Hmmm... For those who still trust GoDaddy and can read Russian (or at least aren't lazy enough to do a babelfish translation):

http://majordomo.ru/about/150606.php
http://www.cnews.ru/news/line/index.shtml?2006/06/15/203651

The story is about one of the biggest Russian hosting companies, majordomo.ru. GoDaddy has blocked 1399 domains of their customers, following spamhouse.org spam complain. The funniest thing is that one of the domains complain was about domain which isn't Majordomo's customer for 6+ months (since December 2005) already; the second one never wasn't their customer at all.

As usual, GD follows their 'mantra' to either pay them $199 for each domain for activation, $50 for transferring out or let domains expire. And, as usual, there's nobody at GoDaddy to speak about this.

It will suffice to say that among those affected are several government agencies of the CIS.

<evil_grin>

For the laziest among you, this is the press release translated:


On 14 June, 2006, company Majordomo (one of the largest Russian the Internet the hosting of providers) obtained the information from company GoDaddy.com (chief world registrar it was pre-barter), in which it is indicated that the domains of 1399 clients Majordomo from this day are blocked. Given in the information reason - deliberately false. Why the chief registrar is pre-barter world level it blocks almost one-and-a-half thousand it is pre-barter Russian the hosting of provider, referring to false information, in Majordomo so they did not understand. All attempts to explain situation to nothing did not lead. Domains continue to be inactive. In the service of support to company Majordomo from company GoDaddy.com arrived the letter, which informs about the fact that the domains of 1399 clients Majordomo from this day were blocked. Reason - allegedly the disturbance of the agreement of user services from side Majordomo. With this letter you can become acquainted the zdes'(prikreplennyy to the letter file here). Base for the blocking allegedly became complaints from Spamha.us.org (company, which carries out database maintenance of ip- addresses of the servers, whom they were exposed in the distributions of spama) to the fact that clients Majordomo deal with this distribution itself. This assertion not only does not be founded upon absolutely any proofs, but also is deliberately false. As the proof were given the references to the complaints, addressed Spamha.us.org to GoDaddy.com (http://www.spamhaus.org/sbl/index.lasso SBL 36165, SBL 42891). The first complaint, SBL 36165, relates to site viptimeclub.ru, which is not client Majordomo. Inappropriate example, not so whether? (http://www.majordomo.ru/domain/taken.php?.dom=.viptimeclub.ru). The second complaint, SBL 42891, not at all relates to Majordomo, the discussion in it deals with one of the clients of company Peterhost. Without the commentaries! Are not intelligible the reasons, which impelled GoDaddy.com to similar actions. Nevertheless, the unverified information Spamha.us.org in GoDaddy.com sochli by a sufficient base for the blocking of almost one-and-a-half thousand is pre-barter and a change in their DNS servers to: Ns2.suspended-for.spam- Andes -abuse.com Ns1.suspended-for.spam- Andes -abuse.com (example http://www.majordomo.ru/domain/taken.php?.dom=.reklamist.com) It is not enough that into Majordomo was preliminarily not directed any warning about such actions, but also in response to the demands, sent into service GoDaddy.com (Spam and Abuse Department) enters only one answer. It is possible to briefly reduce it to the following: you will pay, and we is renewed the work of your it is pre-barter! (verbatim text of letter in the English) in the expanded version this appears as follows: 1. to pay 199 i for each domain and it will restore by 2. to pay 50 i for the passage to another registrar 3. to wait for the end of registration it is pre-barter in GoDaddy.com and to register them anew. The method of conducting the business, demonstrated by company by registrar, can be named at least uncivilized. Of course none of the points proposed can arrange Majordomo. It is very offensive, first of all, for in nothing the innocent clients, who in no way relate to strange attempts at enrichment GoDaddy.com. It is very perturbed by this situation and try it to maximally operationally solve in Majordomo. At present is prepared collective action from the owners of those blocked it is pre-barter, among whom not only physical and major legal persons, but also the offices of state of the countries OF THE CIS. To all injured clients free of charge are recorded domains in zones spb.ru and msk.ru. The second day hosting provider attempts to attain answer to the unsanctioned actions GoDaddy.com. Answer to the letters and the bells was only the second proposal of the payment of sum of moneys as the only possible version of resolution of conflict. It is very it's a pity, that one of the chief registrars in the world is occupied by the unjustified blocking of domain names, lichen of their owners of the possibility of use; so, at least, unworthy seems the "extortion" of money from the khostingovoy company for restoring blocked umyshlenno it is pre-barter. After spending 36 it is hour on barren negotiations with GoDaddy.com and having been achieved no result, we would want to publicly assign to this company several questions, for which we hope to obtain the answers: 1. who did give the right of company to registrar of their own free will and whims to deprive the owner of the domain of the possibility to use his, completely blocking access after changing without his consent dns the record of domain? 2. who and as compensates our clients the expenditures, carried because of the unfitness for work of sites and e-mail? 3. why on the basis of two unverified complaints, which do not refer to Majordomo absolutely any, company registrar without the warning does block 1399 it is pre-barter our clients? You still have questions to company GoDaddy.com? Write them on abuse@godaddy.com

