GoDaddy Holds Domains Hostage 389
saikou writes "There were previous reports of GoDaddy, one of the biggest domain name registrars, attacking Bittorrent sites with frivolous interpretation of their own Terms of Service (that story was resolved), and now similar events unfold with clients of one of Russian domain registrars Majordomo.ru -- GoDaddy has informed them that all 1399 client domains are now blocked (story in Russian) due to 'many of your domain names were
listed in the Spamhaus.org blacklist or were resolving to a name server
or IP address listed in the Spamhaus.org blacklist' with a demand of a neat '$199 non-refundable
administration fee to the credit card on file for your account for each
domain name you wish to reactivate' or $50 for each domain to be transferred out into another registrar.
I am all for fighting spam, but given how unreliable spam black-lists are such actions simply damage the internet. Instead of affecting people that use spam lists to control the inflow of mail to some degree, all users are effectively forced to be black-list clients.
Now all one needs to shut down a site is a few reports of spamming, and the domain (or even better, all domains of a given small registrar) will be suspended."
a company selling $2 domain names is shady!!! (Score:3, Funny)
Re:a company selling $2 domain names is shady!!! (Score:5, Insightful)
Whats next, are you going to tell me that used car dealers can be less than fully honest? SAY IT AINT SO!
Why? How complex do you think hosting a name <-> IP table is, especially when the basic, long-proven infrastructure costs are spread across tens of millions of domains.
Network Solutions, the other end of the cost scale, has hardly been a model of good registrar behaviour. In fact most people consider them the scummiest, shadiest of the group.
Re:a company selling $2 domain names is shady!!! (Score:3, Informative)
$6 last time I checked.
Re:a company selling $2 domain names is shady!!! (Score:3, Informative)
this is .... (Score:3, Informative)
QoS, crap or Crapola(TM)? (Score:2)
Re:this is .... (Score:3, Interesting)
Shows what you know (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Shows what you know (Score:2)
SpamHaus is indeed one of the best outfits around, though I can see the poster's point if you're using one of the more unreliable services. The whole blacklist/whitelist idea is good, except where people abuse it as part of some personal vendetta or one company doesn't like another company. SpamHaus uses much better information to rot out just who is and isn't a spammer -- I'd be willing to bet their false positive rate is pretty low.
Re:Shows what you know (Score:3, Interesting)
I wouldn't doubt it in the least.
As it happens, I'm a GoDaddy customer. I've also dealt with Network Solutions and MelbourneIT. GoDaddy stands head and shoulders above both of those big-name, big-rep registrars in terms of service, value for the money, and especially ethics. It wasn't GoDaddy who refused to give Panix their domain name back when it got
Re:Shows what you know (Score:3, Interesting)
But what amuses me about this is that you have the idea to berate people for attacking GoDaddy for this, on the grounds that "they're not as bad as other registrars", and that you defend the ethics of a company arbitrarily deciding that your domain is being used for nefarious purposes, /on the basis of/ one of their
Re:Shows what you know (Score:3, Insightful)
One list complained my machine was using the wrong version of sendmail for their taste. Not one bit of spam came from the machine - but they listed it simply because I had an old version of sendmail.
Since then I have considered all these lists to be unregulated vigilantes.
Speaking with other people - they also found themselves listed on various BHLs over trite and stupid shit.
With all the zombie computers out these days, BHLs are weapons of the last war anyhow.
Spamhaus blacklisted Google GMail. :-( (Score:4, Interesting)
This is an automatically generated Delivery Status Notification
Delivery to the following recipient failed permanently:
xxxxxxx@frontiernet.net
Technical details of permanent failure:
PERM_FAILURE: SMTP Error (state 9): 554 Sorry, your mail server (py-out-1112.google.com[64.233.166.178]) is rejected using sbl-xbl.spamhaus.org. See http://postmaster.frontiernet.net/error.html#sbl-
----- Original message -----
Received: by 10.35.115.18 with SMTP id s18mr2328477pym;
Wed, 14 Jun 2006 21:52:32 -0700 (PDT)
Received: by 10.35.97.6 with HTTP; Wed, 14 Jun 2006 21:52:32 -0700 (PDT)
Message-ID:
Date: Thu, 15 Jun 2006 00:52:32 -0400
From: "John Wasser"
To: "xxxxxxx"
Subject: Re: printer setup repair
In-Reply-To:
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
Content-Disposition: inline
References:
Re:Spamhaus blacklisted Google GMail. :-( (Score:3, Insightful)
This "evidence" appears to be fabricated. The IP address 64.233.166.178 is in fact not listed on Spamhaus at all:
or see the web lookup query [spamhaus.org] at spamhaus.org.
