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  1. #1
    Join Date
    Jan 2008
    Posts
    50

    $200 Domain Conflict with GoDaddy

    Registered domain with GoDaddy.

    Made free-for-all short URL redirection service there - like TinyURL.com

    Some idiot used shortened/masked his URL with my domain name/service in spam e-mail.

    Recipient reported my domain as spam sender to GoDaddy.

    GoDaddy wants $200 to "pardon" my domain in next 24 hours.

    There are "medium neutrality" laws which means building owner cannot be prosecuted for offensive graffiti on building's walls drawn by strangers.

    Then asked GoDaddy to investigate this situation - got letters like "just give us your money and get lost" which look like they written by auto-responder. I have almost hundred domains registered by GoDaddy - so I totally f***d if they decide to close my account.

    Please advice - what to do? I think I have like 12 hours to act before these f*** ups shut down my whole account.

  2. #2
    Pay them now, and if it's worth it, go after them later.

  3. #3
    Join Date
    Jan 2008
    Posts
    50
    Already asking few lawyers for their prices... Couldn't imagine such big company could has such strange (and VERY profitable) spam policy and abuse department.

    Actually I don't need the domain/site that bad (either $75 or $200) - anyone know for sure what if I refuse to pay this fee at all - will they shut down my whole account or just this domain?

  4. #4
    Couldn't imagine such big company could has such strange (and VERY profitable) spam policy and abuse department.
    Well you're new here, but actually they're famous for it.

    Also, if you are considering not paying, then you are playing with fire with the rest of your portfolio. Pay, and then transfer everything out. Problem is, that could cost you close to $2K in cashflow, even though you do not lose a day of life in the transfer because of the expiry date extension.

    Stay, and you risk some other fine for some other infraction of their TOS.
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  5. #5
    Join Date
    Oct 2007
    Posts
    239
    Quote Originally Posted by 3dom View Post
    Already asking few lawyers for their prices... Couldn't imagine such big company could has such strange (and VERY profitable) spam policy and abuse department.

    Actually I don't need the domain/site that bad (either $75 or $200) - anyone know for sure what if I refuse to pay this fee at all - will they shut down my whole account or just this domain?
    What'd the lawyers say????

  6. #6
    Join Date
    Jan 2008
    Posts
    50
    Lawyers said usual thing "give us 800-1500-2000 bucks and we'll see if we can do anything". I wasn't THAT angry so after few hours of thinking I said to G-Daddy abuse team "I don't want that troublemaking site anymore - kill this domain" and nothing happened despite I didn't pay neithter $200 nor $75.

    (to be exact - GD abuse team said "ah, if so - count this case closed - but prepare to face consequences if this will be repeated in future")

    So probably those who paid $200 or $75 in similar situations shouldn't do it...
    Last edited by 3dom; 08-14-2008 at 07:35 AM.

  7. #7
    Join Date
    Jun 2003
    Posts
    367
    Hi,

    If I were you I'd be out of there in a hurry just in case someone else flagged your domain as spam-advertised. I'd suggest moving to a quality registrar instead of one that puts 100 monkeys behind a help-desk and calls it support.

    You might also try to see if you can contact Bob Parsons. president@godaddy.com
    Common sense is not so common.

  8. #8
    Join Date
    Jul 2002
    Posts
    66

    Thumbs up

    Love this forum. This is exactly the problem I'm currently facing with GoMonkey and lo and behold, there's a thread here. Nice to know I'm not the only one they're targeting.

    I doubt anyone else has this ****** spam policy. I have given them a simple solution to spam reports. My domain does NOT spam, but is often spamvertised, so we have very sophisticated anti-spam system (just sending an email takes care of deletion of appropriate URL, banning of spammer's IP from our server, reporting to their upstream ISP, and such).

    All I would like GoMonkey to do is to auto-forward spam reports containing my domain name to me. This way their "human effort" will be minimized.

    But they don't want to do this. They would rather I give them $200 without explanation.

    And I want to move to another registrar--which I have to--they will still charge me $75 to "cleanup", without any explanation of what this stupid cleanup will entail for them (apart from deleting the bloody emails). WTF?

    So, what other registrars are worthy of our time and have some technical savvy to understand how spamvertising works and how NOT to penalise domain users for it?

    Would eNOM be a good one? I went to UltraDNS etc, but they seem targeted at resellers. I just want a decent registrar for about 60 domains. Any suggestions?

    Thanks!
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  9. #9
    Join Date
    Jan 2008
    Posts
    50
    Thing is I have spam report page on site - and people used it (one letter per month average). But tin this case someone spammed Italians (who are well known for their bad foreign language skills) - and they just reported situation to their local ISP which reported directly to GD.

    I asked MyDomain.com about this situation ($9 per domain, $7 for transfer, more than 100k domains hosted) - they said something like "we'll investigate each spam case individually but for sure before any penalties we'll ask you to explain situation" + they said they don't ask for $200/$75 "ransom".

    So now I'm transferring all "non-critical" domains to MyDomain.com + looking for EU domain registar to host most vital domains (at the moment joker.com looks good).
    Last edited by 3dom; 08-14-2008 at 08:54 PM.

  10. #10
    Join Date
    Jul 2002
    Posts
    66
    Thanks 3dom. Have you consider enom's "BulkRegister"? The really cheap and small ones sound a bit dicey to me. Over time, I've learned that one gets what one pays for. (But I don't like the sudden requests for "ransom" payments as you aptly call it).
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  11. #11
    Join Date
    Jan 2005
    Location
    Toronto, Canada
    Posts
    588
    We have a dotster wholesale account, and i know they are not popular for wholesale and i am not sure if they still do it as our account is over 5 years old - thousands and thousands of domains and we never had this problem with any customer.
    plus what i like about dotster is they handle all the international domains as well
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  12. #12
    Join Date
    Jul 2002
    Posts
    66
    Quote Originally Posted by 3dom View Post
    ...+ looking for EU domain registar to host most vital domains (at the moment joker.com looks good)...


    For Europe, gandi.net? They've been around long and I've never heard a bad rep.
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