This is cnews.ru article, translated:


On 14 June company Majordomo (one of the Russian Internet-hosting- providers) obtained the information from company GoDaddy (chief world registrar it was pre-barter), in which it is indicated that the domains of 1399 clients Majordomo from this day are blocked. Why the chief registrar is pre-barter world level it blocks almost one-and-a-half thousand it is pre-barter Russian hosting- provider, referring to false information, in Majordomo so they did not understand. All attempts to explain situation to nothing did not lead. Domains continue to be inactive. On 14 June, 2006, into the service of support to company Majordomo from company GoDaddy arrived the letter, which informs about the fact that the domains of 1399 clients Majordomo from this day were blocked. Reason - allegedly the disturbance of the agreement of user services from side Majordomo. Base for the blocking allegedly became complaints from Spamhouse.org (company, which carries out database maintenance of ip- addresses of the servers, whom they were exposed in the distributions of spama) to the fact that clients Majordomo deal with this distribution itself. In Majordomo they consider that this assertion not only is founded upon absolutely no proofs, but also it is deliberately false. As the proof were given the references to the complaints, addressed Spamhouse to GoDaddy. The first complaint relates to site viptimeclub.ru, which is not client Majordomo from December 2005. The second complaint, according to the data of company, does not relate to Majordomo, the discussion in it deals with one of the clients of company Peterhost. They consider in Majordomo that the unverified information spamhuse.org in GoDaddy sochli by a sufficient base for the blocking of almost one-and-a-half thousand is pre-barter and a change in their DNS servers to: Ns2.suspended-for.spam- Andes -abuse.com, Ns1.suspended-for.spam- Andes -abuse.com. In Majordomo it was preliminarily not directed any warning about such actions, but also in response to the demands, sent into service GoDaddy (Spam and Abuse Department) enters only one answer. In GoDaddy propose to pay $199 for each domain for its restoration or $50 for the passage to another registrar. One additional proposed GoDaddy output - to wait for the end of registration is pre-barter in GoDaddy and to register them anew. They are perturbed by this situation and try it to solve in Majordomo. At present is prepared collective action from the owners of those blocked it is pre-barter, among whom not only physical and major legal persons, but also the offices of state of the countries OF THE CIS. To all injured clients free of charge are recorded domains in zones spb.ru and msk.ru. The second day hosting- provider attempts to attain answer to the unsanctioned actions GoDaddy. Answer to the letters and the bells was only the second proposal of the payment of sum of moneys as the only possible version of resolution of conflict.

I have a feeling there is more to this story then these guys are admitting...

I am sure that GoDaddy should be warn at firsts before suspend.... because its not a 10-50 and even not a 100 domains. Its approx. 1.5k and - a huge amount of very disagreed customers.
I am also think that it absolutely not legally from GoDaddy side because they has no right to suspend all domains under one reason "SPAM", of course except domains were a spaming detected... those should be suspended. But it seems that GoDaddy accuse all 1399 domains in SPAMING.... It is not correct in any case.

