GoDaddy’s Director of Domain Services explains its actions in the case of FamilyAlbum.com
Yesterday I reported about how GoDaddy deleted the domain registration for a domain due to invalid Whois information. This invalid information was limited to the e-mail address used; the phone number and mailing address was correct. Today, GoDaddy Director of Domain Services Camille Ede responded to a number of my questions concerning the actions it took.
1) What is your procedure for handling invalid whois complaints?
“Our standard procedure is to send an email message to the current Whois contacts as well as the customer email address.”
2) Why was this domain removed from the original owner?
“We cancelled the domain name registration on this domain name because the customer did not respond to our email request to update the information. In fact, we did not hear from the customer for more than eight weeks after our initial contact attempt. Per ICANN regulations, we are required to collect valid information. Per our Registration Agreement, we will cancel the name for invalid Whois if the information is not updated within the appropriate amount of time.”
3) Did Go Daddy earn income from this changing of hands?
“The person who registered the name after it was cancelled paid the standard costs associated with this type of transaction to register the domain name – if and when the name was canceled.”
I sent a follow up question to GoDaddy to clarify the last answer. I’m curious what “this type of transaction” refers to. Was it a backorder? Can someone order a backorder, challenge the Whois, and then get the domain if the e-mail address is indeed invalid?
I’ve talked to a number of other registrars over the past 24 hours to ask what they would do in a similar situation. I’m still compiling the responses, but all said they wouldn’t cancel the domain registration. In fact, one registrar even went to court to not have to cancel a registration with invalid Whois information.
It would seem to me that a registrar would at least extend the courtesy of a phone call or postcard. Or rather than deleting the domain at least put it in suspension status until the owner contacted the registrar. In this case the domain owner logged into his account. A warning or suspension message could have popped up.
Many of you have commented about this on the previous post. I invite you to comment here on GoDaddy’s response. I’ll post more information about other registrars’ responses in the next couple days.
UPDATE 2/28/07: Here’s an update from the (former) owner of FamilyAlbum.com. GoDaddy has offered to get the name back for him if he indemnifies GoDaddy from legal action by the new registrant.
UPDATE #2 2/28/07: I just heard from GoDaddy that the cost the new owner paid for the domain was $18.99. This is the price of a backorder, not a regular registration. Perhaps this is how it worked: Person tries e-mailing domain owner with Whois information and e-mail bounces. Person backorders domain and then sends complaint to GoDaddy. GoDaddy tries to contact only via e-mail, which bounces. Domain is cancelled and given to person with backorder.
So now it’s not just about renewal time, you have to respond to your registrar at all times or they may take your domain away. What if you get sick? What if you just ignore a particular e-mail address you used for a registration because the renewal wasn’t up?
Does GoDaddy’s TOS require you to respond to their e-mails in order to maintain your service?
Well, now I am very surprised. The reason there is 1) an physical address 2) an email address 3) phone number is so you have three ways of contact. GoDaddy’s response to this is one that will encourage domain swiping. Because the only contact piece that really matters is the email address.
This is an incredible “fuck the customer” attitude that godaddy has.
It seems like the godaddy employees don’t care about their customers at all.
That this kind of a thing happened means that godaddy is prepared to destroy their customers business without a second thought for undeliverable email address even while phone number and mailing address are CORRECT!
The answer to question number 2 makes clear that godaddy sent one email request to an invalid email address to fix that same invalid email address and when predictably this didn’t result in corrective action grabbed the domain from the domain owner.
Why no phone call?
Why no letter?
It seems to me that it would be common sense to try other contact methods instead of email when the whole basis for the complaint is an invalid email address!
(unless the purpose was to grab the very valuable familyalbum.com domain from their customer)
This situation becomes totally despicable if godaddy indeed sold the domain they had grabbed from their customer for huge profit through their http://www.tdnam.com domain name aftermarket like the evasive reply to question number 3 suggests.
Familyalbum.com is worth at least 5000 dollars! and in a competitive auction it could well go for 10 000 dollars!
To me it looks like familyalbum.com gets sizable traffic which can be monetized really well because the domain itself is a high bid value keyword.
Right now godaddy is profiting from screwing their customer over because the domain shows godaddy’s parking program ads and godaddy gets money for each click.
This makes me question who is really hiding under Domains by Proxy, Inc.?
Is it really somebody who bought the domain and doesn’t realize it’s traffic value? or is it somebody who is profiting from the domain through godaddy inhouse domain parking program? or is the Domains by Proxy hiding the fact that godaddy is actually the new owner?
I hope the previous owner sues godaddy because any judge with common sense will decide in the customers favor.
If I would have any valuable domains at godaddy I would be transferring them right about NOW to another registrar who cares about their customers and their customers business and domain property and is NOT trying to screw their customers for profit the first chance they get.
I 100% agree. I was very surprised to find my domain name had expired in 11 months. I have a new e-mail address. I JUST paid over $2000 for a TM of my logo WHICH INCLUDED MY URL. I have a new e-mail
Address. It is actually now directly through my URL.
I have now had to send in a request for e-mail update which may take 4 days.
Allegedly, GoDaddy e-mailed me.
This could be a mistake that costs me thousands of dollars AND potentially makes my start-up a “non-starter”.
Godaddy is finished. This is the death nail.
Get your domains out now while you can. Godaddy is the next Registerfly.
The real story here is all the people who this has happend to before FamilyAlbum.com.
I’m talking about all the poeple who didn’t get media attention for their situation.
By the way, Has godaddy changed its policy of not allowing transfers on domains that have had their whois updated within the last 60 days? No! What does that mean? It means godaddy sucks!
If godaddy doesn’t get this domain back for this guy they are going to lose millions.
Bye Bye godaddy.
I have a domain registered with Melbourne IT but have been informed by GoDaddy that it is now also registered with them!!?? I had asked them if I could use their web software with it but I had certainly not asked them to make dome kind of claim for registry rights to my domain name . . . bastards.
I had another domain that I deliberately decided to let lapse . . . and they rebilled it. Again I never gave them any permission for ongoing billing . . . must have been on page xxii of the fine print . . . bastards.