Re:Spamhaus blacklisted Google GMail. :-( (Score:3, Interesting)
The fact that it isn't listed NOW does not mean it wasn't listed THEN.
I have had spamhaus block email from yahoo too. It has been for me quite a conundrum deciding if the the false positives spamhaus gives outweigh the true spam it blocks. They do generally fix these within a couple hours, but it is really frustrating that during those couple hours, all email going to my mail server from yahoo is
Re:Spamhaus blacklisted Google GMail. :-( (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Spamhaus blacklisted Google GMail. :-( (Score:3, Insightful)
In other words, an SMTP server shouldn't even look at the headers, even less modify
the problem isn't spamhaus (Score:3, Interesting)
Gaming what godaddy's doing to unjustly shut down a domain (or in this case, 1399 domains) is just too easy.
Imagine having a legitimate website and having it shut down because godaddy has shut down your d
Very dangerous precedent (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Very dangerous precedent (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Very dangerous precedent (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Very dangerous precedent (Score:2)
I was mainly reacting to the sentiment that self-policing is a bad thing because it would supposedly encourage laws to this end though. Imo, it's exactly the other way around.
Re:Very dangerous precedent (Score:2)
good alternatives to GoDaddy? (Score:4)
So who's a good, low-cost registrar with no relationship to GoDaddy?
Since I'm serious, please don't respond with "Network Solutions".
Dreamhost (Score:4, Informative)
Rob
Re:good alternatives to GoDaddy? (Score:4, Informative)
http://www.domaincontender.com/ [domaincontender.com]
They are a rebranded directNIC [directnic.com] (one of the top ten domain registrars).
bluehost (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Very dangerous precedent (Score:2, Informative)
Spam comes from an email server. A server can fake domain/origination names/addresses in emails, an email server is not a domain server, just a machine which may or may not be from that 'domain'. Simple. Domains that are linked in the spam could be traced, but are often taken down quickly and I could easily see some increase in deliberate noise/signal in spams using legitimate domains in amongst illigetimate ones in order to 'sell
Re:Very dangerous precedent (Score:2)
And unfortunately, with DNS vulnerabilities being what they are, it's easy enough to spoof or move a domain from one IP to send out the spam then switch the domain somewhere else. A mail server isn't going to know that a domain has been spoofed or moved, just like the postman doesn't know you've moved unless you tell them.
Re:Very dangerous precedent (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Very dangerous precedent (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Very dangerous precedent (Score:2)
I guess I should repeat the disclaimers in this [slashdot.org] and this [slashdot.org] message in every post to avoid people like you replying to things which I'm not saying.
Re:Very dangerous precedent (Score:4, Insightful)
That's a disingenuous myth. It's far, far better to have laws than self-policing.
Why?
Because laws come with other laws guaranteeing you due process. 'Self-policing' means a corporate does whatever they feel like to you. This GoDaddy nonsense is a classic example: $200, pay-or-be-damned, no evidence, no appeals, no way to argue your case.
The best thing of all is neither laws nor self-policing, but rather a common carrier. That's an entity which moves data for everybody and every purpose without limits, and in exchance is not responsible for any of the data they move. Sure the terrorists can use it, but that's better than government or corporate intervention. Whenever this is reasonably practical, it's better than all the alternatives. It may not be practical for the sale of firearms, but it's definitely practical for the sale of DNS names.
Re:Very dangerous precedent (Score:2)
If someone is abusing a service for illegal purposes, I don't see why that service shouldn't be taken away from him/her.
As mentioned in another post [slashdot.org], GoDaddy reserves the right in its TOS to do this if you spam or phish (and does not me
Re:Very dangerous precedent (Score:2)
Re:Very dangerous precedent (Score:2)
Because they reserve the right to do that in their TOS [godaddy.com], probably to discourage spammers from setting up shop with them.