And another translated version of this article i have found here:
http://www.ripoffreport.com/reports/ripoff196582.htm

And another translated version of this article i have found here:
http://www.ripoffreport.com/reports/ripoff196582.htm

Thank you, ClayRabbit! This seems MUCH better than babelfish...

There's a ton of Russian spammers and they have brought this on themselves. I'm totally fed up with all the spam and from many other countries and I applaud Godaddy for fighting it on our behalf.

Even if Godaddy found some spammers among domain owners, it`s awfool to block all domains without any warning...
Very bad style internet business.

There's a ton of Russian spammers and they have brought this on themselves. I'm totally fed up with all the spam and from many other countries and I applaud Godaddy for fighting it on our behalf.

Right. My personal experience is that USA have ~50 times more spammers than Russia. Let's block ALL USA domains!

:rofl:

Right Hosting >> this isn't about the country. This is about the business ethics. If the company has nothing to do with the spammers in the first place, how can somebody block it's domains? 1399 of them...

does not surprise me

go daddy has been doing this a lot it seems lately

It's GoDaddy policy. When they receive a spam complaint, to immediately block the offending source. If the spam complaint is server specific, they will ban all domains from that server, without any questions asked. They should at least then give an explanation to the server owner what their received complaint was, but that is usually only after they get the howls of complaints. It's quite possible that spam was sent from one of those domains, but it's also possible that a recipient didn't like what they received and complained to GoDaddy, causing the whole catastrophe. Usually, the only resolution possible is to pay the $50 and move the domain to another registrar (who in their right mind would want to pay GoDaddy $199 for them to forget it).

This is just another example of why we all should beware of using GoDaddy as a registrar. Any one of us could have been one of those innocent, in the 1399. It's GoDaddy's worst policy, imho.

I agree with RossH. There is more to this story than we've been told. There always is.

This is just another example of why we all should beware of using GoDaddy as a registrar. Any one of us could have been one of those innocent, in the 1399. It's GoDaddy's worst policy, imho.

Stu >> the point of this thread is exactly that. Thanks for making it clear.

It's also why I don't care for shared hosting and always get my own IP address with my hosting. It might not solve the problem, but it helps, alot.

It's also why I don't care for shared hosting and always get my own IP address with my hosting. It might not solve the problem, but it helps, alot.
Alas not all hosters offer dedicated IP address. Plus many spam lists block the whole subnetwork. "To make people moving". It's like burning down whole apartment complex because someone in number 39 was involved in MLM scheme
I agree that people are free to choose any spam list they want. But when DNS system becomes dependent on some *** that decides to file a spam report against whole network... *sigh*

I should have added... against phishing scams, and spam thru your own email servers (if you use them).

And I agree with you bugabuga. It's entirely irresponsible for them to ban a whole sub-network, unless the spam/phishing cannot be sharply defined (which I suspect it mostly can be defined to a domain).

1 tip I always use on all my domains where I don't send mail. I alway set at TXT record in the dns, v=spf1 ~all (sometimes called the SPF record). What this does is tell the email servers that there is no mail ever being sent from those domains. So if anyone tries to use my domains for spam, it'll get rejected by the recipient server.

www.OpenSPF.org is a good place to start. It even has a form which asked you to select what you want with your email, and will generate the requisite code.

This is just another example of why we all should beware of using GoDaddy as a registrar. Any one of us could have been one of those innocent, in the 1399. It's GoDaddy's worst policy, imho.

Ditto! Ditto!

I was chatting about this on another forum. I read recently of a similar incident with them. I feel bad for those affected because of the actions from a few.

Also on a side note, some systems, even if you get a dedicated ip address, the server will still send from the main mailservers ip address anyway.