I agree that the best thing to do with GoDaddy is to exit as soon as possible . . . which after reading widely about their sleazy reselling agenda I will now attempt to do forthwith. They appear to have gone from being a customer oriented service provider to being a predatory vulture, exploiting the very people whose trust helped build their company. Time to let them know that they have blown much of the goodwill they had, devalued their business, and significantly eroded both their reputation and their customer base.
By the way. I don’t think this story is going away any time soon. People will be talking about this for years.
Why can’t some nominal domain lapse insurance be sold by Godaddy or the other registrars? This is out of hand, domain owners need protection – hell, even Google and Microsoft have forgotten to pay for a domain, so imagine how easy it is to not have updated an email.
What if the police showed up to boot you out of your home while your eating dinner just because someone complained at your local county courthouse that something was wrong with the specs. on a plat map of your property or your phone number was incorrect in thier records? No difference – this guy lost a nice piece of real estate to a person who paid $18.99 for it.
Andrew, thanks for covering this story and going the extra step to get answers. As the domain industry grows, problems such as this and the story you covered on WarGames.com will become commonplace. As a domainer, I find such stories and issues fascinating. Thanks for covering these issues and stories at Domain Name Wire, the domain industry best news source in my opinion. Cheers and keep up the great work.
Can you please enlighten us on the registrar who went to court so that they didn’t have to delete a domain from improper whois data?
Ross
– http://www.thehostguru.com
I have a reseller account with GoDaddy’s subsidiary Wild West Domains so I can get very low renewal fees.
I ignored an email from a bidder on a domain of mine because the bid was too low. He called Wild West. Wild West then threatened to take my domain if I did not list a valid phone number rather than all zeros, in other words: Wild West violated my Constitutional right to not have a telephone number.
Consequently and subsequently, I obtained a voice mail number and inserted that number into my whois record, just to keep Wild West from stealing my domain from me. That’s cheaper than hiring an attorney!
[Previously I set up a forwarding email address for my whois record, so that domain-related emails are forwarded to my current email address. If I change email addresses, I only need to revise my email forwarding, not my whois record!]
What is the best alternative to GoDaddy? 1and1? mydomains.com? I’m looking for a good company that provides a lot of free services (DNS mgmt and private registration).
Ryan, take a look at Moniker. If you set up an account with a deposit you’ll get great rates.
Boy, I feel lucky now that they only ripped my off for $375 and didn’t actuall sell my domains to someone else.
This is the worst company ever. Avoid them at all costs.
Crybabies is what I’m seeing, trying to blame GoDaddy for the customer’s ignorance. The customer goofed, not GoDaddy. If you don’t answer a request from your registrar, then you don’t deserve to have the domain. Now dry your tears and blow your nose, because this is embarrassing.
Ignorant comment. Some of us are in the military and travel away without access to civilian email for more than 6 weeks. People such as you, who I presume has led a comfortable life, are usually the first to cry when it gets tough.
Ross, I’ll post the registrar feedback hopefully by tomorrow. In the mean time, the one that went to court was DirectNic.
Pam,
I get all kind of sales calls from GoDaddy – your telling me that they could not call to tell this guy to update his email address or his domain will get deleted…give me a break. It’s just evident that GoDaddy doesn’t have their customers back – I also think it’s VERY fishy that the new owner(?) kept the name parked at GoDaddy. Common, who actually makes good money parking a GoDaddy?
Pam,
I sincerely hope you will one day experience the disaster loosing a great domain name can cause.
Experiencing this would probably make you more emphatetic to other people.
Unless you are an employee of godaddy trying to defend your employees undefensible actions by belittling people who think their domains are valuable…
Gabe: They are not required to call. On the other hand, the domain owner IS required to keep current whois records. He failed to meet his responsibilities so he lost his name. His fault.
ic: Sorry but it would never happen to me because I do what I’m supposed to, which is keep my records up to date. Pretty simple really. And no I don’t work for GoDaddy, I promise you. I’m just somebody who is tired of people trying to shift the blame and responsibility of their errors onto others.
Ok back to my question… what registrar is good? What registrar are you guys with?
Ryan, I think there are a number of ‘good registrars’. I personally keep most of my domains with Moniker for a number of reasons:
1. Cheap pricing — about $7 for .coms and less for .net.
2. Excellent account support. You’ll have a dedicated account manager. If I contact mine on a weekend I usually hear back within an hour!
3. Good account management tools.
4. Flexible payment terms. If you want to transfer a bunch of domains at once they’ll spread out the cost over many months.
If you want me to connect you with my account manager at Moniker to open an account just contact me through the ‘contact’ link at the top of this page.
Ryan, check out 1and1 Internet. Pretty much all of my domains are with them.
I’ll never use GoDaddy. From time to time my Internet Service Provider bounces my email even though the email address is correct.
It’s CANCELED, not CANCELLED. You call yourself a professional?
edited…folks, let\’s keep this on the topic
-andrew
We should think of how to avoid this type of behavior from Domain Registrars, we should approach ICANN to formulate “procedure” to follow before the domain name is deleted by registrar in case of inaccurate whois info.
Practical procedure is if the whois information associated with a domain is invalid to suspend the domain and redirect it to a “Domain suspended due to inaccurate whois information” page for about 30 days then release the domain it will give the domain owner time to rectify the whois info.
What Pam appears to be saying is ‘too bad the customer was Jay-walking. They deserved to be shot.’
GoDaddy obviously doesn’t HAVE to lift a finger. And no one HAS to use their crappy, lousy, services. Good companies help their customers, and get a good repuation in return.
Of course, if you want to keep all your domain names registered at GoDaddy… oh who am I kidding? You’re just trolling the thread.
GoDaddy is too big and too busy to care.
This story about this familyalbum company sounds way to fishy and there must be something else to it and even if the name was transferred to someone else the previous owner can just fill out a few forms, send a copy of a drivers license, a copy of a business license, and the domain would be returned to them within a week to ten days or so.
In these cases there is always more to the story than what you read here. First off they wouldn’t have just emailed, there would have been phone calls, letters, etc….and as soon a parked page showed up on the customers end they should have been on the phone following up on it.
If a mistake like this had happened it would have been fixed if the above was done, I would bet there is more to the story then familyalbum is telling us here.
Note:
FamilyAlbum.com is not only a great domain, but as you can see from the archive it was once a full fledged business.
Get the word out. Tell everyone about this story. I am suprised it wasn’t picke up by other media outlets.