It would surprise me if that Russian reseller did not get an initial warning, although me nor you can know that for sure of course. That sa
Re:Very dangerous precedent (Score:3, Insightful)
It's great to try to reduce spam on the internet, I'm not against that. Based on anecdotes elsewhere in the thread, though, it sounds like GoDaddy is quite happy to cast a wide net and refuse to provide reasonable review of their decisions. Financially, it's obvio
Re:Very dangerous precedent (Score:2)
I don't know how the spamhaus people manage to get all their information, but you can bet they use a lot
Re:Very dangerous precedent (Score:4, Insightful)
If you want to enforce that registrars cannot impose restrictions on their clients, then what kind of slippery slope are you encouraging?
Are you saying that the worst murderous mobsters can operate massive criminal enterprises on a website hosted in an anarchistic country and their registrar should be prevented from denying them service?
Re:Very dangerous precedent (Score:5, Interesting)
OK, your bills are payed. Now when people type A, A is resolved to IP B instead of C (a parking page)
It's the responsibility of law enforcement to enforce law. But, in your own argument, the site is hosted in an anarchistic country. We (and whatever country the registrar is based in) have NO BUSINESS imposing law or right/wrong on another sovergn country OR IT'S CITIZENS OR BUSINESSES. We can yell/scream/make noise/threaten as much as we want, but we cannot enforce our views on them.
Re:Very dangerous precedent, or is it? (Score:3, Insightful)
in other words (Score:4, Insightful)
This isn't the equivalent of a property owner evicting a tenant for drug violations, this is the equivalent of a property owner evicting every tenant in one of his buildings because one tenant is dealing drugs.
I abhor the IRS, but would still say yes (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Very dangerous precedent (Score:4, Interesting)
I rather read that as GoDaddy imposing restrictions on the clients of another registrar. That hardly seems like behaviour we would wish to encourage.
Speaking of slipperly slopes, GoDaddy stand to make almost 300k from this stick up. I mean, it isn't as if this is going to solve anything, and it isn't as if GoDaddy are blocking them unconditionally. They're just saying "we want a slice of you're ill gotten gains or we drop all your packets.
The thing is, if we let this pass, that gives lots of registrars an incentive to start eforcing the law as they see it, and for material gain. That's going to encourage them to define ill-doing on the net loosely, since they get tp shake down more nets
Are you saying that the worst murderous mobsters can operate massive criminal enterprises on a website hosted in an anarchistic country and their registrar should be prevented from denying them service?
You're either trolling, or else you're taking way too much for granted here.
For example it's far from clear that murderous mobsters are involved, let along the worst sort (unless you define unsoilicited junk email as being identical to the unlawful taking of human life, that is). The criminality is open to question too since spamming is not (sadly) universally illegal.
And that's just the domains registered to MajorDomo.ru. GoDaddy are demanding money with manaces from all those domains. Unless Majordomo have some weird negative vetting process for thier clients, then the chances are that not all of them are crooks.
I can't see how GoDaddy have any ethical justification for their actions here, and I can't think of a single pargmatic reason why we should condone their behaviour
Re:Very dangerous precedent (Score:2)
Re:Very dangerous precedent (Score:3, Interesting)
You seem to have forgotten to indicate any reason why you would see this as acceptable.
I didn't forget -- I just thought it was obvious. For the benefit of the slow learners in the class, I'll repeat myself: Domain name registrars should not get into the content policing business. Today it's spam, which everybody agrees is terrible and should be stopped. Tomorrow it will be with some other type of disfavored content.
Why would you force registrars to act according to your will?
I see it the other w
Not surprised... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Not surprised... (Score:2)
Extortion (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Extortion (Score:2)
"Hi kids, thanks for visiting me here in prison. I tried to make spammers give me some of their drug money, but ended up asking innocent people for drug money too. Oops. Maybe next year we can go have that picnic in the park."
Re:Extortion (Score:5, Interesting)
Godaddy's policies are terrible, they will do anything to make extra money.
Damn it! (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Damn it! (Score:2, Funny)
Spam policing is good, but not for registers. (Score:2)
Spam is a problem, but handing even more power over to the registrars is not the answer to that problem.
Registrars, ISPs, politicians, and diapers need to be changed frequently -- for approximately the same reasons(*).
If I had any accounts with GoDaddy I'd be switching to Dotster or one of thousands of other registrars right now.
