BEWARE: GoDaddy - Seriously Shady in 2025

Pigsy said:

GoDaddy have been doing shady things for a while now.

I remember way back there was a domain search scandal with them. Whereby if you searched for a good domain and it was available, it would magically get registered shortly after

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How they estimate the value of a domain name for sell within seconds? I bet registrars have good realistic estimate tools, not these tools we get.......when godaddyfokkers seein a domain name is worth $1000 on auction or $800 they grab it before you put in in your checkout page and do the payment process.

Happy Weekend !

Huge boss said:

Yeah bro, you’ve handled it way better than most would. Keep it cool but firm, and if they hit you with that “why’d you bounce” talk, just hit ‘em back with the facts and receipts. They asked for it.

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They give a shit about how much facts and screenshost you havem dude.

Happy Weekend !

Zombie Pop said:

I moved all my domains out of godaddy many years ago. I agree they are awful and they WILL try to steal valuable domains from you.

I listed a domain of mine with godaddy for sale for $25k. I got an offer on it for $12.5. I haggled with the potential buyer because his offer was low. In the end we didn’t come to a deal and I decided I was going to build on the domain. So I removed it from afternic.

This was my last domain in my godaddy account. I had already transferred everything out but that one since it was still up for sale.

I initiated the transfer of the domain and godaddy sent me an email to the domains email that contained a CTA to click the link to complete transfer. This wasn’t the normal email. This was an email sent purposely by godaddy and the CTA was a link that would have transferred to godaddy not to namecheap.

I contacted them about it and they said that they didn’t do that and it was a phishing email.

I got that domain out of there and I’ll never look back. Stay away from godaddy!

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My view of this: when a registrar makes it clear on his site like that: "When you found an available .com domain and not register it within the next 24 or 48 hrs. , then we have the right to register it". This is a fair rule.

But GD: within seconds when you put your domain name who have a good amount of estimate (which you not know !) to sell it on domain auctions, when you put your domian name in their basket and go to the checkout page in these seconds they steal it form you. And when you check it in icann whois tool, you will see that the registrate date is set to past the last 1-3 years not to 2025 (!) - this I calling crime ! This is not bending the law, this is crime.

This is the reason why bending government laws is not allowed in europe , all people normal people like you and me, big rich companies, no matter, they must live within these government laws. (ok, except elites, politicians, lobby organizations....)


Happy Weekend!

Follow up on this. Wanted to explain more what happened.

- Our domain we had with GoDaddy for nearly 15 years was suspended, a live domain which is our business shut down instantly with no backup plan, reason, option to appeal or any explanation as they took it and didn't even send us an email about the seizure, suspension or anything. It took over 48 hours just to get an explanation that the domain has been suspended.
- A low or middle level employee GoDaddy's Content team suspended our domain without any explanation or reasoning.
- They refused to allow us to access our domain or transfer our domain to another provider.
- Over the span of 15 years, we purchased thousands of dollars worth of services with them, never had any complaints or problems during this timeframe.
- We pleaded with everyone for assistance on this matter.

Finally Godaddy after multiple days responded with two sentences saying the following:

Because of this suspension the domain name will not be reactivated. The domain will remain suspended until its expiration date, at that time it will be pushed through the domain expiration process to be released to the registry.

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After we began to spam GoDaddy everywhere we could find, they eventually responded saying:

We have taken action under GoDaddy Universal Terms of Service section 5:

You will not use this Site or the Services in a manner (as determined by GoDaddy in its sole and absolute discretion) that:

• Is illegal, or promotes or encourages illegal activity;
• Promotes, encourages or engages in the exploitation of children, or any activity related to the proliferation of child sexual abuse material (CSAM);
• Promotes, encourages or engages in terrorism, violence against people, animals, or property;
• Promotes, encourages or engages in any spam or other unsolicited bulk email, or computer or network hacking or cracking;
• Violates the Ryan Haight Online Pharmacy Consumer Protection Act of 2008 or similar legislation, or promotes, encourages or engages in the sale or distribution of prescription medication without a valid prescription;
• Violates the Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act of 2017 or similar legislation, or promotes or facilitates prostitution and/or sex trafficking;
• Infringes on the intellectual property rights of another User or any other person or entity;
• Violates the privacy or publicity rights of another User or any other person or entity, or breaches any duty of confidentiality that you owe to another User or any other person or entity;
• Interferes with the operation of this Site or the Services found at this Site;
• Contains or installs any viruses, worms, bugs, Trojan horses or other code, files or programs designed to, or capable of, disrupting, damaging or limiting the functionality of any software or hardware; or
• Contains false or deceptive language, or unsubstantiated or comparative claims, regarding GoDaddy or GoDaddys Services.
• You will not perform any false, abusive or fraudulent activity. You will not perform any action that imposes, or may impose, in our discretion, an unreasonable or disproportionately large load on our infrastructure;

Because of this suspension the domain name will not be reactivated. The domain will remain suspended until its expiration date, at that time it will be pushed through the domain expiration process to be released to the registry.

Sincerely,

Content Safety & Moderation

GoDaddy

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This dispute is over just 1 DMCA complaint filed by 1 company who filed an infringing complaint directly through the domain provider and not through our normal DMCA process. Had the company filed through our normal DMCA process, we would have resolved it.

After over a week of GoDaddy suspending and refusing to give our domain back, we lawyered up ready to send this to arbitration at the expense of GoDaddy along with trying to file an ICANN dispute. Few days later, they allowed us to finally transfer the domain out.

While I am grateful to the agent who finally stepped up at GoDaddy to fix the problem, this experience ended my business relationship with this company. When you work against your own customers who have been loyal to you for years using clauses to essentially suspend or seize their domains, you no longer should be able to operate.

The fact that your entire business is at risk at any point of being suspended or seized because of 1 complaint, it's mind boggling anyone would consider to keep their domains with GoDaddy. Some company could file a fake complaint and get your domain suspended without anyway for you to recover it.

It's up to you if you want to run the risk of using GoDaddy when the market is now saturated with competitors who offer better all around services.

Albert Wesker said:

Follow up on this. Wanted to explain more what happened.

- Our domain we had with GoDaddy for nearly 15 years was suspended, a live domain which is our business shut down instantly with no backup plan, reason, option to appeal or any explanation as they took it and didn't even send us an email about the seizure, suspension or anything. It took over 48 hours just to get an explanation that the domain has been suspended.
- A low or middle level employee GoDaddy's Content team suspended our domain without any explanation or reasoning.
- They refused to allow us to access our domain or transfer our domain to another provider.
- Over the span of 15 years, we purchased thousands of dollars worth of services with them, never had any complaints or problems during this timeframe.
- We pleaded with everyone for assistance on this matter.

Finally Godaddy after multiple days responded with two sentences saying the following:



After we began to spam GoDaddy everywhere we could find, they eventually responded saying:


This dispute is over just 1 DMCA complaint filed by 1 company who filed an infringing complaint directly through the domain provider and not through our normal DMCA process. Had the company filed through our normal DMCA process, we would have resolved it.

After over a week of GoDaddy suspending and refusing to give our domain back, we lawyered up ready to send this to arbitration at the expense of GoDaddy along with trying to file an ICANN dispute. Few days later, they allowed us to finally transfer the domain out.

While I am grateful to the agent who finally stepped up at GoDaddy to fix the problem, this experience ended my business relationship with this company. When you work against your own customers who have been loyal to you for years using clauses to essentially suspend or seize their domains, you no longer should be able to operate.

The fact that your entire business is at risk at any point of being suspended or seized because of 1 complaint, it's mind boggling anyone would consider to keep their domains with GoDaddy. Some company could file a fake complaint and get your domain suspended without anyway for you to recover it.

It's up to you if you want to run the risk of using GoDaddy when the market is now saturated with competitors who offer better all around services.

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Shame these criminal godaddyfokkers they not have the right to get customers these days !
When I read this red marked line:

• Infringes on the intellectual property rights of another User or any other person or entity

then with all respect let me ask you what you have done? Stole content and photos form others ? Used a free logo maker without give credit back to the creator (link on your site) ? This line is very vaque can mean anything yep, can mean you infringes the rights of the users who commenting on your website (!)