GoDaddy loves to abuse their ability to cancel or inactivate domains that are registered with them, but not hosted by them. I’ve heard several stories about content-related cancellations other than WarGames.com that did not receive press attention. If your website strays from topics that their TOS allows, a single complaint will result in your domain being disabled without any notification or warning.
Avoid GoDaddy at all costs.
I have arranged for my prescription to be filled, thank you Pam. My medicine? I am moving my 100 plus domains away from scam-daddy. You are commended for not getting nasty about my comments. I still feel you got to be some kind of shill for bob parsons. Oh, and it was never personal. You support parsons on this and you just heard from me exactly what many others thought but did not bother to write about you. I would expect even you could see that parsons will pay a heavy price for not sticking up for and protecting his customers on this kind of issue. Two very good possibilities here. 1, the $18.00 fee they made from doing this meant more to them then what their customers would think if this got out or 2, some scum godaddy employee pulled this off to steal the domain and now parsons is in cover-his-ass mode. Me? I\’m not willing to risk my domain portfolio if there is a chance this could happen to me. I\’ll switch to moniker.com who is not perfect but I do believe will not be so keen to see to it my domains get taken away at any opportunity they can conjure up.
Hey Anon, re your comment “It’s CANCELED, not CANCELLED. You call yourself a professional?”
Actually both are correct spellings. You’ll notice both GoDaddy and I used the two ‘l’ spelling, but either is acceptable according to the dictionary.
Ted,
Regretfully there’s not much more to the story here. I thought it was ‘too bad to be true’ at first too, but GoDaddy’s response makes it clear that this is exactly what happened. No phone calls were made, no letters sent.
when i had my hosting with byteverse and my credit card expired, they were calling me to ask for the updated credit card info. Surprised they couldn’t do the same for invalid registration info.
GODADDY is acting too smart.
Yes, if ICANN is useless and bribed people in the ICANN body, the smat registrars play this kind of gimmicks
Letus find whois of godaddy and send mail to contact address and let us all see if we get a response from them.If we all not get any response from them we ask ICANN to cancel that domain
stupid companies with stupid actions
They should understand the values of domain for a customer
If the dogs do domain business, the actions will be like this now
Pam
According to Godaddy’s policy, all it takes is for their email to you to go unanswered. ie. it went to your spam folder, died on a server somewhere, you were in the hospital etc. I suspect with your attitude, you are a prime candidate to be a victim.
I was planning to register a bunch of websites at GoDaddy. Now I won\\\\\\\’t. Does anybody know a good alternative?
Beware, the wholesale contract with Network Solutions contains wording to the effect
that a single non-reply to a request for whois update will revert the domain to them.
I am a domain registrar through TUCOWS, and i have found them very straightforward and helpful with matters of this nature.
with the emergance of domain theft as a crime, we must all be sure to protect our ownership.
a side note… when a domain is in “secrecy mode” the ONLY contact information is a physical address. how is this allowed.
“Person backorders domain and then sends complaint to GoDaddy. GoDaddy tries to contact only via e-mail, which bounces. Domain is cancelled and given to person with backorder. ”
this could be automated.
From the ICANN Policy regarding domain names and registrar and registered name holder responsibilities.
http://www.icann.org/registrars/ra-agreement-17may01.htm#3
3.7.7.1 The Registered Name Holder shall provide to Registrar accurate and reliable contact details and promptly correct and update them during the term of the Registered Name registration, including: the full name, postal address, e-mail address, voice telephone number, and fax number if available of the Registered Name Holder; name of authorized person for contact purposes in the case of an Registered Name Holder that is an organization, association, or corporation; and the data elements listed in Subsections 3.3.1.2, 3.3.1.7 and 3.3.1.8.
3.7.7.2 A Registered Name Holder’s willful provision of inaccurate or unreliable information, its willful failure promptly to update information provided to Registrar, or its failure to respond for over fifteen calendar days to inquiries by Registrar concerning the accuracy of contact details associated with the Registered Name Holder’s registration shall constitute a material breach of the Registered Name Holder-registrar contract and be a basis for cancellation of the Registered Name registration.
Pam,
It doesn’t seem to me that we know that the customer didn’t have up-to-date whois records. We only know that they didn’t respond to e-mail requests. For all we know their service provider blocked the e-mail as spam. For all we know the person is sick or dead.
You could make the case that it’s the customer’s responsibility to get the e-mail sent to them and always to look for registrar e-mail, even when the renewal for the domain is not up, but that’s a pretty harsh interpretation. What is the point of having a phone number and address when all it gets you is junk snail mail?
Wow. First RegisterFly and now Godaddy. Though one should not be surprised considering Godaddy already demonstrated it will kill a domain on the word of anonymous MySpace employees.
“its failure to respond for over fifteen calendar days to inquiries by Registrar concerning the accuracy of contact details associated with the Registered Name Holder’s registration”
Thanks Dan for the info. I guess “inquiries by Registrar” is open to interpretation. I don’t think a single email inquiry does the trick.
More and more savvy drop catchers have stumbled upon a long known, but obscure security flaw of “Whois Data Problem Reports”…
I’ve gone out of my way over the years to publicize the security flaw and push for reform of how such reports are handled … perhaps this latest incident will be the push to get ICANN to address the issue.
Filing a “Whois Data Problem Report” at internic.net (ICANN) can allow one to legally, though unethically, obtain ownership of a domain despite it being locked down tight.
Technically, even having a missing country code in the phone number can potentially be enough for a registrar to take action … though more typically a “Whois Data Problem Report” is filed in regards to the email address…
At this point, some are thinking “My email is up to date, so nothing to worry about.”
WRONG!
Here’s why … when one files a WDPR, the complaint is forwarded by ICANN to the registrar who is then supposed to notify the owner … but if the registrar doesn’t for whatever reason, the domain owner could potentially still their domain despite having a correct email address.
In short, Whois Data Problem Reports is an obscure, but long known security flaw that allows one to potentially “steal” a domain in mere days with little to no notice whatsoever to the true owner … ICANN needs to address this issue to improve security before more domains are “stolen”.
