Lawsuit targets people and companies allegedly sending spam and saying they are associated with GoDaddy.
GoDaddy has filed a lawsuit (pdf) in an effort to take down one of the groups that it alleges is spamming offers to domain name owners and pretending to be affiliated with the registrar.
If you’ve ever registered a domain name without Whois privacy, you are probably a victim of the defendants or a similar group.
The lawsuit was filed in U.S. Federal District Court in Northern California against Usman Ghaznavi a/k/a Usman Anis, Salman Ghaznavi a/k/a Salman Anis, Silicon Valley Graphic, LLC d/b/a Silicon Valley Graphics (“SVG”), and Does 1 through 50.
It alleges that the defendants undertook a long and sophisticated scheme to spam domain name registrants to offer them logo services, web animations and more. Many of these spam messages pretended to be affiliated with GoDaddy.
This led to many complaints to GoDaddy. GoDaddy even received a letter from a lawyer threatening to file a class action lawsuit against the registrar for its unsolicited emails.
The defendants allegedly used domain names like g0daddydesigns.com, godaddydesignagency.com and godaddyanimations.com to run the scheme. They also used non-branded domains like route66d.com. (I recall receiving multiple text messages linking to route66d.com.)
GoDaddy was able to uncover the possible identities of the perpetrators by working with WhoisGuard to reveal ownership data of one domain. It looks like the defendants got a little sloppy, too; Godaddy alleges that they registered six of their infringing domain names at GoDaddy.
There are many groups spamming owners of newly registered domain names and pretending to have an affiliation with GoDaddy. This hurts GoDaddy and the recipients of these messages.
While this lawsuit is aimed at just one group, a big success could lead to a reduction in these scams.
Acro says
Clearly there is much more than spam here. The extend of impersonation and forming of “GoDaddy” companies and use of brand is remarkable. This is all about false advertising.
Andrew Allemann says
That’s the only way I think they can try to prosecute something like this. Harvesting Whois info gets into contract issues and gray areas.
Michael says
God speed GoDaddy! The only thing more annoying than these texts are the fake IRS phone calls, which had died down after a recent bust but I just got another one today.
Got a spam text for Creative Video Animation from DezignMators.com today, and had a spam text from Logo Alps “celebrating” Veterans Day. Been a month or two since I got one pretending to be GoDaddy though.
Hope GoDaddy crushes them…
Dave says
I got one from DezignMators.com as well. Fairly certain DezignMators.com are the same company as “OctaLogo” and “OctaVideo” – they send the same types of spam texts. I’ve asked to be removed countless times and I still get this stuff all the time. I’ll plan on leaving as many negative Dezignmators.com reviews as I can because I’m really tired of this stuff. Completely unethical con artists.
Dn Ebook says
Good, I am glad they are doing this I really hate the phone text spam I get “godaddy logo” From now on I am going to forwards the business address to [email protected]
Kenny says
Way to go, go, go, GoDaddy.
I have personally forwarded dozens of the spams to the abuse at GD address after speaking to one of the reps and asking if there was any recourse.
There are others spammers besides the ones listed, but this is a good start.
And this:
Godaddy alleges that they registered six of their infringing domain names at GoDaddy.
Icing on the cake.
How bold / stupid is that?
Peace,
Kenny
Jerry J says
It’s not real. My comments look like they are being deleted here, which means I’ll reach out to you individually to show you how much control GD has over it’s “editor” base. GoDaddy created this internally, they have known for over a year, and do you really think it would take 14 months to “pursue” six “copycats” that literally registered their domains and gave GD control over them? Anyone else setting up knock off domains for cross marketing would be extinguished overnight. GD hasn’t extinguished anything until they realized they were on the hook for their own subvertive campaign attempts. Pretty sick, and this industry gets more naive everyday.
Gaurav K says
This needs to stop. Apart from TM infringement, false advt & spam, the spammers are hurting GD’s topline – they offer web design etc…all the more reason to take them out & set a precedent.
Jerry J says
This is total bogus reporting to protect them internally. This marketing, these partnerships, these outbound aggressive campaigns – they initiated FROM a Go Daddy marketing push. Same as Wild West partnership for privacy name holdings they can schill externally in the future and leak over time. They only go the other direction and feign victim status post abusing the trust of their customers and support partners to the point of gross negligence and slothful intrusion. They have been actively internally having conflicts for a year on what to tell their bulk registration clients who are receiving 15-35 contacts for each name registered per mock supplier. Time I think for a massive Go Daddy leak, to strip away their false walls, misrepresentations, and horrific true internal attitudes and malignant perceptions towards domainers that entrust them. How does mass migration initiatives sound to your shareholders GD??? This is a group that will be exposed for mass technical incompetence, and harmful strategies across the board that do nothing but elevate share price falsely why they are recovering billions of debt loss in the background. Wake up industry. This is a wolf, wearing wolf’s clothing, and sitting in plain sight.
Andrew Allemann says
9/11 was an inside job!
Cory says
Jet fuel can’t melt whois!
Dezignmators.com Spamming Scumbags says
Dezignmators.com is illegally spamming text messages
Wally says
I got 2 spam texts this week already from Dezignmators.com. This is crazy!
Merida says
I got spam texts every day this week! Crazy spammers!