GoDaddy grabs a valuable domain name from their customer because of invalid email

[Auraka]

Godaddy strikes again

http://domainnamewire.com/2007/02/27/godaddy-deletes-domain-name-for-inaccurate-email-address/

So if their email gets caught in your spam filtering they will cancel your domain.....nice

 

[tm]

They shouldn't have sold it nonetheless, they should have released it. It's bad to profit out of an owner when they barely even try to contact them.

 

[MCDomains]

I have been called by GD plenty of times, too.

 

[Spade]

If your a top account, you'll find that you will recieve special attention (Executive Accounts/ Retention) you'll also recieve better pricing.

Did godaddy do the right thing by pulling the domain name? Yes. The owner is required to maintain updated information in the whois.

However, I do believe GoDaddy crossed the line when they resold it. That my friends is a conflict of interest.

I believe that GoDaddy should have pointed the nameservers elsewhere and waited a reasonable amount of time for the registrant to complain, resolve the issue, pay the $10 fine, and get his name back. Im dissapointed that the interest of the registrant was not the highest priority.

Justin

 

[Creaturess]

Godaddy took my domain too because I was consuming too much bandwidth.
Shouldn't they just warn me before doing it?
They transferred it to the suspended nameservers and now I am waiting for the year to pass so to get it back. Damn it.
Never register domain names at godaddy.

 

[GoPC]

If your a top account, you'll find that you will recieve special attention (Executive Accounts/ Retention) you'll also recieve better pricing.

lol.... but I am in now way to be considered a "topt account".

GoPC

 

[HBK216]

This is definitely a bush league move. I doubt the owner purposely put up a phony e-mail. The rest of the whois was correct. You know how many spam filters block e-mails like ones from Go Daddy. It could be a simple spam filter that prevented the message from arriving to the owner.

The least they could do is give a call to the owner considering they have called others. This is just another reason why I want to get out of Go Daddy. It is bad enough I have to keep some there because of their bullshit 60 day rule in regards to pushes within Go Daddy.

Now I'm forced to renew names at higher prices & then have to pay again in 60 days to transfer to Moniker.

 

[tricolorro]

Well... It's a "technical" argument and technically, GD was within it's right to do as they did. It is also arguable whether or not it was in Bad Taste to take the action they did.

Something about it thought... sounds a bit "odd" to me.

Coming from a point of personal experience, my GD reps have ALWAYS called me if there was anything out of place with a domain, a transaction or a change. CALLED ME... on the phone.

Why would they call little 'ol me and NOT call that domain owner?

Forgive me, but I think there just HAS to be something more to this story.

I mean, the reason you have multiple contact information on your account is for multiple contact attempts.

If I were them, I would have a Domain Lawyer (and we all know who) on this deal in a heartbeat and I wouls suspect that they would win on the basis that GD didn't exhaust all the contact possibilities and motive.

So... all these things points to a fishy story or at least an unfinished or incomplete account.

GoPC

No, the only thing fishy is GoDaddy.

By GoDaddy's own admission they only sent only three emails and claim
to have waited 8 weeks before removing the domain.

An email was sent to Admin, Tech and Registrant. If it was the same email address as I suspect then only one email was actually sent.

And they sent an email to an address that was reported as not working.

They have no problems ever calling their customers to sell or upsell
GoDaddy services but in this case they couldn't (or wouldn't) pick up the
phone. The phone # and mailing address WAS correct on the Who Is.

This is from DomainnameWire.com:
http://www.domainnamewire.com/

Wednesday, February 28 ,2007
"GoDaddy’s Director of Domain Services explains its actions in the case of FamilyAlbum.com

1) What is your procedure for handling invalid whois complaints?

“Our standard procedure is to send an email message to the current Whois contacts as well as the customer email address.”

2) Why was this domain removed from the original owner?

“We cancelled the domain name registration on this domain name because the customer did not respond to our email request to update the information. In fact, we did not hear from the customer for more than eight weeks after our initial contact attempt..."

So, GoDaddy is told that the email address in the WhoIs for one of their customer's domains is not valid.

So what does GoDaddy do?

Send an email to the email address that is not working and that's it.!

Pure genius!