Also on a side note, some systems, even if you get a dedicated ip address, the server will still send from the main mailservers ip address anyway

Accept that GnomeyNewt. I've even experienced problems with my own email because some idiot had sent spam thru his email, which was on the same host server as mine. But at least you are in control (and responsible for)everything on your dedicated IP address. Who knows what idiots are on the same shared IP address as you :(

For how I operate, I prefer to use free email providers like Google/Yahoo/Fastmail. This kinda alleviates that problem somewhat.

Accept that GnomeyNewt. I've even experienced problems with my own email because some idiot had sent spam thru his email, which was on the same host server as mine. But at least you are in control (and responsible for)everything on your dedicated IP address. Who knows what idiots are on the same shared IP address as you :(

I can say in 8+ years of hosting my domains at various providers I have never been affected by another users spamming, for blacklisting reasons. I have no idea if server outages were caused by them, but than again the servers I've hosted at rarely go down aswell. Really comes down to your host risk factors. Obviously if its happening often, thats not a good sign :).

However, this GoDaddy issue is very unquie. As 1) its the domain register and 2) they took down the enitre sites. They didn't just blacklist them and reject e-mail, they removed their precense from the Internet, all domains, some not even spaming I'm sure. Very sad to see this issue again from them. Anyhow, I can beat a dead horse on this issue with them, I don't think they plan on changing anytime soon.

I'm one of the victims of GoDaddy's actions. My site (Mac shareware development) was one of 1399 sites blocked for no reason. GoDaddy even doesn't reply to e-mails. Don't have any business with them, in fact such practice is one of their ways to earn money. Just in this case they suspended hundreds of websites simultaneously, when usually they do it to 1-2 domains.

We, members of Shareware Russia Organization, are very disturbed by this problem, because one of our colleague's site was blocked for no reason. It's awful when such large company as GoDaddy is engaged in financial terrorism. Now A Majordomo.ru prepares a collective lawsuit to GoDaddy and we hope that validity will be on our party.

Several years ago I found such message from GoDaddy on one forum:

"Originally posted by Bob Parsons
Go Daddy also has to deal with false accusations.
Most large corporations deal with this type of nonsense from time to
time. Go Daddy, of course, is no exception. Not long ago, some
knucklehead made a post on a chat board that Go Daddy stole his
domain names. Over a few day period there were other morons who
jumped into the fray, and said that they "heard" of other people
having domain names stolen by us. A quick investigation revealed
that this clown had registered domain names with another
individual's credit card, but put them in his account. When the
individual who owned the credit card realized what had happened, she
contacted us, proved that she was the one who in fact paid for the
domain names, and requested that we move them to her own account. As
everything was in order, we of course obliged.

The knucklehead who initially registered the domain names then went
looking for them in the original account he created, and of course,
they were gone. We explained to this individual what had happened.
Nevertheless, he went ahead and made the "Go Daddy stole my domain
names chat board post." Fortunately, a loyal customer noticed the
post, and the claims by those who jumped right in claiming to also
be aware of "similar incidents," and let us know. We visited the
site and immediately posted what had happened. He now seems to have
quieted down. The damage to us, as best we can tell, has been
minimal."

This man said that clients of GoDaddy are "morons","clowns" and "knuckleheads". And do you want to register domains at GoDaddy? I don't.

Might I slip in a recommendation for (no I don't work for them) NameCheap or Tucows at this point? :D

KGIII

We still have 2-3 domains left with GoDaddy at this moment and they will be transferred out to Namecheap within few days.

GoDaddy went from 'techie/friendly' domain registrant to some kind of AOL (I don't have better example) domain registrant. They now target same consumers AOL did/does.

Before -> Offered OK service
Now -> Offer this and that, bundle this and that with this, just get a client and money type of service.

GoDaddy should deal with the ISP's. When it comes to spam there's rarely anything in a domain. Add another hyphen here and there and you're back in business.

