GoDaddy Unfairly Acquiring Domains
Although I’ve purchased just about everyone of my domains from GoDaddy.com (except this one) I’m beginning to worry that maybe I’ve made a bad move in doing so, as every week I keep reading awful stories about how GoDaddy has treated its customers.
The latest story is about how GoDaddy took over ownership of the FamilyAlbum.com domain. Apparently the owner discovered that he no longer owned the domain, even though it hadn’t expired.
After a bit of investigative work the owner realised that what had happened was that GoDaddy had received a complaint about an invalid email address. What GoDaddy then did was to send an email to this invalid address asking the user to correct the invalid email address…..When no action was taken for obvious reasons then GoDaddy just went ahead and took over ownership of a very valuable domain name. Not nice.
I think when my current domains (I think I have about 15-20 now) expire I’m going to move them away from GoDaddy. To be honest I only used GoDaddy in the first place because the instructions that PowerVPS gave me on how to setup a new domain used GoDaddy as the example.
Have you come across any other nightmare stories featuring GoDaddy? Which registrar do you recommend?
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Comment by Thilak on 3 March 2007:
The other day, my cousin was telling the GoDaddy parks the domain if you try search for a domain name and its available.
I felt the same while I tried searching for Thilak.com and it got parked. Isn’t this unlawful ?
Comment by Ajay on 3 March 2007:
Didn’t I tell you about this earlier
Btw, how about transferring your domains to WZDomains; it’s definitely more cost effective than most other registrars.
Comment by Ajay on 3 March 2007:
Thilak, there is nothing unlawful about your domain being parked even after you searched for it. In some ways you should have registered it the moment you found it available.
However yes it is unethical.
Comment by Mike on 3 March 2007:
I’ve not had a problem with GoDaddy so far but I’m going to be paying more attention to the search/parking issue Thilak has mentioned.
Comment by Dan and Jennifer on 3 March 2007:
We haven’t had any problems with them to date either, in the last 3 years we’ve dealt with them.
Hmmm… with all the PR focus they have, something like this is devastating to their image. Sounds like somebody really screwed up, since this would be a really foolish “company policy” over there.
After all, they have your billing address, billing email, billin phone number… you’d think they would at least try and contact you on all those (maybe even going to your site to message you) before causing a PR nightmare like this?
Everton - here’s a thought. Why don’t you put the simple question to the man himself - Bob Parsons, GoDaddy CEO? Then you can post his answer here for all your readers.
Bob has a radio show weekly and is very active on his blog threads, i.e. last I looked at it he really answers all the comments (no, not the spiteful stuff, but any questions). Here’s the URL: http://www.bobparsons.com/
Have an awesome day!
Dan
Comment by Mosey on 3 March 2007:
I hear that Registerfly is quite terrible as well… am currently using Namecheap.
Comment by Everton on 3 March 2007:
I’ve just spent 10 minutes checking all my contact details are correct-good job I checked as this domain expires later this month and I hadn’t set auto-renew!
Comment by Ajay on 3 March 2007:
only 10 minutes?
Comment by Mosey on 3 March 2007:
Whois.sc is your friend
http://www.whois.sc/yourdomain.com
Comment by Alpesh Nakar on 4 March 2007:
Yes, I have experienced what Thilak has mentioned. Search for a domain name. Think about it. Go to register and its gone!
I would recommend Netfirms.com or enom.com