GoDaddy Blocking Emails?

[KoolKat]

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

 

[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.

 

[jberryhill]

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.

That page is on the web. It is a form. It allows you to communicate. Ostensibly, the domain registrant is sent an email when you use it.

The fact that it does not allow you to type out a detailed message or do anything beyond select a few canned choices does not somehow disqualify it from being a "web form to facilitate email communication with the relevant contact".

To the extent that you would like the form to have other features, that's simply a matter of your own opinion as to what features a "web form to facilitate email communication with the relevant contact" should have.

But, I can guarantee you, ICANN is not going to go to the mat with GoDaddy on whether that form, in particular, does or does not satisfy the condition of being a "web form to facilitate email communication with the relevant contact". It is virtually certain that the IP people have already beaten on their door with complaints they are unable to attach copies of trademark records, court filings, and other things that they would like to be able to send to domain registrants as well. It is also a certainty that their complaints to ICANN were very well argued.

Being able to type in your contact information and select options for communicating in a message to be sent to the registrant of the domain name is most certainly a "web form". It's not much of one, but that's a question of degree, not kind.

 

[branding]

That page is on the web. It is a form. It allows you to communicate. Ostensibly, the domain registrant is sent an email when you use it.

The fact that it does not allow you to type out a detailed message or do anything beyond select a few canned choices does not somehow disqualify it from being a "web form to facilitate email communication with the relevant contact".

To the extent that you would like the form to have other features, that's simply a matter of your own opinion as to what features a "web form to facilitate email communication with the relevant contact" should have.

But, I can guarantee you, ICANN is not going to go to the mat with GoDaddy on whether that form, in particular, does or does not satisfy the condition of being a "web form to facilitate email communication with the relevant contact". It is virtually certain that the IP people have already beaten on their door with complaints they are unable to attach copies of trademark records, court filings, and other things that they would like to be able to send to domain registrants as well. It is also a certainty that their complaints to ICANN were very well argued.

Being able to type in your contact information and select options for communicating in a message to be sent to the registrant of the domain name is most certainly a "web form". It's not much of one, but that's a question of degree, not kind.

Neglecting the fact that GoDaddy seems to be actively filtering what does and what does not get delivered/filtered.

It's on Icann I suppose. I'm sure GD covered their base... legally. I know for sure they're not acting in the registrant's best interest.

It is what it is, like always... pick your registrar wisely.

 

[Sutruk]

That page is on the web. It is a form. It allows you to communicate. Ostensibly, the domain registrant is sent an email when you use it.

The fact that it does not allow you to type out a detailed message or do anything beyond select a few canned choices does not somehow disqualify it from being a "web form to facilitate email communication with the relevant contact".

To the extent that you would like the form to have other features, that's simply a matter of your own opinion as to what features a "web form to facilitate email communication with the relevant contact" should have.

But, I can guarantee you, ICANN is not going to go to the mat with GoDaddy on whether that form, in particular, does or does not satisfy the condition of being a "web form to facilitate email communication with the relevant contact". It is virtually certain that the IP people have already beaten on their door with complaints they are unable to attach copies of trademark records, court filings, and other things that they would like to be able to send to domain registrants as well. It is also a certainty that their complaints to ICANN were very well argued.

Being able to type in your contact information and select options for communicating in a message to be sent to the registrant of the domain name is most certainly a "web form". It's not much of one, but that's a question of degree, not kind.

Thanks for your reply Mr. Berryhill, always appreciated your helpful insights. I suppose that I have to agree with you on that.

But besides the definition of what would be a "web form", there are the kind of difficulties Godaddy makes in their Whois data to find out even that web form.

I mean, they literally put in the "Registrant email" place, a link to the same page. That's a first "stone" in the user's way looking or wanting to get in contact with the domain owner.
I am not a newbie, but I think I needed at least 2-3 checks to see what's going on with that link, because everytime I put it in my address bar, it appeared the same whois page.

Registrant Email: Select Contact Domain Holder link at https://www.godaddy.com/whois/results.aspx?domain=mydomain.com

To finally find out that you have to scroll down all the whois data page to the bottom, to see there's a link in the middle of "See underlying Registry Data" and "Report invalid Whois" where it says "Contact Domain Holder".

Why not make that link to go directly to the "web form" instead of to the same page? That's just the first stone in the way to find out how you can communicate with the domain owner through Godaddy's whois data page.

 

[jberryhill]

But besides the definition of what would be a "web form", there are the kind of difficulties Godaddy makes in their Whois data to find out even that web form.

Absolutely.

I have been telling people for 20 years not to use Whois privacy services for similar reasons.

 

[LoveCatchyDomains]

I have been telling people for 20 years not to use Whois privacy services for similar reasons.

Sounds like good advice. Thanks for sharing that.

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.

This issue really became very concerning to me after learning that brokerage negotiations had happened over the years, of which I had been completely unaware. That included three domain sales that were supposedly successfully negotiated and had disappeared from my account.

The button to "get paid" for those sales on the brokerage page didn't work. Customer support basically brushed it off, saying that the issues were closed.

After learning about this, it emphasized the importance to me of being able to have email messages directly sent to the registrant--without concerns about filtering.

 

[LoveCatchyDomains]

As an update, with "privacy off," now the email is directly showing up in all fields. So, this appear to be progress.

Granted, due to concerns about how permanent this fix really is, my preference is to continue having the email contact cited within the organization field as well.

About 1 1/2 yrs ago, the email visibility issues had supposedly been fixed, but then these most recent changes had appeared. So, if permissible by ICANN, using a separate field to include the email contact info, might be added reassurance.

So, it's great if GD has a permanent fix here.

If your privacy is "on," perhaps with any registrar it may be wise to periodically send an email through their forwarding proxy service, to make certain that you are actually likely to be receiving communications (if that is the setting you have chosen).

 

[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.