GoDaddy pulls security site after MySpace complaints
January 26, 2007 1 Comment
Not directly Linux or Open Source related, but scary if you use GoDaddy, who is currently the largest registrar. They recently summarily suspended seclists.org, run by Open Source nmap author Fyodor. The problem here is that it was not as a result of DMCA takedown notice or a court order. It was simply at the request of MySpace. Apparently they left a voicemail for Fyodor and then suspended the domain 52 seconds later. No real verification, no chance for a defense and certainly before what I would consider due diligence. The best part is that the offending page, one of 250,000+ pages at the domain, was simply an archive of a mailing list! If you use GoDaddy I would seriously consider moving your domain. It's not because of this incident either. Everyone makes mistakes and if their response to this was something along the lines of “it won't happen again”, I'd say lesson learned. Their actual response:
When asked if GoDaddy would remove the registration for a news site like CNET News.com, if a reader posted illegal information in a discussion forum and editors could not be immediately reached over a holiday, Jones replied: “I don't know…It's a case-by-case basis.”
If you're a GoDaddy customer, is that a policy that you're comfortable with?
–jeremy
Disclosure: Although I don't really advertise it anywhere, I am an authorized reseller for multiple registrars – none of them GoDaddy
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I've not ever been comfortable with much of what is in the GoDaddy TOS. I got the impression that if I took one of their discount deals to get a good domain price (eg: host with them, etc.), that I would not have full rights to the lease. Other registrars do the same thing, so I've steered clear of them. I found a reseller that lets me have the domain with full reign (and I can transfer it away cleanly if I want to) and I host elsewhere.
The only thing that I liked about GoDaddy was looking at the under dressed models on the television commercials. And, that's certainly not enough to base choosing your web presence on.