GoDaddy have gone rogue - putting roadblocks up for cancellations

Go Daddy have gone completely rogue haven't they!

It's been my intention for a while to cut down my domain portfolio, especially in the light of hugely increased prices at GoDaddy.
So my first port of call was to try and cancel about 15 domains I no longer want.

Wow, roadblock city, they are putting up so many ways and means for me to have to keep the domains.

First things first, I set up ALL my domains so that NONE of them auto-renewed. I did this several months back. On logging in today they are ALL set to auto-renew. This company is breaking the law!

So I go to try and set them all back so that they don't auto-renew and it won't let me. Apparently I need to remove the privacy registration first on the domains and ONLY then can I remove the Auto Renew. So i go to remove the domain privacy and it says I must call a phone number to remove domain privacy.

Wow, Just wow. Who the **** took over GoDaddy in the last couple of years cos they've gone rogue BIG TIME?!!

Oh yes and I forgot to mention their ULTRA USEFUL domain lock, which just means you have to go through another setting before you can even touch your domain. This reminds me of rogue bookies who setup a load of roadblocks for customers before they can remove any funds.

So I just tried to ring (Sunday I know but thought I'd give it a try), phone lines are open and said a wait time of 3 minutes, 8 minutes later I gave up.

So there you go, that's how to try to lock your customers in to expensive renewal fees and auto-renewals they didn't even choose. Companies like this knock me sick.

Anyone recommend me a new domain name company to try and get my names transferred to?

When I clean out old domains I simply login and delete them, why can’t you just do that?

Namecheap and Namesilo for generic domains and for some European extensions Domainmonster, although 123-reg bought the company last year.

There are three ways you can solve this puzzle

1. Delete them using their control panel
2. Remove the credit card/debit card
3. Call godaddy support in the evenings, possibly after 11 pm or even 12 am - US timings, their sprawling support office is located near Stanford university.

Move to internetbs or namecheap, I've 500+ domains with internetbs and I've never had a problem.

fabulous.com, enomcentral.com and name.com are also very good. I've never had any issues with them.

The last time I deleted a handful of domains at godaddy, they remained in my account for several months before they were finally deleted. I don't know what their problem was.

Godaddy sucks for most stuff but their auction is good. To stop them from auto renewing domains use a pre paid debit card and keep that on file. Just load small amounts for the domains you want. Call them and request for a call back if they are busy. They do callback and once you get someone on the phone tell them to refund your account. After that, they will try to give you your refund in godaddy credits, Ask to speak to a manager. They will put you on hold and pick back up and refund your money.

I have never had a lot of issues with GoDaddy either for domains or basic hosting for names or clients that needed the basics somewhere else, but I have always only used them in limited capacity.

It is interesting to see this kind of move, although almost ALL Registrars have had to make big changes in the way names are handled, how whois data is shown or reported, and also the changing or transferring of registrars for names you do own or control.

Do NOT be shocked if a Registrar asks you to verify the account or transfer request, even needing to provide a copy of driving license, passport and or utility bill in order to handle the request. I know of MANY Registrar's that have started doing this, and in fact one of the ones I deal with (with the Tucows (SRS) backend using a custom built interface with an API) started it over a year ago as we knew these changes were coming.

Although this is a huge pain in the butt, I know that any registrar that does this and follows such restrictive policies, will likely never transfer a name to someone without the owners knowledge.

Rick
Universal4

So it turns out, that with the advent of GDPR, domain privacy services are no longer needed as your details do not appear on the whois database anyway now by default.

So to protect their revenue stream, Go Daddy have introduced 'domain Protection' which actually does nothing more than the old domain lock i.e. prevents anyone making any changes or transfers to your domain. A more or less unnecessary service, but they've swapped out the old domain privacy for this new service and put it on all 54 of my domains with them by default.

This new 'Domain Protection' has turned on auto renew for all my domains by default when I had switched them all to off as I wanted to reduce my domain portfolio. Turns out this 'domain protection' actually stops me turning off 'auto renew' also, so I will re-name this service to 'Go Daddy Profits Protection'.

