse Technologies which is a webhosting company. I couldn't find any link between lighthouse technologies and GoDaddy, with the exception that they both advertise domain parking on a bunch of sites.

I find the Ryze business post very interesting... The post is dated Nov 25, 2003. I'll bet he got his spam inspiration back then but then waited two years to act on it ?!? One thing is for sure, he knew his actions were spam. Whether or not GoDaddy is behind it is hard to determine and currently inconclusive.