Suspension of Seclists.org and purchase of No Daddy GoDaddy has been involved in several controversies related to unethical business practices and censorship. On January 24, 2007, GoDaddy deactivated the domain of computer security site Seclists.org, taking 250,000 pages of security content offline. The shutdown resulted from a complaint from
MySpace to GoDaddy regarding 56,000 user names and passwords posted a week earlier to the full-disclosure mailing list and archived on the Seclists.org site as well as many other websites. Seclists.org administrator
Gordon Lyon, who goes by the handle "Fyodor," provided logs to CNET showing GoDaddy de-activated the domain 52 seconds after leaving him a voicemail, and he had to go to great lengths to get the site reactivated. GoDaddy general counsel Christine Jones stated that GoDaddy's terms of service "reserves the right to terminate your access to the services at any time, without notice, for any reason whatsoever." The site seclists.org is now hosted with
Linode. The suspension of seclists.org led Lyon to create NoDaddy.com, a
consumer activist website where dissatisfied GoDaddy customers and
whistleblowers from GoDaddy's staff share their experiences. On July 12, 2011, an article in
The Register reported that, shortly after
Bob Parsons' sale of GoDaddy, the company purchased gripe site No Daddy. The site had returned a top 5 result on
Google for a search for GoDaddy.
China domains On March 24, 2010, GoDaddy stopped registering
.cn domains (China) due to the high amount of personal information that is required to register in that country. Some called it a public relations campaign since it closely followed
Google's revolt in China. GoDaddy's top lawyer
Christine Jones told Congress, "We were having to contact Chinese users to ask for their personal information and begrudgingly give it to Chinese authorities. We decided we didn't want to become an agent of the
Chinese government." GoDaddy resumed registering .cn domain names in February 2016 as part of its push into the Asia market.
Super Bowl XLIX Puppy Ad On January 27, 2015, GoDaddy released its Super Bowl ad on
YouTube. Called "Journey Home", the commercial featured a
Retriever puppy named Buddy who was bounced out of the back of a truck. After making a journey home his owners are relieved because they just sold him on a website they built with GoDaddy. GoDaddy claims the ad was supposed to be funny and an attempt to make fun of all the puppies shown in Super Bowl ads. Most notably,
Budweiser's famous Super Bowl ad also featured a Retriever puppy. The ad found very few fans from the online community. Animal advocates took to social media calling the ad disgusting, callous, and accusing the commercial of advocating for
puppy mills. An online petition collected 42,000 signatures. GoDaddy's
CEO,
Blake Irving, wrote a blog entry later that day promising that the commercial would not air during the Super Bowl. He wrote on his blog "At the end of the day, our purpose at GoDaddy is to help small businesses around the world build a successful online presence. We hoped our ad would increase awareness of that cause. However, we underestimated the emotional response. And we heard that loud and clear." He goes on to say that Buddy was purchased from a reputable breeder and is part of the GoDaddy family as Chief Companion Officer.
Namecheap rivalry On December 11, 2011, rival domain name registrar
Namecheap claimed that GoDaddy was in violation of ICANN rules by providing incomplete information in order to hinder the protest moves of domain names from GoDaddy to Namecheap, an accusation which GoDaddy denied, claiming that it was following its standard business practice to prevent
WHOIS abuse. At this time GoDaddy does allow customers who update their domain contact information to opt out of the 60-day lock upon verification.
Backing of SOPA and resultant boycott On December 22, 2011, a thread was started on the social news website
Reddit, discussing the identity of supporters of the United States
Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), which included GoDaddy. GoDaddy subsequently released additional statements supporting SOPA. A boycott and transfer of domains were proposed. This quickly spread across the Internet, gained support, and was followed by a proposed Boycott GoDaddy Day on December 29, 2011. One strong supporter of this action was
Cheezburger CEO
Ben Huh, who threatened that the organization would remove over 1,000 domains from GoDaddy if they continued their support of SOPA. After a brief campaign on Reddit,
imgur owner
Alan Schaaf transferred his domain from GoDaddy. GoDaddy pulled its support for SOPA on December 23, releasing a statement saying "GoDaddy will support it when and if the Internet community supports it." Later that day, CEO Warren Adelman could not commit to changing GoDaddy's position on the record in Congress when asked, but said "I'll take that back to our legislative guys, but I agree that's an important step." When pressed, he said "We're going to step back and let others take leadership roles." By December 24, 2011, GoDaddy had lost 37,000 domains as a result of the boycott. GoDaddy gained a net 20,748 domains.
Phishing Awareness Test During COVID-19 In December 2020, amid the
COVID-19 pandemic pandemic and related
economic crisis, the company conducted a phishing simulation by sending employees an email suggesting they were eligible for a $650 bonus. The message was part of a cybersecurity awareness test designed to educate staff on social engineering tactics. Employees who interacted with the email were informed they had failed the simulation and were directed to complete additional training. Following public criticism, the company issued an apology to employees, though no actual bonuses were distributed.
Deplatforming clients in protest On January 11, 2021, the company
deplatformed the web forum
AR15.com following the
U.S. Capitol attack. GoDaddy told
Axios that the action was due to the site's failure to
moderate content "that both promoted and encouraged violence." The
National Shooting Sports Foundation, in a message from its president, condemned what it called the "
de-platforming of gun sites" as a "dark harbinger" for discussion of controversial issues and an "indiscriminate silencing of opinion and debate."
Texas Heartbeat Act In September 2021, the company canceled a contract with the
pro-life group Texas Right to Life which was running a website encouraging whistleblowing of those who were breaking the
Texas Heartbeat Act. Owned by the Texas Right to Life group, the website was used as a platform for the public to submit tips on suspected pregnancy terminations in Texas. In a statement to Ars Technica, Texas Right to Life Director of Media and Communication Kimberlyn Schwartz noted that, "We will not be silenced. If anti-Lifers want to take our website down, we'll put it back up."
Data breaches On February 16, 2023, the company filed its compulsory annual 10-K report with the US SEC. Under the sub-heading "Operational Risks," it revealed that the company suffered multiple data breaches in the last three years, which impacted more than one million GoDaddy customers. ==See also==