Ron
I have a friend who manages a family website via these guys. He said for me to use them as well. I tried getting a website in a very similar situation via GoDaddy and it all turned to custard. I ended up paying for a domain name which I couldn’t but they’re still charging me for the 12 mth fee. They said the name I wanted wasn’t available and I had to do the legwork as Registry.com had a lock on it. I was of the understanding that I was the owner of the site as I’d been paying fees to DNS2GO.COM for the past few years. However, unbeknownst to me they’d used my money to buy it register it under their name and then tell me that they were managing it for me. They never told me that I wasn’t the actual owner. So when Godaddy referred me to their hosting service I paid my 12 month hosting fee and it was after this that they told me they couldn’t do anything else for me until I got the other company to release the ‘lock’ on my domain name! They didn’t say anything about refunding my fee for the service the ‘couldn’t provide’. Also, it just ended up costing me more and more money as I tried phoning the company in the US from New Zealand and was given the merry go round of differing numbers in the hope that I’d give up which I did. So thanks to Go Dadday’s extremely unfortunate experience I am out of pocket several hundred dollars for absolutely nothing. I’m going to tell my friend to move his website hosting from these guys as soon as he can. He’s had it for about 2 – 3 years. Hopefully these guys will get their just rewards and end up going bankrupt. Their morally bankrupt as far as I’m concerned and now they just need the administrative aspect to catch up with them and they’re history. Good riddance.
I haven’t read all of the comments, but I am struck by the outrage over GoDaddy’s not sending a postcard or making a phone call. What do you expect from one of the cheapest domain registrars on the ‘Net?! If you’re stupid enough to go for the cheapest deal you can get, you deserve the results.
Register your domains with a company that actually charges a reasonable amount that will allow them to provide a decent level of customer service, and so that they don’t have to resort to dishonest tactics such as selling your domain out from under you. Oh, and a price that will hopefully cover the cost of the postcard or the phone call (in labour, postage and/or phone charges) should you be stupid enough to use a dead e-mail address for your WHOIS details.
If you get sucked in by the marketing hype and the low prices (not to mention sexy models that wouldn’t know a domain from a dominatrix) then, as I said, you deserve what you get.
only an email? wow.
so lets say someone makes a complaint against microsoft.com (or whatever domain). godaddy only sents an email, hacker breaks into system, deletes the mail and logs. then backorders domain. godaddy sees no reply in 8weeks later, hacker now owns microsoft.com and redirects it to linux.com
is this still the fault of the registrant for not replying to an email?
What Godaddy did was actually not by the book as some of the above comments may portrait by Pam and Dan.
They actually did not live up their responsibility to make sure the WHOIS was accurate.
They are actually required to do more then just a phone call according to ICANN agreements:
Under the Registrar Accreditation Agreement Section 3.7.8 GoDaddy was required to:
http://icann.org/registrars/ra-agreement-17may01.htm#3.7.8
——————————————–
“3.7.8 …Registrar shall, upon notification by any person of an inaccuracy
in the contact information associated with a Registered Name sponsored
by Registrar, take reasonable steps to investigate that claimed inaccuracy.
In the event Registrar learns of inaccurate contact information
associated with a Registered Name it sponsors, it shall
take reasonable steps to correct that inaccuracy.”
——————————————–
There are three reasonable ways to get in touch with somebody:
1.Email
2.Telephone
3.Snail Mail
Only the first option has been done by Godaddy and repeatedly and therefor repeatedly chosen to ignore the other reasonable steps they are REQUIRED to do.
So Godaddy is in clear violations of ICANN policies.
I’ve been looking for hosting and domain services. It will NEVER be Go Daddy. I look forward to a list being posted of other service providers and the policy they have on this.
> ic, February 28th, 2007 | 10:03 pm:
> This makes me question who is really
> hiding under Domains by Proxy, Inc.?
ic, seems like Domains by Proxy, Inc. is GoDaddy Group’s subsidiary:
“Clearly, Domains by Proxy, Inc. is in the business of keeping all
information about the real ‘organization “owning” the domain’ out of WHOIS
records, in violation of RFC1032 on a massive scale. The alternative (the
theory that they are fraudulently telling their customers that their
customers actually “own” the domains that their customers have “bought” from
Domains by Proxy, Inc. or another GoDaddy Group subsidiary) appears to be
something that the Arizona State Attorney General and United States Attorney
General have not yet prosecuted them for.”
http://lists.megacity.org/pipermail/rfci-discuss/2007-January/004219.html
Craig.. you said “Register your domains with a company that actually charges a reasonable amount that will allow them to provide a decent level of customer service, and so that they don’t have to resort to dishonest tactics such as selling your domain out from under you. Oh, and a price that will hopefully cover the cost of the postcard or the phone call (in labour, postage and/or phone charges) should you be stupid enough to use a dead e-mail address for your WHOIS details.”
If they can afford not one but 2 superbowl commercials, they acn afford to send a postcard.
Some of you people are ridiculous… GoDaddy is required to attempt to contact the owner by reasonable means. They tried the WHOIS email address and they also tried the email account that the person had on file with GoDaddy for their account. If they can’t keep either updated and accurate, it’s not GoDaddy’s fault. GoDaddy has millions upon millions of domains registered through them. It’s not up to them to babysit every single person on a microscopic level. On top of that, their policy allows someone to get their domains back within 2 weeks if they can prove that the contact info was correct or updated. The sheer number of you that are crying foul amazes me. You’re probably the same people who allow criminals to blame-shift their actions on their troubled pasts. How sad…
While it is unfortunate that this happens, it is not GoDaddy’s job to babysit its domain owners. For the measly $8 fee that it charges, it keeps a whopping $2. A postage stamp is 39 cents. To pay a person (an entire call center actually) to call idiots about their domains would cost them millions. Not a single registrar on the planet will call you to verify your information. It’s your domain, your problem. Anyone who things otherwise has never been in business for themselves. Its all about managing costs and Godaddy is in the business of having the lowest price period. Even expensive ass verisign wouldnt call you.
Mark, I disagree on a number of grounds:
1. Regardless of how much it cost to register the domain, it is worth more than $8. It’s an asset. Most registrars realize that. Many registrars would either attempt to make contact other than via e-mail OR would not delete the domain.
2. That’s not a very customer support friendly view you are giving. Yes, the profit on this one domain may be measly, but the cost is much greater. I don’t think any registrar, even GoDaddy, would ever say “it’s your domain, your problem”.
