MySpace and GoDaddy Shut Down Security Site

Several readers wrote in with a CNET report that raises novel free-speech questions. MySpace asked GoDaddy to pull the plug on Seclists.org, a site run by Fyodor Vaskovich, the father of nmap. The site hosts a quarter million pages of mailing-list archives and the like. MySpace did not obtain a court order or, apparently, compose a DMCA takedown notice: it simply asked GoDaddy to remove a site that happened to archive a list of thousands of MySpace usernames and passwords, and GoDaddy complied. Fyodor says the takedown happened without prior notice. The site was unavailable for about seven hours until he found out what was happening and removed the offending posting. The CNET article concludes: "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.'"

Comments

GoDaddy probably complied...

[mhazen]

....because Rupert Murdoch would have just bought them and fired the people who questioned whether NewsCorp has the right to restrict freedom of information.

And, by the way, I hope GoDaddy's reading this. I'm moving my domains away from you because of your lackadaisical approach to our constitutional rights.

Big surprise.

[SatanicPuppy]

You get what you pay for with GoDaddy. I certainly wouldn't expect them to take my side in a dispute with MySpace, News Corp, or, frankly, anyone with a significant number of lawyers on their side.

Providers, by and large, will cave to any request from a big company...Hell there was an article about it here a few days ago, that linked the BoF Experiment where they posted a public domain work on 10 different places, and then sent DMCA takedown notices to all 10 places, and had 7 remove it immediately even though it was clearly marked as public domain.

Face it; a hosting site that will stick up for it's customers against a significant threat from a big company is hard as hell to find, and sure as hell GoDaddy isn't going to do it for 10 bucks a month.

Re:Myspace is the new AOL

[walt-sjc]

The ultimate blame in this case falls on GoDaddy for pulling the trigger. They should have told myspace "not our problem and you don't have the authority to ask for this action andyway. Get a court order."

I have a few domains registered with godaddy at the moment. In about an hour, they no longer will be, with a letter to their CEO (US Mail) saying why.

GoDaddy is now known as GoAwayDaddy in my book.

Unconscionable

[gellenburg]

1. Unconscionable: How I feel about this whole matter. Completely unconscionable that GoDaddy could or WOULD do anything like this.

2. 142: The number of domains I have registered with GoDaddy.

3. $1500: Roughly the annual amount I pay for my domains to renew them each year.

4. 48: The number of hours I have allotted myself this weekend to transfer each and every one of them AWAY from GoDaddy to someplace like NameCheap.com or DomainMonitor. Haven't decided yet.

5. True: Boolean value for whether or not I am pissed-off.

6. Very Much: The level of item 5, above's, value.

HERE IS A LINK FROM GOOGLE : FULL LIST

[Anonymous Coward]

http://archives.neohapsis.com/archives/fulldisclos ure/2007-01/0282.html

now please shut down google?

oh I see, they are corporate and fydor is the little guy, I forgot!!!

Re:Overkill is an understatement

[neoform]

GoDaddy's been doing this for a long time. They suspended one of my business domains based on a single complaint by some random guy, then charged me $200 to allow me to transfer the domain to another registrar. Extortion? Yeah. Against ICANNs rules? Yeah. Do they get away with it? Yeah.

Then again, i called mastercard and told them i didn't authorize that charge, so they didn't get that $200 from me.

Re:Case-by-case basis...

[Rohan427]

I am currently looking to transfer my 14 domain names from GoDaddy because of this action by them. I have e-mailed them and informed them of this.

PGA www.randomlogic.com

GoDaddy Response

[godaddyabuse]

I am Ben Butler, the Director of Network Abuse at Go Daddy and I want to personally address your posts regarding SecLists.org. As we have said to our customers - Go Daddy is committed to keeping the Internet a safe place. If there is material online that is jeopardizing Internet safety, we will take necessary action. In this case, Go Daddy attempted to contact the customer with regard to a large list of MySpace user names and passwords which appeared on his Web site. The registrant was not available at the time. In order to protect users of MySpace from the risk of having private data revealed, we removed the site until we could make contact with our customer. Once we were able to discuss the issue with the registrant, he assured us he would remove the offending material and we re-enabled his site while he was on the phone. The site was back up within one hour. In each case like this, my department follows a set of operating procedures evaluating whether to remove hosting content or to redirect domain names. The decision is carefully made on a case-by-case basis. Most times, the site is left as is. An important issue I would ask you to consider is one that is a top priority for us at Go Daddy - child exploitation or even the potential for it. I don't know of any parent who wouldn't want their child's username and password protected. Ben Butler Director of Network Abuse The Go Daddy Group, Inc Abuse@GoDaddy.com

Re:GoDaddy Response

[Walter Carver]

1. It is not your job to keep the Internet safe, your job is to keep a domain. You will be ordered to take a domain down with a court order.

2. That list of MySpace users is available at several full-disclosure lists. Taking down SecLists.org doesn't change anything.

3. Your customer has e-mail logs to prove his side of the story. Do you?

Re:Case-by-case basis...

[thedeath319]

I, like you, e-mailed them to complain about this. I got the following reply:

I am Ben Butler, the Director of Network Abuse at Go Daddy and I want to personally address your posts regarding SecLists.org. As we have said to our customers - Go Daddy is committed to keeping the Internet a safe place. If there is material online that is jeopardizing Internet safety, we will take necessary action. In this case, Go Daddy attempted to contact the customer with regard to a large list of MySpace user names and passwords which appeared on his Web site. The registrant was not available at the time. In order to protect users of MySpace from the risk of having private data revealed, we removed the site until we could make contact with our customer. Once we were able to discuss the issue with the registrant, he assured us he would remove the offending material and we re-enabled his site while he was on the phone. The site was back up within one hour. In each case like this, my department follows a set of operating procedures evaluating whether to remove hosting content or to redirect domain names. The decision is carefully made on a case-by-case basis. Most times, the site is left as is. An important issue I would ask you to consider is one that is a top priority for us at Go Daddy - child exploitation or even the potential for it. I don't know of any parent who wouldn't want their child's username and password protected. Ben Butler Director of Network Abuse The Go Daddy Group, Inc

This, I guess, seems fair enough. Maybe its MySpace that are in the wrong? Surely the domain registrar should be a last resort for abuse and the website owner a first?