This story is slashdotted already: http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/06/17/1319233&from=rss

Might I slip in a recommendation for (no I don't work for them) NameCheap or Tucows at this point? :D

KGIII

I will echo this general recommendation. Other than an odd problem or two with NameCheap (still an Enom reseller) which didn't really matter in the end, they've been great, and when I used Tucows through a reseller a few years back, they were great, too.

This behavior by GoDaddy, blasting away with a shotgun in the general direction of alleged spammers no matter who else gets hit by pellets, is frankly reprehensible. Recommendation is to spit in the direction of the arrogant, greedy turds at GoDaddy, and find some other company to which to dole out your hard-earned dollars without having to worry about suddenly losing a great deal of money as a result of some random accusation of spam.

Godaddys $50 charge is plain and simple extortion.

If they wanted to punish the people who own the domains, they could simply lock the domains and refuse to unlock them. Instead, for financial gain, they request money of people to unlock the domains. This is a money racket and is one of the reasons i moved from godaddy long ago. Never, ever, register domains at godaddy. For 2 years, I have been registering all mine at http://www.namecheap.com and I had one dispute which was resolved thanks to their excellent support.

One more thing Im just after looking at the letter godaddy sent the Russian company and their reason for banning the domain is as follows "Go Daddy can also
be blacklisted by Spamhaus as a result of your actions". That is complete and utter rubbish. No reputable offical Icann registrar would get banned by spamhaus.

That just reinforces that Godaddy has banned these domains for profit, and profit only.

Don't have any business with them, in fact such practice is one of their ways to earn money.

Actually, in their defence, I don't really think this is money motivated

This man said that clients of GoDaddy are "morons","clowns" and "knuckleheads".

I think it's more a matter of, it takes one to know one.

Well I guess its time to fill up that Enom account and transfer 40+ of my domains to my reseller account.

It one thing to block the offending domains but the all the domains on the reseller account? Then try to get almost $200 US for each domain!! That over 300K!!!!

Even if they were spamming what do other domains that were not spammed from it or even owned by the spammer have to do with it?

Basta, can you post your domain name?
Is there even a partial list of affected domains?
All these domains were on the same IP or nameserver? What was the IP?
Why were they all at Godady? Majordomo is a Wild West reseller?
How can we verify the majordomo claims without specifics?

So uh, what do those of us stuck with GoDaddy do? $50 is not mentioned ANYWHERE in their terms of service, and costs as much as 5 years of service. GoDaddy's made a really scary choice with this (I thought domain names were mostly sacred, I guess I was wrong), and it will be publicized quickly. However, by making people want to pull out, they get to make 5 years of earnings (with little to no expenses), or they get a bunch of domains to auction off--either way, the customer's screwed.

Isn't it a little illegal to hold domains hostage like this? Their terms of service imply that deleted domains are... well, deleted. Holding them for ransom seems more like extortion than "deletion after the first thirty days of registration"...

Just read their transfer policy, too, and it doesn't say anything about a $50 fee. What's going on here?

Actually, in their defense, I don't really think this is money motivated


Not in the short-term at least, but I think in the long term perhaps??? I'll try to explain?

It is likely more profitable to be considered "tough on spammers."

I guess that's as simple as I can make my thinking??? I'm not even 100% sure it's accurate but I know you'll correct me if it's not. :)

Today, in view of the future, as a registrar, I'd not take similar actions now would I allow a policy to take the same actions but, frankly, to be tough on spammers, guilty or not, is a market highlight though if the people who are to take advantage of their IPO have wind of this??? See where I'm going or what I'm thinking?

I lack the verbiage, I think I speak English as a first language well enough to get my point across most of the time but I'm still American. I suspect that there's a bit more to it, there's a financial gain to be had later for having done so, and that they're going to ensure that it works out to be proven at a time when they have stock options available.

The funny thing is that they should have just asked. I'm going to buy some regardless. Tech? Registrar mainly? Commercialized? Oh yeah... I'm all over that when I see it available and might even take the time to force 'em to list it. (My trading is pathetic and limited by only what is shown in my account - I've seen a number of stocks I was interested in not listed with Ameritrade... Bleh...)