3. There’s a simple, cost effective way to get in touch with the domain owner. It’s the same thing GoDaddy does when a domain expires. Just put up a notice page. When your domain expires GoDaddy sends you messages 60, 45, 30, 15, 5 days etc before it happens, and after it happens.
This almost happened to me. In fact, right now no one can access my site and my entire business and income is disabled because my domain is ON HOLD. I have since fixed the whois problem, but I have to wait for godaddy to turn it back on.
I registered my domain more than 7 years ago when no phone number was required. When I transferred to godaddy, it updated to 9999999999. I left it that way. Besides, I didn’t want people calling me all of the time. My email address and my mailing address is correct and current. I figured if there wasn’t an issue with the phone number for 7 years, there wouldn’t be an issue in the future. If there were, I thought I would receive ample opportunity to rectify the situation.
Nope. I didn’t realize what had happened until I looked back over my email correspondence. First I got an email telling me that my card had been charged $9.95 to look into a complaint regarding invalid whois information. I didn’t know at the time what the implications of “invalid whois” would be. The email looked fraudulent. When I looked at the headers, I saw that it wasn’t sent from godaddy.com but secureserver.net. I didn’t know at the time that secureserver.net was godaddy. I forwarded the email to abuse@godaddy.com. A few days later I received another email. I didn’t respond because in my quick review of the email, I thought it was fraudulent. Of course I feel like an idiot now, but it could have just as easily been sent to my spam folder, and stupid or not, I wouldn’t have seen it. Five days later, my domain was put on hold.
No one can access my site and I have to wait for godaddy to reactivate my DNS. Meanwhile I am losing at least $1000/day. Yes, this is a real business. And someone was trying to steal my domain from me because with that kind of income = lots of traffic, and they knew that obtaining the domain would be worth a lot of $$$$$.
Besides providing a route to steal a domain, IN THE LEAST godaddy makes it easy to put someone out of business for a several days. They also seem to be making money off the third party complaints since they process a $9.95 charge to look into it…
Thanks I’ll take note.
Its suprising to hear bad things about them.
But I notice they make you obligated and can’t transfer your name for a long period b4 u are aloud to transfer to other name host.
Why is it so ?
How long do we have to remain at goddady b4 we are allowed to transfer again to other d/host ?
Is it all domain host requirement are the same ?
Thanks.
In response to Pam calling people crybabbies, I take it she is not that “computer literate”, no offense. Why do I say that? Well, as the article explains, only one email was sent out. Now, I’m not too fond of only one email being sent out. Why? It’s called “unreliable technology.” Pam, Mark, or anyone else that feels it’s the customer’s fault for emails, can you tell me that someone has sent you an email and you receive it every single time? There has never in your life been a “lost” email? If you say no, then you are either lying or just really lucky!
I feel that they should at least call the person. Email is not a reliable technology to stake your business workings on as a sole technology.
Don’t want your number listed? Use a free voicemail service as mentioned above. There’s K7, j2, etc. You could just list your real information and pay for WHOIS privacy service. That way your information is not shown.
In any case, though, I personally feel that GoDaddy relying simply on email (one email at that) as a source of validation is not very professional.
you people are all whiners, give it up and read the fine print. domains are property – do you expect them to read it out loud for you. suck it up you wimps and realize godaddy is the best out there! BOO HOO
kg – what does domains being property vs a service contract have to do with this thread?
The key concern is whether solely sending an email before taking away the domain was reasonable. Or would reasonable include picking up the phone and calling the Registrant?
Their fine print says “Failure by You, for whatever reason, to respond within five (5) business days to any inquiries made by Go Daddy to determine the validity of information provided by You, shall also be considered to be a material breach of this agreement.”
A reasonable expectation by the Registrant is that “any inquiries” (plural) would at least include one attempt by email, one attempt by phone and possibly even a letter by postal mail.
If in the fine print they put that they’ll delete your domain after only trying only to email then there would be less whining.
domains are now considered personal property. if someone is naive enough to just spend money and be stupid to not respond to emails is an idiot. it is called keeping your affairs in order. if you go and spend money on a domain name – then why would you not keep track of ANY communications for the safe keeping of that domain name? do not give me the BS line of – I DID NIT GET THE EMAIL – line. grow up and look at the big picture. GoDaddy has always been fair. If you go online and purchase something, look after it. Look, I know it sucks but they sell more than ANY OTHER domain registrar how come the bitching comes from a few people? it is because the majority of the masses have more common sense thane most of you all.
I chose Godaddy as my domain registrar based soley on price. I have over 40 domain names registered through them…for now at least.
What I recently found out about Godaddy is more than surprising. I wrote a blog entry that links to several posts, one of which Godaddy President Alon Waisman responded to. I found his response to these allegations less than settling. I hope you find this post informative.
http://www.brentcrouch.com/2007/05/31/is-godaddy-a-good-domain-registrar/
In regards to godaddy I guess the old adage you get what you pay for comes into play I have only had a brief involvement with them and some of their practices I dont like eg: you have to wait at least a week maybe more in some cases to acquire your domain, yet, they want payment within three days, also the previous registrant is still able to take back a domain after an auction has closed. In my opinion, take it how you will when the auction commences the previous registrant should already be out of the picture and all ties to that domain be done, I personally think it is a waste of prospective domain buyers time to go through an auction only to have the domain reclaimed by the previous registrant. If Godaddy keeps their current business practices in order it will not be a question of if but when they will go under.
I would stay away from Go Daddy, the did the same scam to me. Now the go even further, the have a auction service, where the put your domain for sale and collect a lot of money by stealing the domain from you.
just so anyone can know. In case you have ever lost a domain name, I work at GoDaddy. When a domain expires, if it doesn\’t get redeemed or won in auction, it automatically gets purchased by a company called Standard Tactics LLC. This company is owned by a relative of Bob Parsons, the owner of GoDaddy. Nice lil monopoly heh? Bob Parsons sells you a domain name and if you allow it to expire there is an automated system that puts it in his account. There is no way this practice is legal.
tm, I believe Standard Tactics is the name of the organization that snatched up the typo names I referred to in this post:
https://domainnamewire.com/2005/12/30/is-godaddy-typosquatting/
Domains by proxy is only the privacy service, used to cover up the owner’s real whois info. Look a bit closer and you will find that they go to Standard Tactics LLC. A company created thru GoDaddy. I believe that if someone could prove it, this could be a large lawsuit against them. You almost have it right Andrew. They definitely are crooks in this manner.