And remember that the person who made the complaint wanted the domain
AND GOT IT!!!

Was the domain dropped and available to be grabbed by anyone?

Or was it simply "given" to the complaining party???

Talk about something fishy.

One more thing I'd like you to remember.

ICAAN requires keeping the Who Is up to date.

If you change your phone number or get a new email address or move or legally change your name and update your Who Is info as required then
GoDaddy will treat this update as a NEW registration and disallow transferring out your domain if wanted.

Think this is a good company operating in their customer's best interest?

Read today's DomianNameWire posting for some additional interesting info
and how other Registrars say they would have handled this situation.

Patrick

GoDaddy did the right thing. Doesn't matter, it had an invalid whois and the registrant was warned and notified and yet no action was taken.

The WhoIs was not invalid.

Yes, the email did not work but the phone # and street address were
correct.

How could the registrant respond if the only notice sent was to the very
invalid email address which started all this???

In your view this constitutes notification?

Patrick

 

[Dave_Z]

What if CNN.com made a mistake in their whois info? Will they take that one also?

But of course. No one's immune from the contracts they agree to.

Go Daddy doesn't have to "take it". They'll do whatever their contracts say.

Shouldn't this be merged with the other thread, perhaps?

http://www.namepros.com/domain-name-discussion/299354-godaddy-strikes-again.html

 

[3par]

If you change your phone number or get a new email address or move or legally change your name and update your Who Is info as required then
GoDaddy will treat this update as a NEW registration and disallow transferring out your domain if wanted.

Think this is a good company operating in their customer's best interest?

I really hated about this stupid EXTRA requirement. I don't know any other registrar has this requirement. It gets me into trouble selling my domain more than once.

This is a shitty company. And I am moving my 700+ domains there away from them.

 

[homebuyer]

Cite it.

Can anyone post the citation for the ICANN rule requiring notification by the registrar in such a case? I'd like to read its exact language.

 

[Rom]

This is a shitty company. And I am moving my 700+ domains there away from them.

And thats what we hear every day and yet GoDaddy keeps getting bigger and bigger

Looks like some people prefer registrars that let you use fake whois and display illegal content.

 

[angisson]

I was trying not to post here but yet its happening

I was thinking, if the right thing was not the popular thing, would you still do it? just because they did what they did and was right to do so don't see why everyone is getting mad at them


everyone knows that GoDaddy sends most of there domains that drop (and etc) to TDNAM or holds them for someone if they did backorder it, its not like the first time they have cancled a domain so I don't see why everyone is that mad.. sure it was a good domain but c'mon its going to happen, bottom line is the owner was at fult and GD did what was right.. if you don't agree with how godaddy runs things.. why even agree to there TOS in the first place?



ok thats my rant :cy:

 

[sukelis]

If the registrar for the domain makes an attempt to contact the owner, and gets no response despite waiting for 8 weeks (2 months), what exactly do you feel they should do at that point?

Actually, I think putting the domain on hold would be the right course of action. It would certainly be less effort for the registrar than resorting to the phone or snail mail and it has a much higher chance of getting immediate results.

Having been in whois for over a decade, I can guarantee there have been times that my whois has been invalid (I've moved half-a-dozen or more times). But my domains are setup to auto-bill auto-renew so the registrar has a valid means of contact and I expect my domain to stay online. If they felt that ICANN rules required them to take an action, then putting the domain on hold would be the obvious first step.

There is nothing like having your domain go down to get your attention.

All of that being said, I have no idea how to address the "unavailable due to crisis" situations. It used to be unusual for all 4 contacts to be the same, but with domaining it seems to be SOP.

Hmmm. In thinking about this, maybe the second step is to charge a small penalty fee for having invalid whois. It would prove that they've got valid cc info on file, so leaving the domain intact but on hold would be justified. And in the case of a registrant in the hospital, whoever is picking up the pieces would surely see the recurring penalty charges and perhaps be alerted to the problem before the domain is lost.

If any of you are up to an exercise, read the WHOIS Data Reminder Policy:

http://icann.org/registrars/wdrp.htm

Now see if there's anything saying the registrar is required to send the WHOIS
notice via email, phone, or smoke signals. Or even if there's a requirement the
registrar ensures the registrant and/or contacts has received their messages.