(*)apologies to Heinlein
Re:Spam policing is good, but not for registers. (Score:2)
I think it's quite legitimate for a registrar to have terms of service and to reject hosting domains that violate these. If a registrar doesn't like porn, or multi-level marketing, or viagra sales, that's fine, as long as the customers are made aware of it beforehand. There are thousands of registrars, if you have a legitimate site you will ahve no problem finding hosting. B
So Sad (Score:5, Interesting)
The thing is their prices are so great it's really hard to justify going someplace else. You can pay up to $35 a year at some of the boutique registrars.
Re:So Sad (Score:4, Informative)
As their name suggests, they are cheap. No-nonsense management interface and they're not Godaddy, which is always a plus. Only problem is their support could be a little more responsive.
Re:So Sad (Score:3, Informative)
Re:So Sad (Score:2)
Odd. (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Odd. (Score:5, Funny)
Personally, I use GoDaddy for a domain registrar, and a host in some cases.
The only reason I started was because of their commercials. A tech company willing to have totally gratuitous shots of a chick bouncing her big boobs...well, that's a company for me.
Really- I did move a lot of business there because of the chick with big boobs. I guess that makes me shallow. Or a guy who likes boobs.
You Go Daddy!
I should clarify (was: Re:Odd.) (Score:2)
Not gonna be popular.. (Score:2, Insightful)
Besides, check out Spamhaus, it takes a lot more then a "few reports of spamming" to end up on their list. It takes solid evidence that you're a large-scale spammer or provide spam support services (such as bulletproof hosting)
Re:Wrong. (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't know about the yacht in international waters, but I agree that Spamhaus wreaks havoc on organizations that have done nothing wrong. Our organization has been black listed before too, and it was in error. It finally got cleared up, but it is still damaging.
We stopped using RBL's a long time ago, and have swtiched to something called Securence http://www.securence.com/ [securence.com]. It has been much more reliable than RBL's, and keeps the junk from ever getting to our server in the first place. I haven't had a complaint about a false positive since we switched, and it blocks over 100,000 spam/viruses/phishing attempts a day.
"Hostage" is just the right word (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:"Hostage" is just the right word (Score:3, Funny)
... well, seeing as its "reactivation fees charged to the credit card on account" ... and that the REAL spammers probably used stolen cc info, they'll be going "no problem, comradeski, here's our NEW credit card info, charge away ... heck, charge it twice, you know, one for "next time", dah?".
Of course, the non-spammers end up with a kick in the head.
This isn't going to stop real spammers - they've got millions of windows slaves.
GoDaddy did this to us, too! (Score:5, Interesting)
What was their excuse?
Someone outside of our organization had (for whatever unknown reason, as this is not our business) spammed using ONE of our domains as a the spoofed header-from domain. And yes, we publish SPF records. That wont stop idiots from trying.
Anyway, I personally spent close to one hour on the phone with their "abuse" people (ironic that they consider what we were doing abusive). I explained the situation over and over to no avail. We escalated to their lead "abuse" person. Same story. "Your domain was in a spam and we do not allow this"... When I would try to explain that it was not from us or on our behalf in any way, shape, or form -- we were curtly told "that's not what we've been told."
Now, I had also received the spam complaint. Their "abuse" ("abusive") people were going solely off what was written in this complaint itself. In ALL CAPS, the user cried bloody murder about "I DID NOT SIGN UP AND DO NOT WANT SPAMS FROM THESE PEOPLE"... GoDaddy did not lift one finger to actually investigate the situation and instead took the end users' word for it.
We had to get our lawyers involved. We had to fax them threatening letters. Finally, they so gracefully allowed us to tranfer our domains away from GoDaddy to another registrar for the very low highjacking fee of $50 per domain we were going to transfer.
Again -- this was not a spam from us, for us, or by us. It was a completely third party individual just randomly choosing our domain to spoof.
GoDaddy is a goddamn scam and I hope their company gets burnt someday. It would not surprise me if the spam was created by them for the specific purpose of looting their more deep-pocketed customers through these $50 "re-activation" fees. Month getting slow? Craft up another fake spam. Fuckers.
More profitable for you to leave than stay... (Score:5, Insightful)
The sad thing is that this sort of thing on their part really won't hurt all that much. How much money would they have made on each of your domains for the next *10* years? $30? I'm basing this on $3 profit ($9 - $6 wholesale cost - maybe it's different for them?) By forcing you to leave they've almost doubled that, and they don't have any work to do to service you for the next 10 years either!
If they could simply extract $50 from every single domain-name-only customer to transfer away they would be *far* more profitable than they are now because there'd be less overhead and work to do.
