GoDaddy Holds Domains Hostage

saikou writes "There were previous reports of GoDaddy, one of the biggest domain name registrars, attacking Bittorrent sites with frivolous interpretation of their own Terms of Service (that story was resolved), and now similar events unfold with clients of one of Russian domain registrars Majordomo.ru -- GoDaddy has informed them that all 1399 client domains are now blocked (story in Russian) due to 'many of your domain names were listed in the Spamhaus.org blacklist or were resolving to a name server or IP address listed in the Spamhaus.org blacklist' with a demand of a neat '$199 non-refundable administration fee to the credit card on file for your account for each domain name you wish to reactivate' or $50 for each domain to be transferred out into another registrar. I am all for fighting spam, but given how unreliable spam black-lists are such actions simply damage the internet. Instead of affecting people that use spam lists to control the inflow of mail to some degree, all users are effectively forced to be black-list clients. Now all one needs to shut down a site is a few reports of spamming, and the domain (or even better, all domains of a given small registrar) will be suspended."

Comments

This story is pure bull-crap.

[merc]

Disclaimer: I do not work for Godaddy -- in fact I work for a competing ISP in their same locale.

First off how did this story become okay'd past the slashdot moderators? This story is written with a really biased, bitter, non-neutral point-of-view.

Secondly, you can hardly call it extortion if the Terms of Service explicitly state under what conditions your domain may be suspended or put on hold. I'm constantly surprised how many spammers continue to register their domains with registrars that enforce their AUPs -- luckily there's a "rule" that explains spammers' stupidity.

"I am all for fighting spam, but given how unreliable spam black-lists are such actions simply damage the internet."

Anyone who regularly reads news.admin.net-abuse.email will instantly recognize this as sour grapes from a spammer. Funny how the writer of this story simply wants us to accept that "black-lists are unreliable" and that it's a given fact without any supporting evidence. For me, someone who runs the abuse desk for one of Arizona's oldest ISP's, using the blocking lists works wonderfully and I plan on continuing to use them.

As for Godaddy enforcing the terms of their terms and AUP -- to them I say "good job, keep it up".