GoDaddy Blocking Emails?

[BostonDomainer]

Does anyone know when Godaddy stopped forwarding emails from domains that are under privacy? I just checked my portfolio and it seems that there is a new setting requirement and the option to receive emails sent to @domainproxy was disabled on all my domains over 1k there and you now have to manually (1 by 1 as no bulk option) enable the option to forward emails from an interested party using domainproxy to your main email address. I wonder how many offers were not received because of this as, with privacy, I used to always receive email offers, I decided to check and noticed this major change. Did Godaddy issue any press release or email info on this as this seems rather problematic on several points. Let me know if I'm missing something and if someone can bring some clarity on this @Joe Styler @James Iles

thanks

 

[BostonDomainer]

I took privacy off my entire portfolio about 2 month ago... the whois was showing fine for weeks with my public email... now (past 2 weeks since I've been checking) *****all Godaddy whois searches shows the following regardless of your privacy settings *****
Email:
Select Contact Domain Holder link at https://www.godaddy.com/whois/results.aspx?domain=DomainName.com

This is a big deal and again this switch occured under the cover of darkness. I invite you all to check the names in your portfolio at Godaddy that are suppose to display public email contact info. Ask yourself, why does Godaddy want control of our WHOis contact email that these email "issues" keep occuring? Maybe they'll start charging for the right to display your personal email contact info? Godaddy Verified perhaps?

I started moving my domains from Godaddy to Dynadot ~1,200 left. It feels like they are always up to something questionable or at the lease- undesirable- these days. Too much data

 

[branding]

I'm only seeing the link to GoDaddy, there:

Show attachment 235039

Basically they're forcing you to pay about $70 to go through their brokers to reach out to a domain owner who explicitly stated it's ok to show their contact details.

Especially for those in the EU, you have to explicitly give them permission to show your details (they get redacted by default due to GDPR).

You don't give them permission to get a middleman/broker involved, you give them permission to disclose your contact info in whois.

It's ridiculous.

 

[411domains]

I haven't followed up on this for awhile, but I noticed that even if privacy is disabled, they still do not provide your email, which means even if someone tries to contact you, they are forced to either call or complete the Godaddy "Domain Holder Contact Request Form."
This BS is getting old.
What do you know about this @James Iles?

 

[411domains]

Gwhois.org shows your contact info for doctormommy dot com
Edit:

https://whois.domaintools.com/doctormommy.com
Info is there

Yeah, everything but the email. (The MOST IMPORTANT piece of contact info.)
Coincidence? Highly unlikely.
They’re destined for a class action lawsuit.

 

[LoveCatchyDomains]

I haven't followed up on this for awhile, but I noticed that even if privacy is disabled, they still do not provide your email, which means even if someone tries to contact you, they are forced to either call or complete the Godaddy "Domain Holder Contact Request Form."

You are absolutely right! I have privacy off on all my domains. My email shows for the ones at Dynadot and Namecheap, but not for the ones at GoDaddy.

For example, when checking my domain "DoctorMommy.com" through lookup.icann.org, the emails is shown as:

https://www.godaddy.com/whois/results.aspx?domain=DOCTORMOMMY.COM

For comparison, any of you unfamiliar with the privacy off showings, DrMommy.com, registered at Dynadot, very clearly shows the email contact info.

So, what's the deal, GoDaddy? Why aren't you presented the registrant, admin, and technical actual contact emails. Why block the registrant/admin/tech email contact information, even with privacy off?

Recently, your brokerage was able to contact me regarding a potential sale for a domain I had with a different registrar. Privacy was off, and presumably this made it easier for your broker to contact me and ultimately complete the sale. Please consider that brokers other than with GoDaddy deserve to have the ability to directly reach your domain registrants as well.

 

[LoveCatchyDomains]

Gwhois.org shows your contact info for doctormommy dot com
Edit:

https://whois.domaintools.com/doctormommy.com
Info is there

The email is the issue. Unlike all other registrars, the email contact instead requires the additional steps. After I had gone through ICANN addressing the issue before with GD and one other registrar, GD appeared to temporarily fix this. Now, apparently, they are requiring additional steps to do the contact, AND still not providing the direct email address for the registrant.

And not that I explicitly checked to make certain that I did not ask for spam filtering. So I did not ask for the email still to be masked or attempts to contact me to be screened.

 

[Reallybigidea.com]

@BostonDomainer here's the answer.

 

[BostonDomainer]

I'd like to see one of the writers on namepros like @Bob Hawkes maybe take a look at this issue with a write up for the domain community. This practice by godaddy is a really big deal and how they handle it matters to the entire community. (if you or someone else is up for is up for some digging Bob or other blogger) thanks. I am so upset about all this.

