Originally Posted by lazycash

This isn't a new way of marketing for hosting companies at all. They've been doing this as far back as 1999 that I can remember. Its best to ask them up front what happens to the domain should you decide in the future to leave their hosting. A domain is ten bucks, there is absolutely no way a free domain should play any role in deciding who you host with. Why on earth would anyone take all that time to develop a site around a domain they don't own?