KGIII

I have 2000 domains at GoDaddy. It's not practical for me to move them all at 1 time. But for sure, they are not my preferred registrar. I'd prefer to have 0 there. But it will never happen when you are trading domain names and their 60-day hold policy.

I have 2000 domains at GoDaddy. It's not practical for me to move them all at 1 time. But for sure, they are not my preferred registrar. I'd prefer to have 0 there. But it will never happen when you are trading domain names and their 60-day hold policy.

Yeah, I forgot all about their 60-day hold after a owner transfer! This is why I do have a few domains with them still. However, if you transfer your domains 2 or so months before they are to expire, you won't have to move them all at once. Anyhow... if they are inactive domains ... you probally won't have any issues with GoDaddy anyways!

Isn't it a little illegal to hold domains hostage like this?

You could of course take legal action against them to recover your domain, but I think $50 would be a cheaper option. And lesson learnt.

I have 2000 domains at GoDaddy. It's not practical for me to move them all at 1 time. But for sure, they are not my preferred registrar. I'd prefer to have 0 there. But it will never happen when you are trading domain names and their 60-day hold policy.


I don't think they are as bad as everyone makes them out to be, I keep my account there open just in case although right now it has no names in it. Just some backordered names i want :)

their control panel and checkout, suck bigtime. I think their bulk update is the best I've seen. I think some of the policies and their implementation suck also. I'll always need an account at GoDaddy, unfortunately.

Here is the list of the blocked domains:
http://www.dailychanges.com/detail/?ns=SPAM-AND-ABUSE.COM&date=2006-06-15&net=1300&changes=38&act=a

I just did a whois on a couple of them in the list and they look to be active....

The situation has been successfully resolved. June 17th the sides managed to come to an agreement. Majordomo insisted on paying $199 for each unblocking (SBL 36165, SBL 42891 - as far as I understood for 2 IP addresses only), that satisfied Godaddy and allowed to resume operation of all 1399 domains.

Well that just about gives you every reason never to select GD as your registrar or host if you have an important website.

Argh, this spf stuff is buggin me.

I set the acceptable IP's that are allowed to send mail on behalf of my domain but it's not working. i'm getting a softfail anyway.

I never really like GoDaddy, Namecheap have always been much better for me, my domain got cancelled with godaddy just because it was not parked...
-Alex.

I think the question that has to be asked is if these domains belonged to clients, did the hosting company delete the domains when they had investigated the spam complaints. This is my policy and should certainly be theres too.

If they were blatently ignoring GoDaddy's TOS and leaving domains active (even after removing sites), then I can see justification for this. Otherwise, if they were my domains, I'd be taking legal action :).

GoDaddy certainly aren't the best of registrars however and seem to have a bunch of monkeys running their technical support department. It wouldn't surprise me if this was just an irrational decision made by someone in their abuse department, without consulting someone higher up the company.

Dan

Argh, this spf stuff is buggin me.

I set the acceptable IP's that are allowed to send mail on behalf of my domain but it's not working. i'm getting a softfail anyway.

Did you try OpenSPF.org? I found them to be quite good.

Did you try OpenSPF.org? I found them to be quite good.

Yes, the problem is that my mail seems to come from 3 or 4 webmail ips (if I use the webmail), or my pop/smtp service with my host..

So In turn I'm not quite sure how to set that up.

It wouldn't surprise me if this was just an irrational decision made by someone in their abuse department

They are a law unto themselves. Turning the switch at 5pm on a Friday and then going home. And other antics, like not making any effort to contact the people they're suspending first, etc. Very unhelpful. But it is a thankless task. The dept is probably aptly named, because for sure they probably get a lot of it :)

Yes, the problem is that my mail seems to come from 3 or 4 webmail ips (if I use the webmail), or my pop/smtp service with my host..

So In turn I'm not quite sure how to set that up.

I'm not an expert with SPF records. I know how to ban all outgoing mail, and that's about it. So, sorry I can't help you. You might try starting a new thread, rather than posting here.