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 is brilliant.

[gru3hunt3r]

This is brilliant!!! No seriously, i'm routinely pissed off at the limited number of domains which correctly implement SPF. Fear is a great motivator.
Hopefully now we'll see increased SPF adoption among major ISP's.

ATTENTION FLAMERS/TROLLS: I'm not an idiot - I realize that SPF doesn't actually help avoid this problem, and subsequently keep your mailserver off black lists. But it does bring the topic "hiring a secure+competent DNS/mailserver" into the forefront.
It seems to me that if your nameserver, and your mail server resolve to the same IP address - then you're cruisin for a bruisin, because you probably don't have a terribly competent mail/dns host.

I'm not a lawyer - but it seems here in the US - it allows ISP's that host spammers and thus have their customers domains blacklisted to be LIABLE for damages (the fines that go-daddy levies, plus lost revenue).
Even if the ISP has a terms of service, blah blah .. commerce law is pretty straightforward: if I pay you to do a service (host my website), and a lack of competence in your service results in damages (domain name being suspended), you are liable for those -- so either have me sign a waiver stating "i know you're incompetent", get insurance to deal with it, or hire competent administrators in the first place.

So I guess we can all expect to be signing competency waivers for most ISP's in the near future.

Rock on GoDaddy!

Re:Papa Don't Preach

[Doc Ruby]

(Score:1, Troll)

Moderation 0
    30% Insightful
    30% Interesting
    20% Flamebait

Let the fascist TrollMod games begin!

Re:Very dangerous precedent

[SillyNickName4me]

GO away with your clearly Anti American (tm) and anti Anarcho-libertarian fud.

Re:Papa Don't Preach

[Doc Ruby]

I don't post just because you like them.

I do post comments about unfair moderations, like TrollMods which are anonymous mods designed to do nothing but anonymously suppress an legitimate post. Because it gives the metamods something to consider, in Slashdot's sketchy meta/moderation system.