 

[bhartzer]

Apologies for the delay @BostonDomainer. I know how important the Domains by Proxy feature is to domain investors, and with that in mind, I can say that the email forwarding feature is slated to be enabled by default for new registrations in the next 60 days, which includes bulk functionality. Domains in the interim will likely need to be manually adjusted.

This is actually not just a 'domainer' issue.

My understanding is that it's an ICANN requirement that the email on the whois gets to the domain owner. So even if it's using an obfuscated email (such as the email address being obfuscated in the whois record), an email sent to that email address MUST be delivered to the domain owner. The registrar cannot block it or send it anywhere else--they have to send it or forward it to the domain owner.

There are a lot of reasons someone may need to contact the real domain owner of a domain, not just because someone wants to buy the domain from them.

 

[fogfever]

Apologies for the delay @BostonDomainer. I know how important the Domains by Proxy feature is to domain investors, and with that in mind, I can say that the email forwarding feature is slated to be enabled by default for new registrations in the next 60 days, which includes bulk functionality. Domains in the interim will likely need to be manually adjusted.

Hi James,
It has now been 64 days since you said that the email forwarding feature will be enabled, but it is still not enabled.
I just registered a domain at Godaddy and checked the domain and it says Privacy email forwarding: Off. As many others have said in this thread this is very problematic because domain owners need to receive messages about their domains. Godaddy - please fix this.

 

[SuperDudePro]

Yes, the setting is not consent to have spam filtering activated. It is a complete, blanket blocking of ALL EMAIL TO YOUR DOMAIN registrant, etc, by DEFAULT. No explicit consent. Nothing to double check with registrant that they really intended this.

When that very astute Namepros member posted about this problem last year, it was surprising tome that there wasn't much more of an uproar. At a minimum, an alert to all members might have helped prevent this confusion AND perhaps have helped folks get more direct sales.

,Again, an important question here is how many leads and potential sales have been lost due to this? Not just for the domain name in question, mind you, but for other catchy names you may have had or still have? A potential buyer may be a very valuable resource to a domain investor, especially a prospect that comes via inbound directly to you.

I get the concern generally, but why would someone bother to pull the whois information and email you when they could have simply typed in the name to a browser and gotten your landing page? Or searched for the name in any of the large marketplaces that would include the affiliates? I've never gotten anything but bullshit from those emails. All that said, everyone should be able to make the choice. Personally I stopped replying to any of them long before GoDaddy shut it off.

 

[Keith]

We should all launch complaints to icann. There should never be a scenario where registrars block emails intended for registrants.

 

[BostonDomainer]

This is an issue I had not thought about previously. I realize perhaps partly off topic, but does someone know how other registrars handle it for names under privacy.

Thanks for stopping by Bob.. I know it depends on the regiatrar... some forward emails sent to private whois go straight to you which is what GD used to do and changed without notice while others have guided forms to address issues like Dynadot.

I'll dig a little further tomorrow at others.

A few questions I have:
1)When did this change occur? And why do I have to manually re-enable this now. I have over 1k names there and to do it one by one is prohibitive and not happening no bulk option.
2)Were domain owners notified (I know I wasn't) I used to get offers forwarded and then all stopped
3)What do they do or have done with the emails received through privacy up to this point
4)Is this in line with ICAAN approved practices for privacy

 

[LoveCatchyDomains]

An update:
The issue here appears to be that,registrars normally provide the registrant/admin/tech emails directly. GoDaddy does not. Instead, one has to click to a different page, where the individual attempting to contact the domain owner has to reveal their email address AND the intent of the contact.

So, "privacy off," with GoDaddy, could lead to "privacy lost." In other words, the domain owner is effectively sharing that information with GoDaddy. There are four buttons that one has to click: interest in buying the domain name, Domain name is being using in spam or malware, use violating trademarks or other laws or regulations, or reserach or other purposes.

The point here is that if the registrant has asked for all the contact information to be provided up front, including their email, there is no reason to have an additional step like this involved. Other registrars seem to be able to do this without difficulty, and have other mechanisms that allow for reporting of spam and other issues with domains.

After all, isn't there a potential conflict of interest involved, such as having a brokerage that would benefit by knowledge of a pending sale request? So why not respect the registrant's wishes, and allow their email to be posted along with the other contact information, as other registrars routinely do-- without additional processing of the contact through the GoDaddy servers?

And, note that this is an issue not simply for domain investors. This entire issue was highlighted to me over a year ago, when a business owner using GoDaddy for hosting, was not receiving emails through GoDaddy, despite their belief that privacy was off.

This is the step that is provided.