Re:GoDaddy did this to us, too! (Score:3, Interesting)
Glad I am not with godaddy. Otherwise I should delete those accounts.
Even worse if
Re:GoDaddy did this to us, too! (Score:5, Informative)
They claimed we were spamming AOL domains, and we were not! It was a third party. They wouldn't even send me a copy of the spam emails. They would not listen to reason, or anything. It was the worst feeling being held hostage like that.
I didn't have lawyers to help me (couldn't afford them). You were lucky.
Godaddy is a scam, and an extortionist. I hope this story spreads all over the internet.
Re:GoDaddy did this to us, too! (Score:3, Insightful)
I will back this up. (Score:5, Informative)
For what it's worth, we use eNom and have never had any problems with them. If you host more than a few domain names, get an eNom reseller account (many providers offer them for free) and pay the same price as GoDaddy. I recommend them highly; we have several hundred domains with them right now.
Best registrar... (Score:4, Interesting)
$15 and no bullshit.
To me they are like the Google of registrars - "do no evil".
They even are based out of NOLA and had very little if any downtime during Katrina. You can read about it and see damage to their building here:
http://interdictor.livejournal.com/ [livejournal.com]
WTF? (Score:5, Funny)
This is one of those times.
not goaddy's job (Score:2)
If GoDaddy does not wish to be associated with the content or the use of the domains, then they should force the owners to transfer them to another registrar, such as preventing the name servers from being added.
I wonder if this behaviour is aginst the ICANN rules.
OK, I've had it with GoDaddy... (Score:3)
unreliable? (Score:3, Interesting)
The problems with false positives are really an externalized cost [wikipedia.org], which accrues largely to innocent and not-so-innocent third parties, since sometimes spam originates from IP addresses or domains where other legitimate traffic exits (innocently) but sometimes the owners of those domains are supporting the spam activity directly (not so innocently). Of course, some of the costs of blocked legitimate traffic accrue to the user of the spam list, but those folks are making a trade-off and pretty clearly feel the benefits to be worth the annoyances.
Regarding the central thesis that taking actions like these "damage the internet," may I suggest that in fact the odds of "damage" to anyone are probabaly quite low, assuming that the Registrar does proper due diligence before taking such actions. They should not take the mere presense on a blacklist as gospel, but should check the domains directly themselves.
I'm also amused at the likely effect of the "fee for restoration of service". Ticked-off innocent users will be unfairly charged, and are likely to complain very loudly. Such users will probably receive an apology from a help desk worker, and free restoration of service. Guilty users are financing their operation with stolen identity and credit cards and will probably just pay the fee using ill gotten booty. (Aaaarh, Matey! Make 'em swab the poop deck instead! [stanford.edu])
Re:unreliable? (Score:2)
Read the experience of other posters ... that's not what's happened in the past.
If someone's spamming, make them take their business elsewhere. Same as if someone goes into a restaurant and starts screaming at other cutomers - make them take their business elsewhere. The "pay us $199 reactivation fee and you're back up" would be more like telling the screamer in the restaurant "pay us a cover charge and you can abuse the o
Too drastic measures (Score:2, Interesting)
Blocking ip's at registrar's layer for me is more preferable, but procedure of unlocking a domain is a bit frightening although. Mainly because of the response time.
And blocking so many domain names is un
It takes more than a "few reports" (Score:4, Informative)
"Now all one needs to shut down a site is a few reports of spamming, and the domain (or even better, all domains of a given small registrar) will be suspended."
This demonstrates a poor understanding of how blacklisting works and how anti-spam actions are taken. Spammers who have actions taken against them usually have thousands of reports against them, from hundreds or thousands of disparate sources, over an extended period of time.
Re:It takes more than a "few reports" (Score:2)
Re:It takes more than a "few reports" (Score:4, Insightful)
I host my own mail and that of a friend. My friend was getting messages back from a couple of servers indicating that delivery of his mail was being denied because his (i.e. my) server was on the Abusive Hosts Blocking List (AHBL). Now, given that I have a very locked-down and tested qmail install and I'm providing valid SPF records from my DNS, I was a little perplexed. I got in touch with AHBL and was told that my entire IP range was on their blacklist simply because they had a beef with a particular spammer that operated from Time-Warner's network. I pointed out that this was a problem that concerned a completely different geographical area in TW's IP range, and that my IP was a static address within TW's business-class ranges. They basically said they didn't care, as my IP address belonged to TW, not to me, and because of that they absolutely were not going to unblock my IP address. It seems to me they consider their little infantile vigilante crusade against TW to be more important than anything else, even when it's pointed out to them that they are recommending the blocking of legitimate servers.