Really a big warning to all here to use GD !

Happy pentecoste day to all here !

Always never liked them - have 100+ domains on there and if I have an issue the only thing they can ask me about is joining their stupid domain program thing to save some money on my domains, and 9/10 times they never fix my actual issue.

Do know excat what that is; Intellect property rights infringements I read on this site :

These are the types of intellectual property infringement:

Patent infringement
Copyright infringement
Trademark infringement
Trade secrets infringement

but from the post above Albert Wesker this line in red from the godaddyfokkers sounds like the GD expansion of bending the government law. Sounds it goes way behind any Trademark, Copyright, Trade secrets, Patent infringements without listing exactly each infringement , we in germany call this a "gummi paragraph" a paragraph of "law" let you unknown in the dust what it exactly means. It's a shame many countries governments have gummi paragraphs, but a private company ?
Yep, with that gummi paragraph then we all should not do any online business- it's insane, outside of the reality or something.... !

What comes next from these big tech giants and Webhosting EIG providers? Now I think about it, better have offshore domain registrar and separate offshore webhosting will be the best protection these days, but with that then you need cloudflare to hide the host, because maybe, Google will do the next step; drop down any offshore domains and webhostings in the serps. They will call this a "violation of the serps" or something like that ..... welcome to slave planet Earth, these Anunnakis never left our planet !

"Infringes on the intellectual property rights of another User or any other person or entity"

Heck, I would say we, the people should shutdown these godaddyfokkers company !

Under these scenarios of copy other peoples work, images, art, music, video, content and words (!) yes you heard it; words!
It's not a joke. But how will someone detect if you use piece of single words form other people content? My theory with these godaddyfokkers is this;

a) Godaddy installs a spy / scan software in your webhosting to detect any suspicious acts, they can detect if you use some words from other poeple content, yes sounds crazy I know.

b) the DMCE infringement complaint Albert Wesker mentioned in his thread, my theory is it's really hard to detect if you use some piece of single words from other people content, so it comes form big GD customers who have the money to buy their expensive servers, bigger companies, their best customers. GD is a closed ecosystem and community so these big customers act against you, GD helps them- the customers with bigger wallet. GD not protects any infringement rights of their low buttom tier customers.

That's my theory.
Peace and happy pentecoste day !

I have been using porkbun for a few years since Google domains shut down.

Honestly Google domains was the best ever. Reminds me of days when we had amazing server farms like ThePlanet.com. Those companies / services no longer exist.

Porkbun is just stupid easy and stupid simple. Love how they have the ability to group up domains and sort with tags. Fun stuff smart technologists. I hear it’s a cult following. I seem to be a member. Don’t know how but I am.

Be safe. GoDaddy is always weird and doing shocking things.

Albert Wesker said:

- Our domain we had with GoDaddy for nearly 15 years was suspended

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First, you never should use a legit domain with GoDaddy, check their subsidiares companies like EIG and avoid them all.

Check my thread and follow up the steps.
https://www.blackhatworld.com/seo/b...tgator-eig-companies-newfold-digital.1720341/

Everyone that is interested in alternatives, check my link.

Avoid any EIG company at all costs, once you got the domain you will start receiving Spam from their other companies and aggressive marketing also they are your data between all companies they own. Not a surprise, just don't use it.

Check the thread about domains registrars and move all your domains if you can.

Lowk3y said:

First, you never should use a legit domain with GoDaddy, check their subsidiares companies like EIG and avoid them all.

Check my thread and follow up the steps.
https://www.blackhatworld.com/seo/b...tgator-eig-companies-newfold-digital.1720341/

Everyone that is interested in alternatives, check my link.

Avoid any EIG company at all costs, once you got the domain you will start receiving Spam from their other companies and aggressive marketing also they are your data between all companies they own. Not a surprise, just don't use it.

Check the thread about domains registrars and move all your domains if you can.

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What provider do you recommend for those offshore that won't follow say even state US court orders?