They charged me before telling me that I had to have a paypal account. I don’t want a paypal account. I decided to have nothing to do with them but they kept sending emails. I went throught the procedures to stop emails but they kept sending emails. I changed the email address but they changed it back and kept sending emails. I will NEVER have anything to do with GoDaddy, EVER. I would love to put people like this out of business for their criminal tactics.
This thing happened means that GoDaddy is ready to destroy their customers without a second thought for undeliverable email address even while phone number and mailing address are CORRECT!
People should NOT use GoDaddy!
This is a clear case of buyer beware, not that it is right but maybe you should stop being cheap and shopping at the Wal-Mart of domains? Also I would suggest reading the legal agreements you sign. If seems that you can’t put two and two together on this one. You pay your ten dollars for a domain, many pay much less, less than seven. GoDaddy registers a new domain, transfer or renewal every second at this point. Without knowing the exact cost to GoDaddy lets assume they make about three dollars off of your domain. You seem to feel that your domain matters so much that companies should run at a loss because you don’t care enough about the domain to hold up your side of the contract? Now I don’t want to just bash you, the buyer, however it needed to be said. Invalid whois data is a problem but not one a person should loose a domain over. Please, research your registrar, do the home work. Pick not on price but on value. As the saying goes, you get what you pay for.
I was just recently a customer of godaddy and they called me just as a courtesy to talk to me about my domains I had bought. And if they call as a courtesy to new customers why wont they call to let a customer know they could lose their domain?
Lisa
wow,glad i didnt get my domain name from godaddy,i went there and got blasted by “big sell” on my personal name,unrelated to my domain name request,i guess theyll go buy it up,after several pages of them trying to add numerous more domain names they then want a paypal agreement? jeez i backed off quicker than a rat up a drainpipe.
so…is eNom any better? 😛
I just came accross this story…
I had GoDaddy transfer a domain name from my account to another party because of “trademark concerns” without contacting me first- I just happened to notice that it wasn’t there one day and asked them why. I had no knowledge of a dispute, and I wish that my registrar would have the decency to contact me in this type of situation.
I have spent thousands of dollars with their company and I couldn’t believe it. I am in the process of transferring about a hundred names from this terrible registrar.
As far as what Godaddy did to make ‘reasonable’ contact, it was well within the boundaries. ICANN doesn’t specify that a registrar has to contact by phone, snail mail, AND email, just that they have to make reasonable attempts to contact. Since email is the most widely recognized form of legitimate communication, they did their part. Also, if you check Godaddy’s TOS they do specify that they will only guarantee email attempts for contact.
Furthermore. If you treasure your domain name, then why wouldn’t you provide your registrar with an email address that you check frequently? What if someone got your account password and started changing nameservers or unlocking your domain to transfer it away? This is pure negligence on the previous owner’s part and they had to learn a hard lesson.
I seriously despise all you whiny brats in the world who think you can claim laziness and stupidity as your defense and somehow have it work too often. This could be compared to the lady who burned herself on mcdonalds coffee and then won a law suit. What a crock!!! Coffee is supposed to be hot! And you’re supposed to take care of your domain name. It’s property.
When you get a car loan, do you give them bs contact information? No… and why? Because if they try to get in touch with you and can’t they’ll come take your car. You won’t win THAT court case. Why do you think you should win something like this?
Grow up and take responsibility for your own retardedness. Read TOS when you sign up somewhere. Chances are you’re one of the same morons who gets 1400 spam messages a day because you don’t read anything before you put your email address in somewhere, or who gets a huge cell phone bill because you didn’t read that they charge you for overages.
Idiots. If you don’t have time to take care of your domain, stay off the internet!
Trip the godaddy troll:
You are right that godaddy acted within the letter of the rules. If that is your criterion for what counts as good customer relations in business, you have just proven you will never suceed in business.
Godaddy, every step of the way, tries to work within the letter of the rules to screw over naive and trusting people, many of whom are trying out acquiring domain names, renting server space, and the like, for the first time.
Sure, they are within the bounds of the law. Just like the used car salesman who sells a 90 year old lady a lemon and calls it gold.
Luckily we have much better options.
My favorite is webintellects.com. They cost more, but their customer service kicks ass. Every time I call I get a competent person within minutes solving my problem. I tried calling godaddy once. I got sick of the music while I sat on hold.
So, for those who want a business that will do anything within their legal rights to fuck you in the ass with a chainsaw, go with godadd. If you want a company with good customer service and competent technical support, go elsewhere.
@trip
If only Godaddy had other options of suspending a domain other than completely screwing the customer out of it, huh!
Ok everything is just being repeated tens of times. I want to point out 1 thing that hasn’t been considered:
All of the people claiming that Godaddy is evil for not making 1 phone call to the registrant are ignoring an extremely important detail. You say that 1and1 would call you in the situation… that Tucows would call you in this situation… etc.
Maybe you’re right. Maybe 1and1 or Tucows would call the domain registrant. How many domains does 1and1 have registered? How many phone calls would they have to make in order to contact every one of their domains’ owners? (to make sure EVERY domain’s number was called, even though owners often have multiple domains, those 2 numbers would be the same)
Well, I don’t know exactly how many calls 1and1 would have to make, but Godaddy would have to make
30 F-N MILLION!
Now, you wanna talk about Godaddy going bankrupt, eventually, due to poor customer treatment? Here’s the math on 30 MILLION long distance phone calls for 2 minutes a call (although it would be more like 5 minutes per call in reality). What does long distance cost these days anyway? 10 cents a minute? I only have a cell phone. Aww hell, let’s use 10 cents a minute. The total would be a mind-boggling $6,000,000.00! And they’d also have to pay somebody to actually make the calls. At minimum wage, 60 million minutes would be about $7,000,000.00!
So, for Godaddy to call all of their customers, it would cost 13 MILLION DOLLARS. Bankruptcy due to not calling customers? What? More like bankruptcy would RESULT is Godaddy called all of its customers.
Now, you can say “1and1 wouldn’t have done this to a customer” all that you want. The bottom line is that you can’t even compare other registrars to Godaddy, because Godaddy deals with an amount of customers that no other registrar can even comprehend.
