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GoDaddy gave a domain to a stranger without any documentation

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Re: GoDaddy gave a domain to a stranger without any documentation

#211

He mentions these 3: "- Every email address that exists out in the world is now wrong. - Every piece of marketing material is now incorrect. - All of the SEO is gone." but it seems to miss even the biggest one, which is that you are effectively locked out of any online business accounts, your bank, your crm, anything that says "we noticed an unusual login, please enter the code we just sent to your email to verify th…

Really toxic security anti-pattern. I’m locked out of my 20 year old wikipedia account because they instituted 2fa without asking and my email on file was no longer valid.

Ouch. That's worse than the reddit accounts I lost for a similar reason.

Nearly lost a dozen other accounts when I moved from Canada to US and changed my phone number. Fortunately I had to foresight to pay about $1/mo to transfer my Canadian number to some VoiP service just so I could keep it active for scenarios like this!

Re: GoDaddy gave a domain to a stranger without any documentation

#212
post #200
post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://robindev.substack.com/p/cloudflare-took-down-our-web... - one of a number of citations. To find more insert the terms [Cloudflare, hostage] into your favorite search engine.

Cmon, this is the guy that was running a shady online casino which was tanking Cloudflare’s IP reputation, completely different.

Cloudflare didn't give them the option to quit hosting with CF and port their domains out. It held the domains hostage because the domains were registered through CF.

Re: GoDaddy gave a domain to a stranger without any documentation

#213

Register your domain as a trademark. It costs a few hundred dollars, and can be done online. This gives you stronger rights with ICANN, against anybody who illicitly acquired the domain, against typosquatters, the registrar, and the courts. You can send intimidating lawyer letters, and quickly escalate from the registrar's support department to lawyer-to-lawyer phone calls. ANIMATS®

What? Where can you register online? In Canada you basically have to hire a lawyer and the wait time for issuance is crazy. The backlog peaked at a 4 year wait after Covid. I’d love to be able to register an trademark online.

Register a US trademark on line here: [1]

Current wait times: [2] About 4 months to first reply, 10 months to issue.

I've registered ANIMATS, DOWNSIDE, and SITETRUTH. It's not hard.

[1] https://www.uspto.gov/trademarks/apply

[2] https://www.uspto.gov/trademarks/application-timeline

Re: GoDaddy gave a domain to a stranger without any documentation

#214

Relevant (for some reason though it shouldn’t be; GoDaddy’s track record is that bad.) Jan 2017: [Godaddy has issued at least 8850 SSL certificates without validating anything]( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47911780 ) Jan 2019: [GoDaddy injecting JavaScript into websites and how to stop it]( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18894792 ) Aug 2022: [Tell HN: Godaddy canceled my domain, gave me 2h to respond,…

The correct link for the first one (Jan 2017 SSL certs) is https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13377214 (currently it points right here, to this story) :-)

Re: GoDaddy gave a domain to a stranger without any documentation

#215

Relevant (for some reason though it shouldn’t be; GoDaddy’s track record is that bad.) Jan 2017: [Godaddy has issued at least 8850 SSL certificates without validating anything]( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47911780 ) Jan 2019: [GoDaddy injecting JavaScript into websites and how to stop it]( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18894792 ) Aug 2022: [Tell HN: Godaddy canceled my domain, gave me 2h to respond,…

GoDaddy has also been blocking entire countries from being able to access all services.

And to make it far worse, IIRC, at a certain point, those blocks applied not only to GoDaddy's own website, but even to the DNS services that are provided for the customers, e.g., your own website wouldn't necessarily work from the "wrong" country, either.

Honestly, I dunno why anyone would use their services. High price, very low value.

Re: GoDaddy gave a domain to a stranger without any documentation

#216

At the risk of sounding snarky; Last Saturday afternoon one of his client’s domains vanished from his GoDaddy account. Lee is one of the most competent IT guys I know. 'Competent' and 'client's domains [hosted on] GoDaddy' don't go together.

People get tied to their registrar by using their DNS or other services. It's a mistake, but it's extremely common. So if you have someone using GoDaddy, and everything is working, how do you sell them on the idea of migrating DNS or hosting or email if they've never had an issue?

There's been a story a few years ago that GoDaddy was blacklisting entire countries not only from their own website, but also from the DNS provided to their customers.

So, at a minimum, your website and email may not work worldwide if you're using the DNS disservice of GoDaddy.

I would NEVER use GoDaddy as a registrar, but if somehow that was a necessity, I would 100% NEVER use their DNS.

Re: GoDaddy gave a domain to a stranger without any documentation

#217

Register your domain as a trademark. It costs a few hundred dollars, and can be done online. This gives you stronger rights with ICANN, against anybody who illicitly acquired the domain, against typosquatters, the registrar, and the courts. You can send intimidating lawyer letters, and quickly escalate from the registrar's support department to lawyer-to-lawyer phone calls. ANIMATS®

I own a domain registrar.

Personally (not our official position), I would never try to bring a trademark into this type of dispute. Once you make a trademark claim the domain gets locked to prevent any further changes and you get directed to file a UDRP. We will then act based on the ruling, which could take months.

Same for trying to send "intimidating lawyer letters" (or having your attorney contact us at all). Outside of a few narrow cases, nothing obligates us to spend money on legal resources to respond. But once you demand specific treatment under the law, we have to direct you to a court holding jurisdiction over us to rule in your favor.

Re: GoDaddy gave a domain to a stranger without any documentation

#219

Relevant (for some reason though it shouldn’t be; GoDaddy’s track record is that bad.) Jan 2017: [Godaddy has issued at least 8850 SSL certificates without validating anything]( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47911780 ) Jan 2019: [GoDaddy injecting JavaScript into websites and how to stop it]( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18894792 ) Aug 2022: [Tell HN: Godaddy canceled my domain, gave me 2h to respond,…

They're so infamous that their infamy even has its own Wikipedia page!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controversies_surrounding_GoDa...

And them blocking entire countries from their website and DNS isn't even mentioned in your list or the page!

Re: GoDaddy gave a domain to a stranger without any documentation

#220
post #52

Likely an inside job. I had a similar experience with AWS where my account was compromised despite the fact that I had all the proper security features enabled. It was later discovered internal contractors were responsible. But up to that point AWS blamed the issue on me with no proof. A call to the AG office in my state got the ball rolling and initiated an investigation that finally got a manager to take the case s…

but why? why would an insider put the wrong domain into a strangers account that has no interest in using the domain and went out of her way to give it back to the rightful owners?

Sounds like the kind of thing an LLM would do: find a random token towards the end of an input stream (similar domain in Susan's email signature), mangle it, then take that hallucination to be authoritative.
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