Being the Best at what you do is something we all strive for! But where do you draw the line? Over one thousand ICANN accredited domain registrars compete worldwide, and as most of you know GoDaddy.com has held on to the coveted spot for many years. Being the industry leader however doesn't seem to give GoDaddy reason enough to strive towards ethical day-to-day business practices.
Over the years, the domain industry has been riddled with controversy, ranging from cybersquatting to domain tasting. This is why it is even more important for an industry leader to set a good example in order to improve public perception. But instead of leading the way with best practices, GoDaddy has recently been the target of numerous complaints; so much so, that ICANN is now stepping in and taking action! Today, we are sharing with you three very controversial practices GoDaddy chose to participate in over the past years, starting out with the 60 day lockdown period controversy all the way to blatant cybersquatting...
As we reported earlier this week, ICANN is now taking action against GoDaddy in order to stop them from locking down their customers for a 60 day waiting period, after customers altered their Whois information. For years, GoDaddy has been clearly infringing against specific rules put into place by ICANN, the Internet overseeing agency. By locking down their customers they forced many of them to renew their domain names with GoDaddy, specifically when their domain names were expiring during the lockdown period. Obviously, this must have been a very lucrative policy for GoDaddy; and one ICANN should have acted upon a long time ago!
If that wasn't enough, DNJournal recently reported that GoDaddy is now in the midst of more controversy by allowing several very obvious trademark infringing domains to be put up for sale on their TDNAM.com domain auction service. Namely DisneyStudio.com, KinkosCommercialSolutions.com, JetBlue.tv and BarclaysCapitalGroup.com.
The price tag on each was $50,000, not a small price to pay for unsuspecting outsiders who don’t understand domain trademark laws nor dispute regulations. Domain industry veterans, the Castello Brothers wrote, "It is outrageous and unethical that GoDaddy is allowing these obvious TM violations to be promoted on their site. A six year old could tell you these names would not last two seconds in UDRP arbitration. As an industry leader GoDaddy is setting a terrible example. They need to be part of the solution, not part of the problem."
It seems that the name of the game is to make as much money as possible, while disregarding well established trademark laws and WIPO court decisions.
Another controversy which came to us from a reliable source involves the case of a spam complaint made against one of GoDaddy's domain registrants. Believe it or not, GoDaddy expects a $199 “administration fee” as part of a series of steps needed to make the problem go away (see e-mail copy below).“Dear XYZ,
This also applies to the actions of any party generating this traffic or revenue on your behalf. This includes, but is not limited to, 3rd party marketers, business partners, mailing list providers and affiliates.
If in the future it is determined that this problem persists, your domain name may be immediately redirected. We do realize additional complaints resulting from this mailing may come in and we will of course consider this, and contact you before taking any action.
Yet again, a very lucrative practice but unethical in many ways! Actually, a lawyer may charge you less to compose and send a legal reply to the complainant!
Finally, the most outrageous proof that confirms that GoDaddy has no scrupels when it comes to unethical behavior comes to us in form of a Whois screenshot. Today's Whois information confirms that GoDaddy endorses and practices cybersquatting themselves; and that since February 7th, 2007! (screenshot - May 29th, 2008)
Most of you know EuroDNS, virtually located at http://www.eurodns.com/, a major international registrar located in Luxembourg, Europe. Apparently, GoDaddy didn’t think twice when they recently registered the typo version of EuroDNS's domain name, namely http://wwweurodns.com/ on February 13th, 2007.
When you type in http://wwweurodns.com/, and mistakenly leave out the dot (.) after the "www", you end up on a parked page at GoDaddy.com advertising their competing domain registration services (see picture below), and that for over a year now.
This is in clear violation of local and international trademark law and a blatant move by GoDaddy to redirect and profit from traffic destined for EuroDNS. Cybersquatting at its very Best! A practice they officially denounce (and secretly endorse).
How many customers and how much money EuroDNS lost as a result of this unethical move is unknown and what actions EuroDNS will take against GoDaddy as a result of this is unknown as of yet.
Conclusion
When you consider everything we heard and reported about, it is sad to see that the world's most successful registrar is not concerned about the reputation of the domain industry at all. They have chosen to be part of the problems that plague the industry, as long as they can add a few more customers and dollars to their bottom line.
If you have had bad experiences with GoDaddy.com we want to hear from you... contact us and share you story.
We will keep you informed about this developing story as it unfolds...
Source: Written by Roland G Buck - Chief Editor at DomainNews.com - May 29th, 2008