Brent Crouch - My Online Journal

Maybe I am a little naïve, but when I decided on a domain registrar the three factors that I considered important were price, customer service, and the control panel. Did I leave out something more important? Yeah, probably so.

If you don’t know, Godaddy is the largest domain registrar in the world. According to Webhosting.info, Godaddy controls over 20% of all domains registered in the world. The next next largest registrar is Enom that controls a little less than 9% of registered domain names.

There has been a lot of controversy surrounding Godaddy in the past. Most of this has revolved around it’s advertising practices. Godaddy has become well known for running Super Bowl commercials featuring women short on clothing. Love it or hate it? Personally, I don’t care. This had nothing to do with my decision to use Godaddy as my registrar, although it probably did get my attention and let me know they existed.

Currently, I have over 40 domains registered with Godaddy. It appears I may have not considered the most important factor when making this decision. To some, Godaddy has become known as Judge, Jury, and Executioner when dealing with it’s customers. They seem to be more than willing to suspend a domain name or an entire domain portfolio based on allegations of spam or incorrect whois data.

I have NO PROBLEM when a domain registrar suspends a domain associated with child porn, credit card fraud, or phishing schemes. But according to numerous posts on the net, Godaddy cracks down on anything it considers spam including link requests. Over at
Threadwatch, one poster claimed Godaddy suspended an entire domain portfolio and demanded $4776 to reinstate it based on allegations that one domain was involved in sending link requests that they regarded as spam. If you do a Google search for the term “Godaddy Suspended” this incident doesn’t appear to be isolated.

So what should I do? Should I start moving all 40 of my domains to another host based on the allegations of anonymous posters? Is there really something to this Godaddy madness or are these posts by users that don’t like Godaddy based on advertising?

When I ran across this post over at Web Hosting Talk, I wrote an email to the Godaddy support team and asked for a response. About a week later, I received an email from Alon Waisman, the President of Godaddy. He thanked me for notifying him of the post and mentioned Godaddy was still considering if it should post a response.

On 5/29/07, Godaddy posted this response to the posts.

GoDaddy.com response

——————————————————————————–

To those concerned,

I am a representative in the Office of the President at Go Daddy.

We have been asked to address the concerns within this post, and we would like to take this opportunity to clarify the procedure associated with an invalid WHOIS claim and how a claim against your domain name may realistically affect you.

First, we ask that you recognize that our procedures are a direct result of contractual obligations we have to the Internet Corporation of Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN). These obligations require us to collect complete and accurate registration details.

It is important to note that we do not simply receive a claim from a complainant and suspend a domain. First, we ask for specific proof of a failed contact attempt to a domain name owner. Meaning, the complainant must have tried unsuccessfully to
contact the owner of the domain name using the information available in the WHOIS database. The complainant must then provide evidence of the failed contact attempt such as returned
postage or a bounced e-mail message. To be clear, we require proof of invalid WHOIS data before we officially begin an investigation.

Once we do begin the verification process with the domain name owner, we allow at least five days before determining whether to suspend a domain. Even after this initial contact period, the domain name is not automatically CANCELLED. We routinely SUSPEND domain names, rather than Cancelling them. During this suspension, we provide an additional grace period of at least ten days during which time we invite contact from the domain name owner so that he or she may correct their WHOIS info and we
can unsuspend the domain name.

After continued failure to contact us to correct the issue, we may take additional action. As with many of the issues we deal with at Go Daddy, these claims are all handled on a case-by-base basis, and we always work to do what is in the best interests of our customers provided that they are acting within the limits of ICANN regulations and our terms of service.

I hope that this explanation of our invalid WHOIS claim process helps you to better understand how and why we take action in this type of situation.

If you should ever find yourself involved in such a claim, we invite you to contact us to better understand your specific case and how to proceed.

Thank you for your attention,

Alon
Office of the President
GoDaddy.com

The response seems a little less than complete. How does Godaddy handle spam complaints? If you run a legitimate newsletter, can a competitor register for your newsletter and then send spam complaint to Godaddy and cause your domain to be suspended? How are these complaints handled? Is the Godaddy customer given the chance to respond before the domain is taken offline?

I haven’t quite decided what to do. Most likely, I will move my most important domains to another host within the next few weeks and then transfer my less important domains as they become due for renewal. I don’t know for sure what allegations posted are true and which are false, but the Godaddy response is less than complete. I’d rather be safe than sorry.

Good Luck with your business,

Brent Crouch

P.S. Another good site to read on the topic is Nodaddy.com

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