 

[LoveCatchyDomains]

Apologies for the delay @BostonDomainer. I know how important the Domains by Proxy feature is to domain investors, and with that in mind, I can say that the email forwarding feature is slated to be enabled by default for new registrations in the next 60 days, which includes bulk functionality. Domains in the interim will likely need to be manually adjusted.

Wouldn't it make sense to alert all your current customers that they may want to correct this? That's a pretty significant issue for domainers. Especially for those with thousands of domains registered, they may be losing important potential leads. If you only correct this with the new registrants, that may be unduly harming quite a few of your current customers.

 

[Keith]

It's also a weird thing to provide a service for free when you are also charging $69 for it otherwise.

Those 2 things aren’t remotely the same.

$69 is for Godaddy to act as a broker on your behalf. The free point of contact is eliminating Godaddy from the equation and it’s obvious why they would manipulate that.

 

[branding]

It's also a weird thing to provide a service for free when you are also charging $69 for it otherwise.

It's also a weird thing to provide a service for $69 when you are required by ICANN to provide it for free (bar the brokering part, obviously).

 

[Sutruk]

2.5.1. Registrar MUST provide an email address or a web form to facilitate email communication with the relevant contact, but MUST NOT identify the contact email address or the contact itself.

GoDaddy is compliant with the relevant ICANN specification.

With all my respect John, Godaddy is NOT compliant with the relevant ICANN specification, at least with the 2.5.1 specification.

Godaddy, at this moment, does NOT provide any email address nor web form to facilitate email communication in their WHOIS database result.

They just show, in the "email" field, a link to the same WHOIS webpage that you are looking at:
Registrant Email: Select Contact Domain Holder link at https://www.godaddy.com/whois/results.aspx?domain=mydomain.com

Then, at the very bottom of the same page, in a tiny link, they have the link to "contact domain holder" that follows to a page where you can choose the "Reason to contact" with a few options to choose, but with NO web form to communicate.

Every registrar out there, if they don't directly show a "masked" email address in the Whois data, at least they do follow to a real web form, where you can really contact and ask whatever you want to the domain owner.
But not in Godaddy case.

But what they don't forget is to make it clear to make you pay $69.99 to hire a broker so you can communicate with the domain owner.

 

[branding]

I'm not sure whether this has already been discussed but you cannot transfer a domain out from GoDaddy with privacy enabled.

They will act on your behalf and cancel the transfer.

They will give you this notice by email after they auto decline the transfer:

"Express written objection to the transfer from the Transfer Contact. (e.g. - email, fax, paper document or other processes by which the Transfer Contact has expressly and voluntarily objected through opt-in means)."

No I did not. You refuse to relay the email to me so I can either approve or deny the transfer!

So what's that about @James Iles ? I don't like GoDaddy leaking my info just so I can transfer away a domain. I enabled privacy for a reason.

Bottom line, they're still messing with the whois contact info.

 

[Dane]

Apologies for the delay @BostonDomainer. I know how important the Domains by Proxy feature is to domain investors, and with that in mind, I can say that the email forwarding feature is slated to be enabled by default for new registrations in the next 60 days, which includes bulk functionality. Domains in the interim will likely need to be manually adjusted.

Wait... are you saying that this "feature" was turned OFF? If so, why weren't we notified about it? I was not aware of it until reading this post.

 

[Mister Funsky]

I used to always receive email offers,

Just a heads up to all...

Gddy is not the only registrar to 'block' or stop forwarding emails. I've made formal complaints to two others who stopped forwarding...according to one buyer, over 3 months ago.

A strongly worded email to one got things resolved...the other is ignoring me.

If your names are worthy, park for revenue and send to make offer page (see bodis or PC). If there is concern about click revenue causing a problem, point directly to offer page at parking companies or use a basic landing page.

 

[karmaco]

Another reason not to use GD anymore than you have to. Their unabashed demand for complete CONTROL over others digital assets is disturbing and likely caused lost sales for many. Jumping through hoops is not something most buyers are willing to do.

You can’t even answer your own offers before they are sticking their nose in it. I know some love the brokers but for most average names their unasked for intervention is another form of overreach.

 

[Keith]

If you can't figure out a way to have them contact you as a result of typing the domain name into the address bar and seeing what's there, then this might not be a good area in which to waste your time.

I can figure out my end of the equation as it pertains to contact info being available. What do I do as a buyer?

Over the last year I’ve used the contact form under Whois info probably 50 times. There hasn’t been a single response. Today I used the form to contact myself as a test and it worked. There was a pop up however which is new and it said they’ve made recent changes blah blah blah.

Maybe it was bad luck those 50 times this past year but I’m not convinced of that.

 

[Ostrados]

Sneaky move!
Why no announcement about this?!
And why Godaddy insists to be involved in negative issues?
I wish that I once hear good news about new changes from Godaddy.