Well, there is this:

3.7.8 Registrar shall abide by any specifications or policies established according to Section 4 requiring reasonable and commercially practicable (a) verification, at the time of registration, of contact information associated with a Registered Name sponsored by Registrar or (b) periodic re-verification of such information. Registrar shall, upon notification by any person of an inaccuracy in the contact information associated with a Registered Name sponsored by Registrar, take reasonable steps to investigate that claimed inaccuracy. In the event Registrar learns of inaccurate contact information associated with a Registered Name it sponsors, it shall take reasonable steps to correct that inaccuracy.

The definition of "reasonable steps to investigate" might realistically be expected to include something beyond sending email to a suspectedly-invalid email address. From the responses on this thread, and on domain name wire, it would certainly seem that many dispute the actions as being sufficiently reasonable. Also, the last sentence is "take reasonable steps to correct" not immediately delete and resell. Were it me, I think I'd take my complaint to ICANN.


Also, I found this paragraph in the WDRP document to be of particular interest:

Documentation Requirements: Registrars must maintain either copies of each WDRP Notice or an electronic database documenting the date and time, and the content, of each WDRP notice sent under this policy. Registrars shall make these records available for inspection by ICANN in accordance with the usual terms of the Registrar Accreditation Agreement. ICANN will consider proper notification to have been given for a registration if the registrar can show that a WDRP Notice meeting the requirements stated above was given at any time in the year before each anniversary of the registration's creation date (for anniversary dates on or after the Compliance Date).

I wonder what would happen if GD were asked to provide this info in reference to the domain in question? I think it was said that the domain had been registered at GD for "years" so shouldn't they have a history of annual notices?


Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer nor do I have any experience in law. My responses are based on [what I consider to be] common sense, and we all know that common sense doesn't always have anything to do with the law, or even intelligence. :o

 

[mirrorcube]

I was trying not to post here but yet its happening

I was thinking, if the right thing was not the popular thing, would you still do it? just because they did what they did and was right to do so don't see why everyone is getting mad at them


everyone knows that GoDaddy sends most of there domains that drop (and etc) to TDNAM or holds them for someone if they did backorder it, its not like the first time they have cancled a domain so I don't see why everyone is that mad.. sure it was a good domain but c'mon its going to happen, bottom line is the owner was at fult and GD did what was right.. if you don't agree with how godaddy runs things.. why even agree to there TOS in the first place?



ok thats my rant :cy:

The right thing in my opinion is to make a simple call to the domain owner if they have an incorrect email contact on their whois, not take the name. Maybe my moral compass is off, but i think people shouldnt lose a name for forgetting to update an email address.

 

[3par]

And thats what we hear every day and yet GoDaddy keeps getting bigger and bigger

Looks like some people prefer registrars that let you use fake whois and display illegal content.

Read my post, I am saying I hate it when you update whois, it will take another 60 days before you can transfer your domain. Imagine your customer agreed with you on the price, then he wanted to transfer the domain to his favorite registrar, then you have to tell him: sorry cannot do that. WTF

Talking about growth, I think RF grew faster than GD. But so what?

 

[Dave_Z]

Can anyone post the citation for the ICANN rule requiring notification by the registrar in such a case? I'd like to read its exact language.

http://icann.org/registrars/wdrp.htm

Maybe my moral compass is off, but i think people shouldnt lose a name for forgetting to update an email address.

People can argue what's moral and what isn't. But when you're using a service
provider, you agree to their terms whether you like it or not.

You don't like them, don't use them. Period.

 

[-db-]

Do we really need 2 threads on this topic, running simultaneously?

I suppose if I close one, or merge them, I will be called a GoDaddy lover or fanboy.

 

[mis_chiff]

Do we really need 2 threads on this topic, running simultaneously?

No, cause we don't for any other topic! Multiple threads on same topic are
usually merged... right?

I suppose if I close one, or merge them, I will be called a GoDaddy lover or fanboy.

I wouldn't argue with you cause your the boss! :D

But I'd like to call you names :red:

 

[greggish]

I vote "Merge" also.