Couldn’t someone just wait till a natural disaster…. flooding, hurricane, winter storms, then pounce on people in that area about inaccurate info?
Seems a lil messed up.
What is the definition of accurate information? If my real name is Alfonso De la Hoya and I have the name Al Hoya would this be considered invalid information? Most people don’t realize that once you have your person information tied to a domain name it is permanently recorded online even if you sell or release the name. There are companies that collection this information and using it for mailing lists.
Due to spam people change their emails all the time and sometime forget to update there whois information.
With historical information of Whois records being recorded owning a domain name could lead to a history of spam mail.
the whole domain system needs a rethink.
On domain grabbing: if the law said you MUST cut off services, ie hosting/forwarding/emails etc, at the end of the contract and then allow a month AFTER cut off, on option to the previous owner before they can do relisting/reselling, that would at least allow those with hosting to see that something was very wrong and contact their host/registrant before having the domain sold from under them!
Sorry, but any company that realises that the email information stored for a client is incorrect, and then EMAILS that client, is just plain daft. Isn’t it obvious that the client will not get the email?
Taking someone’s domain away without at first speaking to the person (sending messages does not count unless you know for a FACT that the person has read and understood the message) is just theft. A telephone call, and then a letter should have been attempted first.
Godaddy revoked Judicial-inc.biz basically because it was a large website that had negative articles on John McCain, who Godaddy.com gave $4.5 million
Godaddy keeps your credit card open, and automatically renew anything you have. I complained and was told “You didn’t check the non-renewable agreement”
I feel helpless and hopeless, I just miss renew my domains…Godaddy took all my domains and host there as advertising & auction web under Domains by proxy. So, i need to bid for minimum 480USD or more to get it back…anyway, at the end it could be over 1000USD…
When i question them, i just got the feedback “Unfortunately, Unfortunately , so and so…. To who really want to secure your web business, please beware of Godaddy , The Big Crocodile eat up all potential web domains and businesses.
Nobody can stop them, because they rules the domains industrial, they are the king of kings. you just have to give whatever they want, well…we need hero here. who can bring down this Monster – GoDaddy you are son of the bitches.
All countries government should keep the eyes on GoDaddy, they are planning to be the GOD to control the entire Internet world, because…in the internet world, domain name is the key… GoDaddy will be the GOD once it owned most of keys… beware…beware…next time you open up the internet, you have to pay Godaddy before you can start surf the net…Most of the domain appear the same page, please make your payment so you can ENTER GODADDY PROPERTIES! OR ELSE GET LOSE!
Unfortunately there is no hyperlink that I can provide you to redeem your domain. The redemption request needs to be submitted through our customer service department either over the phone or through the Online Support System.
If you wish to recover the domain from the redemption period, please reply with the following information:
• A specific request to redeem the domain (include the actual domain name).
• The last four digits of the payment method already on file that you would like billed, as indicated within your account under ‘Credit Card & Payment Info’.
• An acknowledgment that your card will be charged $90.89 (USD) per domain. This will also renew the domain name for one year.
(The actual domain name cost is 9.90 USD, yes you are right, i want to rob you, I legally robber, i protected by law, you better pay now or else i make it to auction 480USD or more if you want to get it back, again i protected by Law, depend how much i want, you have to pay me! GoDaddy)
• Your confirmation that you have read and agree to our ‘Universal Terms of Service.’
• Please be sure to reply as soon as possible to ensure your domain can be redeemed.
Please note that after receiving your confirmation to redeem the domain, it can take up to 3 business days for the redemption request to be completed.
Please let us know if we can assist you in any other way.
Sincerely,
Gregory S
Online Support
#
I wish I had read the following easrlier
Mario
January 10th, 2008 | 9:35 am
This thing happened means that GoDaddy is ready to destroy their customers without a second thought for undeliverable email address even while phone number and mailing address are CORRECT!
People should NOT use GoDaddy!
I registered 4 domains with godaddy, .org .net .cn and I got the .com by backorder.
I paid for 2 years for all 4 domains.
and now all gone. godaddy told me, I , or someone, logged into my godaddy account, physically canceled all 4 domains. They said they sent 5 emails to notify me of the cancellation (which, I never received any of them). — i check my email ( the same with my godaddy account) almost EVERYDAY.
So I paid for 2 YEARs, and then login to cancel them all after only 5 months, knowing that i would not get any refund since godaddy only refund with 5 days after registr.
Why the hell some costomers would do that for god’s sake?
I am thinking to hire a lawyer to sue the goddamm godaddy. any ideas?
someone said
“Why can’t some nominal domain lapse insurance be sold by Godaddy or the other registrars? ”
They do sell it. Look it up, It’s called protected registration. Additionally, if you PRIVATIZE your domain, then the whois information is NEVER invalid.
In this case, GODADDY was following ICANN regulation. If you aren’t happy with what ICANN requires, complain to icann.
— Also — Someone said :
I registered 4 domains with godaddy, .org .net .cn and I got the .com by backorder.
I paid for 2 years for all 4 domains.
and now all gone. godaddy told me, I , or someone, logged into my godaddy account, physically canceled all 4 domains. They said they sent 5 emails to notify me of the cancellation (which, I never received any of them). — i check my email ( the same with my godaddy account) almost EVERYDAY.
So I paid for 2 YEARs, and then login to cancel them all after only 5 months, knowing that i would not get any refund since godaddy only refund with 5 days after registr.
Why the hell some costomers would do that for god’s sake?
I am thinking to hire a lawyer to sue the goddamm godaddy. any ideas?
—
I’m sure godaddy has IP logs of information. If they say that someoen logged into your account, I’m SURE they can prove it. This seems as if you gave out information to your account that you shouldn’t.
“I feel helpless and hopeless, I just miss renew my domains…Godaddy took all my domains and host there as advertising & auction web under Domains by proxy. So, i need to bid for minimum 480USD or more to get it back…anyway, at the end it could be over 1000USD…”
I can’t believe the ineptness of people posting this stuff..
Your domains were do on such and such a day. I am a customer of godaddy, they send me a TON of warning notifications. If I DON’T renew, they send me -4- MORE warnings. I think I get over 10 emails if I do nothing.