So on calling Go Daddy, I have to go into each domain individually and go through 2 different steps per domain to remove this domain protection including an 'authentication text message'. What a load of bollocks!

Pretty disgraceful, time-wasting for me and protectionist policy from GoDaddy to try and lock in their customers and to make it very difficult (multiple steps plus a phone call) to actually change these settings.

I will be looking for a new domain name provider swiftly.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by RacingJim

I will be looking for a new domain name provider swiftly.

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Your new domain name provider may charge you a "transfer fee".

Quote:

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Originally Posted by DaftDog

Your new domain name provider may charge you a "transfer fee".

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Well I just saved myself £400 turning off the pointless 'GoDaddy Profits Protection' so I'm already up on today haha.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by RacingJim

So it turns out, that with the advent of GDPR, domain privacy services are no longer needed as your details do not appear on the whois database anyway now by default.

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Quote:

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Originally Posted by RacingJim

Well I just saved myself £400 turning off the pointless 'GoDaddy Profits Protection' so I'm already up on today haha.

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Does anyone know if this is just UK only, GoDaddy only, or has this been adopted (the whois part) everywhere?

Also, congrats on finding that and thanks for sharing it!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by RacingJim

So it turns out, that with the advent of GDPR, domain privacy services are no longer needed as your details do not appear on the whois database anyway now by default.

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interesting point! i have been looking into this also, because some registrars like namecheap now offer whois privacy 'for free', while it used to be a paid service before GDPR.
some registrars however keep on charging (whois.com, bigrock.com), while if you turn it off i think it should not show the personal info indeed. i haven't tried yet.
with a paid service i know (well, kinda) that it will keep private. with the free option nowadays it might change in the future, who knows?

Actually, I think the original Domain Transfer Lock didn't really go far enough, and had we been accustomed to the Domain Protection, it would be less of a pain now. Having to go into a domain to tick or untick a box and save the setting, in order to allow any changes to the name such as dns, admin or tech contact details etc is more protection for domain owners, and yes does add some extra steps.

My guess is that long term some registrars will likely develop ways to make these changes globally in an account, or maybe choosing a set of certain names by selecting them and then make the changes globally to those selected.

It may be some time before Registrars such as GoDaddy, Tucows etc to get such things implemented, but I am sure things like that will be requested from their higher volume and larger clients so it would make logical sense.

As for the GDPR changes, currently a lot of whois searches do not show details not previously hidden by domain privacy, but as per feedback from a few Registrars I have talked to in recent weeks, the hidden details may only affect domains registered with UK/Euro address information on file, but time will tell as it may just be easier for them to make that change stay global.

Rick
Universal4

End of the day - I HAD to remove Go Daddy domain protection on any domain where I wanted to turn off auto renew. I'm not gona play with any company that tries such tactics to make me keep domains I might otherwise be wanting to remove. As I said I want to cut my domain portfolio by about half so need reminders when they are going to expire and a CHOICE whether I cancel them or not. Go Daddy sucks for this reason.

Re. The GDPR stuff - I've looked up a number of domains where they were previously showing owner details including address and they are now not showing that information.

From what I read, Nominet/Whois are appealing this (cos it makes them so much money), but it seems GDPR has killed them for now, this COULD be subject to change in the future. I always thought it was silly for domain registrant address to be shown on a public database, it serves nobody any purpose other than puts domain owners at risk of somebody coming round your house/business address if they get peed off with you for any reason. I think this just became a huge money maker for the domain industry and I hope that this is the end of it.

Been with Godaddy for literally years and years - all my domains are with them.

• Auto-renew turned off
• Domain lock is on
• All domains use their privacy proxy

When a domain comes up for renew (every 3 years or so), they send me a reminder 3 or so months before hand.

I'd never use them for hosting, cause they suck.
The only small issue I had, was gluing a set of IP's to a dns (console wasn't intuitive), aside from that, its been smooth sailing :)