 

[-db-]

POOF, like magic. :gl:

 

[HBK216]

http://icann.org/registrars/wdrp.htm



People can argue what's moral and what isn't. But when you're using a service
provider, you agree to their terms whether you like it or not.

You don't like them, don't use them. Period.

Oh please if you lost one of your valuable names via a bush league move like this, you would be just as frustrated!

So get off the moral horse & get with reality on why this was a bush league move.

Everything is valid in whois but the e-mail at the time, do you really think that was done on purpose?

 

[floatingworld]

its a bounce!
it goes like this: the domainer has incorrect whois which they do not maintain correctly nor do they have auto renew, so then they lose their domain.....and now here comes the bounce: there is a determined attempt to get the registrar to reverse what was the domainer's faulty management by screaming the place down: ie continuously throwing the rattle out of the pram

 

[Damion]

We're going in circles here.... :zzz:

 

[Dave_Z]

Oh please if you lost one of your valuable names via a bush league move like this, you would be just as frustrated!

So get off the moral horse & get with reality on why this was a bush league move.

Everything is valid in whois but the e-mail at the time, do you really think that was done on purpose?

Sure I'd be pissed if that happened to me. But why should I be if I have every
chance to correct that before that possibly occurs?

I'm fortunate that sort of thing hasn't happened to me when I had my domain
names with Go Daddy. But I eventually moved them out anyway because I've
no interest in waiting for something like that to happen.

Whether this is a so-called "bush league move" or not is your opinion. But that
won't save you from being penalized by your service provider if you violated a
term of your contract with them, even if it was unintentional.

If you're not using Go Daddy, then good for you. But if I were in your shoes, I
would check with your current registrar about this as well so you can be fully
aware and responsible.

We're going in circles here.... :zzz:

Indeed. But hey, we're allowed to post our opinions anyway.

Guys, it's fine if you believe in this or that. But ignore your registrar's policies
and you can inevitably suffer.

 

[estibot.com]

It's obvious GoDaddy did not abide by the ICANN terms they themselves are bound to. They did not take reasonable steps to contact the registrant (a single email hardly qualifies), and instead of trying to correct the situation, they sold the domain to someone else, which constitutes bad faith and should this go to court, the original owner would win the domain name back.

I'm amazed by the comments to the tune of "well, you didn't read the small print, we do everything possible to screw you any way we can, and if all else fails, refer to the last term, which is that in case of dispute, the registrar's decision is final and cannot be challenged by the registrant"

T&C's will not necessarily hold up in court. Let's say I make this deal with you. I buy you an ice cream and in return you donate me your kidney. Sign here. OK sucker, here's your ice cream, you signed the contract now let's see that organ.

Do you think that contract would hold up in court?

OK the legal issues aside, looking at this from the customer service / business practices point of view or just about any other way this is outrageous. You have the guy's name, telephone number and address... and HA! he doesn't respond to his emails let's sell his valuable domain name to someone else for profit and destroy his website, possibly years of work.. it's just plain and simple to see that this is wrong, unethical.

I truly, truly hope some of the above posters never ever start a business where they need living, breathing customers. Except maybe an online casino or something.

If the domain name owner is clearly negligent, then well, I agree it's his own fault. But REASONABLE STEPS should be taken to protect the interest of the customer, too.

In fact, I expect my registrar and hosting company to take EXTRAORDINARY STEPS to protect MY interests.

It's like, I get hospitalized for two months and in the meantime the real estate company sells my house to someone else 'cause I didn't answer the door. They figured I didn't want the house anymore. I had my cell phone in the hosp, but they never bothered to call. And they didn't even own the house! (GD did not own the domain)

Clear-cut case of indifference, incompetence and what smells like a spot of profiteering thrown in by GoDaddy.

And I'm not a GoDaddy basher - I use them and I like them. But in this case they acted wrongfully.

Sorry if I was ranting. I just had an unpleasant experience with TDNAM (scam attempt) so I am in a lousy mood.

And by the way, there is no rule saying that I have to respond to any third-party queries that come to my administrative contact inbox. So if you don't get a reply to your inquiry, it does not mean you can snatch my domains by complaining to the registrar that the whois email is not responding..

Josh