When you DON’T pay for a domain, they hold on to it even FURTHER for like, 3 weeks after it’s due date so that you can get it back.
You bought your domain, you didn’t renew. If you don’t pay your cell phone bill, and the cingular shuts you off.. it’s their fault, right?
I now know why you people have such a problem. You can’t even understand minor details. Assumptions make for user error.
Brent Crouch up there said..
“What I recently found out about Godaddy is more than surprising…. Godaddy President Alon Waisman responded to….
http://www.brentcrouch.com/2007/05/31/is-godaddy-a-good-domain-registrar/”
If you actually READ brent’s blog. The response from Alon Waisman says “Office of the President”
This means that alon is an EMPLOYEE of the president of the company. It does NOT mean he is the president of the company.
Not being able to understand things like this, which are very simple for people with only double digit IQ’s is why you are having so many problems.
I concur with the guy above that says if your domain is so important to you, maybe you should actually do something intelligent and protect it. If your domain is purchased on march 1st 2007. You know that you have to renew it before march 1st 2008. Domain names are not bought on a monthly basis.
If you are afraid that you are going to get a complaint about bad whois information. Fix your fucking whois information.
If you think someone is going to log into your account and delete your domains, maybe your password shouldn’t be “password”
If you have a domain name worth millions of dollars (which I highly doubt ANY of you do…) then you should get protected registration on it (as I do for a -4- letter domain I own) so that someone can’t just log into your account and delete the thing when you are too stupid to use a password that is actually strong, or put that your fone # is something other than 555-1212.
The only complaint(s) I have with godaddy is that privacy isn’t free, and that their prices for upgrades on dedicated servers are not exactly cheap. A quad core processor is $149 a month.. I can buy one for $300. If I have a dedicated server for a year, I might pay $1500 for a processor (cause they’ll give me a 1 year discount) that only cost $300.
But, I do my dedicated servers colocated. I do my shared hosting for my web design customers on godaddy.
I’ve been a satisfied GoDaddy customer for over 5 years no with no compalints. I keep my information current, my passwords secure, and my contact email automatically tags and prioritizes important correspondence such as messages from GoDaddy. It’s not rocket science, it’s just having your act together.
To address the contact issue, when my domain is nearing renewal time (and I do have it set to auto-renew) GoDaddy sends me several reminders via email, a written notice and even a phone call as the day gets closer.
Like I said, no complaints. I’ve never had a hosting issue, and customer service has always been helpful with ansewring my inquiries. Lol at the guys in 2007 that were predicting GoDaddy’s imminent demise.
I just ran across this post and have to say that goDaddy is still going strong. I am sorry for the problems the buyer had, but be aware… If you have a domain registered, make sure you have correct information listed.. it really is that simple. Also, these are not goDaddy procedures only, but actually are ICANN rules. For the most part, goDaddy goes above and beyond the call of duty to keep you from losing your domain, even to the point of calling when needed.
Rubbish . . . this is a vulture exploiting ICCAN rules to suit their own sleazy, greedy purposes. Their behaviour is no less unconscionable if some other registries are also guilty of similar behaviour.
The truth is there are other registries that behave way more ethically.
Its to my surprise that so many words were typed here to defend godaddy’s innocent.
tha means only one thing, godaddy is going down.
hey norton
May 11th, 2009 | 3:28 am
— Also — Someone said :
I registered 4 domains with godaddy, .org .net .cn and I got the .com by backorder.
I paid for 2 years for all 4 domains.
and now all gone. godaddy told me, I , or someone, logged into my godaddy account, physically canceled all 4 domains. They said they sent 5 emails to notify me of the cancellation (which, I never received any of them). — i check my email ( the same with my godaddy account) almost EVERYDAY.
So I paid for 2 YEARs, and then login to cancel them all after only 5 months, knowing that i would not get any refund since godaddy only refund with 5 days after registr.
Why the hell some costomers would do that for god’s sake?
I am thinking to hire a lawyer to sue the goddamm godaddy. any ideas?
—
I’m sure godaddy has IP logs of information. If they say that someoen logged into your account, I’m SURE they can prove it. This seems as if you gave out information to your account that you shouldn’t.
================================================
actually I am very much doubt how you can eb so SURE about godaddy??
Dont you think I the owner of those domains did not fight with all sorts of resources to get them back?
What godaddy told me is very simply response: We just tell you , you or someone you authorized, logged in your account and released those domains. As for the ip address and such, We will not give you those information.
Like you said we believe godaddy have those information. But Why they dont tell you? because they cannot sell themself out. period.
I had very bad service provided by GoDaddy! When the domain is expired, they kidnap your domain name and ask redemption fee to recover it!! That sucks!
I AM TRYING TO FIND ALL THE WEBSITES THAT HAVE NEGATIVE REVIEWS ON GODADDYS…BECAUSE AS MENTIONED BEFORE ABOVE, I AM IN A WARZONE WITH THEM…AND THEY ARE ENJOYING EVERY PROCESS, BUT OTHERS HAVE TO BE WARNED,…SO ITS GREAT THAT YOU HAVE WEBSITES LIKE THIS…CREATING AWARENESS.
Say, you got a nice article.Thanks Again. Great.
Wow – it’s great to read all the comments here – I’m in the category of being a volunteer for a family foundation & didn’t anticipate getting so slammed I’d have to give email a break to get my life in order.
Unfortunately, this means the domain lapsed and while I wholeheartedly understand email is my responsibility, I really do wish I got a 10-15 sec *automated* phone call to let me know emails sent were not being followed up on.
The domain has since been picked up by a Napoleon Bonaparte LLC under private registration so it’s not clear to me how to reach a human being to discuss the domain (just left vmail at the # listed in the WHOIS record though I suspect the # is just a dummy inbox)
To those of you who are calling people like myself “idiots” – I’m just a tech volunteer, I don’t do this for a living. Yes, I’ve learned my lesson & trying to figure out what it means to be “responsible” for this loss. I’m putting myself out there & chatting it up with other folks in a similar boat is where I’m at – it does suck to lose a domain for sure.
I just wish it didn’t impact such a group of lovely people who not only have helped me get back on my feet, they give back to the local community helping underserved kids as much as they can. There’s a greater purpose here than just $.
I have no bad feelings against GoDaddy – just looking to make what seems like a crappy situation right.