Spam is certainly an annoyance to me (close to 1K every day), but I can't afford the possibility of losing valid e-mail because some idiot spam list admin has some kind of ideological problem with an ISP, so I don't use blacklists. I can't say that Spamhaus is any better or worse, but as far as I'm concerned, the staff at the AHBL (and Andrew Kirch in particular) can go fuck themselves with a large, jagged, rough-surfaced object.
Did Microsoft cause this? (Score:2)
godaddy unreliable? (Score:2)
Now, don't get me wrong. If godaddy saw a registrant engaging in uncuth activity, I would have no problem with godaddy sending a letter saying the registrant had 30 days to find another registrar. I would not even have a big issue with go
Simple solution (Score:5, Interesting)
They'll dispute the filing and keep pulling out parts of their license agreement to counter it. Dispute the agreement as being invalid. When all is said and done, you'll be out a few days of work, GoDaddy will have wasted a ton on lawyers.
(Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer, this is Slashdot, use common sense, this is not advice, you are feeling sleepy...sleepy...SLEEPY...you want to buy me a 50" HDTV.)
Re:Simple solution (Score:3, Informative)
Anecdote: Godaddy Has Impressed Me (Score:3, Interesting)
Now here's the Internet angle: A few months into the conflict, they started targeting our web hosts and domain registrars with unlawful DMCA notices and other underhanded legal tactics. We had been advised by one of our attorneys to go with Network Solutions instead of the smaller registrar we had been with since our domain's original creation; we chose to take the legal advice despite my grave misgivings. Predictably enough (given the myriad of horror stories about the company), Network Solutions locked down our domain on the basis of the opposition's lawsuit and refused to unlock it until the termination of legal proceedings. Plus, our domain was locked down while its DNS record pointed to a hosting company that also denied us service. It was terrifically devastating to effectively lose our domain and site for that period, as it had been our official domain since 1996. As for Godaddy, once our site got taken down indefinitely we transferred over to one of our secondary domains that was registered with Godaddy. Godaddy never took action against that domain - we never even got notice from them about the mater despite the fact the opposition obviously attempted the same maneuver against Godaddy that it used on NetSol. The only troubling thing about Godaddy's service was an automated message sent to us concerning an illegitimate challenge to our DNS contact information. Notably, the message claimed to give us only a few days to respond to the challenge before Godaddy would take action, which could have included registration deletion. We were able to take care of that issue with one phone call, and we were even given an unusually candid apology for the previous notice. Nonetheless, that experience was disconcerting. Despite that occurrence, Godaddy did not falter for us even in those adverse conditions, so I'll be staying with it unless and until it no longer merits my appreciation. (And for less important domains, I use the slightly cheaper 1and1.)
Who appointed godaddy a judge? (Score:2)
GoDaddy Has a History of These Things... (Score:4, Informative)
Lindsay Ashford, a promient memeber of the Paedophile community was once registered with GoDaddy until they started to yank his chain and play games [puellula.com] with him using Section Seven of their Domain Registration Agreement--specifically the bit about morally objectionable activities. Lindsay was given 24 hours in which to move the site (which he began to do) only to be informed via email the change over was blocked from GoDaddy's end without explaination. The strange thing is while there was never any child porn or illegal content on puellula.com [puellula.com]and GoDaddy never explained their actions, the site was also home to many racists and extremists hate [puellula.com] sites that were apparently never a problem. It finally took a complaint from Lindsay to ICAAN [wikipedia.org] before the domains were finally restored to him!
GoDaddy is run by people who see no evil in groups such as: Skinheads [slashdot.org], Hammerskins, [slashdot.org]Aryan Nations [slashdot.org], White Camelia Knights of the Ku Klux Klan [slashdot.org], Ku Klux Klan [slashdot.org] all whom were still registered with GoDaddy as of roughly this time last year. Given the legal wrangling it took to get the company to turn over the domain names to their proper owners, why would anyone be surprised when they decide to dip into the extortion racket?
Do yourself a favor and find a domain register who is willing to take care of their customers and isn't run by a bunch of racists who think we haven't done enough torture on the Guantanamo Bay prisioners!
