How to report abuse to GoDaddy - Web Applications Stack Exchange
problem - How to report abuse to website hosting company (GoDaddy) - Webmasters Stack Exchange
Reporting Spam to [email protected] results in being sent in circles
Weird Policy when Dealing with Abuse Complaints
I have an active spammer sending me spam using a godaddy hosted domain. The spam does come from the godaddy network. The domain is a just a temp domain also hosted on godaddy. I forwarded the spam to the [email protected] address. They sent me a link. On the link they tell you to go to an ftc.gov link for spam. The ftc.gov link says that for spam you need to talk to the server owner where the spam originates. So you just get sent in circles. It seems godaddy has absolved its responsibility of policing spam on their network.
Do a DMCA takedown request. This usually works as long as you can prove the photo is of you.
In the whois there should be an "abuse" address. Write there.
That said... While it might be your right to want that picture removed, I think you are too paranoid about "compromising your career". Your employers should not care about whatever you do in your spare time: they should only care about if you actually manage to do your job or not. If someone messes up with your life, it's not someone you want to work for anyway.
This is a difficult question. Yes, you can email the hosting provider and request that they take action. But it depends on their terms and conditions. If the website doesn't break the hosting companies terms, then the hosting company doesn't have to do anything. This would then mean you would have to take legal action privately and take them to court. But then you are faced with the issue that the image in question is in the public domain so therefore can't be removed. There has been a lot of these types of stories in the press, and most of the time the image remains online.
But you must also remember that if you are going to the hosting company saying that the image is illegal, at some point or other they will want to know why it is illegal. If the content of the image is illegal, then you will be in trouble yourself as it is you in the image. If not, then you will have to go to a solicitor.
Also, powers a web host or even you have over websites depends on the country where the server is located. GoDaddy may be an American company but the server with this website on could be in Russia or the UK. So exactly what powers you have on getting the image taken down also changes depending on the country. GoDaddy would be able to tell you this though.
If they are in the US you can send a DMCA take down request to Godaddy asking them to remove the picture. They will notify the user of the request who can either take it down, respond saying it is not a copyright violation and leave it, or ignore the request at which point Godaddy will take the page down themselves. Keep in mind that that picture probably does not violate any copyrights so this could be seen as an abuse of the DMCA and it also doesn't mean that the picture will come down. But if you really want to get that picture taken down it might be worth trying.