--I*Love*Green*Olives
Bob Parsons contributes to online vigilantes. (Score:3, Informative)
GoDaddy tried to scam me last month also (Score:3, Informative)
Digg (Score:3, Funny)
"This week's episode of Diggnation is brought to you by GoDaddy -- The people who are probably holding your domain hostage right now."
Actual Hard Info (Score:4, Informative)
http://www.godaddy.com/gdshop/legal_agreements/sh
Section 7 is the one that deals with spam. Here's what it says:
7. restriction of services; right of refusal
You agree not to use the services provided by Go Daddy, or to allow or enable others, to use the services provided by Go Daddy for the purposes of:
* The transmission of unsolicited email (Spam).
* Repetitive, high volume inquires into any of the services provided by Go Daddy (i.e. domain name availability, etc.).
If You are hosting Your domain's domain name servers ("DNS") on Go Daddy's servers, or are using our systems to forward a domain, URL, or otherwise to a system or site hosted elsewhere, or if You have your domain name registered with Go Daddy, You are responsible for ensuring that there is no excessive overloading on Go Daddy's DNS systems. You may not use Go Daddy's servers and Your domain as a source, intermediary, reply to address, or destination address for mail bombs, Internet packet flooding, packet corruption, or other abusive attack. Server hacking or other perpetration of security breaches is prohibited. You agree that Go Daddy reserves the right to deactivate Your domain name from its DNS system if Go Daddy deems it is the recipient of activities caused by your site that threaten the stability of its network.
You agree that Go Daddy, in its sole discretion and without liability to You, may refuse to accept the registration of any domain name. Go Daddy also may in its sole discretion and without liability to You delete the registration of any domain name during the first thirty (30) days after registration has taken place. Go Daddy may also cancel the registration of a domain name, after thirty (30) days, if that name is being used in association with spam or morally objectionable activities. Morally objectionable activities will include, but not be limited to: activities designed to defame, embarrass, harm, abuse, threaten, slander or harass third parties; activities prohibited by the laws of the United States and/or foreign territories in which You conduct business; activities designed to encourage unlawful behavior by others, such as hate crimes, terrorism and child pornography; activities that are tortious, vulgar, obscene, invasive of the privacy of a third party, racially, ethnically, or otherwise objectionable; activities designed to impersonate the identity of a third party; and activities designed to harm minors in any way. In the event Go Daddy refuses a registration or deletes an existing registration during the first thirty (30) days after registration, You will receive a refund of any fees paid to Go Daddy in connection with the registration either being canceled or refused. In the event Go Daddy deletes the registration of a domain name being used in association with spam or morally objectionable activities, no refund will be issued.
Okay, so there are some pretty nasty things in there. One thing I don't see is where they say they'll hold on to the name, refuse to let you transfer it or charge you an extra fee. In fact, they're quite specific: If you spam, they cancel the registration. Period.
I also read the supposed letter from godaddy at http://majordomo.ru/about/letter.htm [majordomo.ru] . Maybe its just me, but the letter smells false. That's not the careful legal language I would expect from a company Godaddy's size faced with this sort of situation. I'm not discounting the possibility that its real, but it smells false. If I saw that letter in my inbox, I'd suspect phishing.
Re:Uh... what? (Score:5, Informative)
Majordomo uses GoDaddy for international domain registrations for some of their clients. GoDaddy has blocked 1399 accounts of Majordomo clients because of spam suspicions.
Majordomo has nothing to do with this extortion scam.
typical? (Score:2)
: )
Re:Uh... what? (Score:2)
Re:Uh... what? (Score:2)
Re:Uh... what? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:This story is pure bull-crap. (Score:3, Interesting)
I included in the article link to black list of Google mail relays. Would you like your Google mail be blocked because someone claims that Google is a safe haven for spammers as it "either sent mail to our spam traps or we received reports from our members of spam"?
Oh, I forgot. You work for an ISP so you don't care. But it would be interesting to see your
Re:Spam is legal (Score:3, Insightful)
I have no problem with online marketing, but I have a problem whenever it is not opt-in (with a decent check on if you indeed tried to opt-in)
There is no reason why people should fill my mailbox and use the bandwidth I pay for to tell me something I don't want to hear to begin with. Now, if they were paying for it themselves exclusively this might change, but for now I pay for the bandwidth usage of my