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.
I am a college student in Chicago, and I need your help and advice. A month ago, I encountered a phishing website that was registered with Godaddy. The website looked like a legitimate online store, but it was actually a scam that tried to steal my credit card information. Luckily, I realized it was a phishing website before I entered any sensitive information, and I decided to report it to Godaddy and other authorities.
On 18 December, 2023, I reported the phishing website to Godaddy via [email protected] and their https://supportcenter.godaddy.com/abusereport. I provided them with the URL of the phishing website, a screenshot of the website, and an explanation of why it was a phishing website. Godaddy responded that they will handle this and take down the website as soon as possible. They also thanked me for reporting it and asked me to report any other suspicious websites to their email address.
However, three weeks passed, and nothing happened. The phishing website was still online and active. I checked the WHOIS information of the website, and it was still registered with Godaddy. I contacted Godaddy again, and they gave me the same response as before. They said they will take down the website, but they did not give me any timeline or confirmation.I was very angry and frustrated, so I decided to report the phishing website to other authorities as well. I reported it to the Better Business Bureau (BBB) and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) via their https://www.bbb.org/file-a-complaint & https://reportfraud.ftc.gov/#/?orgcode=USAGOV. I also provided them with the same information and evidence as I did to Godaddy.
I hoped that they would take some action and pressure Godaddy to take down the website.However, another week passed, and nothing changed. The phishing website was still online and active. I checked the status of my reports on BBB and FTC, and they said they were still processing them. They did not give me any updates or feedback. I contacted them again, and they told me to wait patiently and to report any other phishing websites to their email addresses or websites.I felt like I was stuck in a loop that I could not get out of.
I reported a phishing website to Godaddy, BBB, and FTC, but they did nothing to take it down. They just thanked me for reporting it and asked me to report more. They did not seem to care about the harm and damage that the phishing website could cause to other people. They did not seem to take phishing websites seriously.I am very disappointed and angry with Godaddy, BBB, and FTC. They have failed to protect me and other internet users from phishing websites. They have failed to fulfill their responsibilities and obligations. They have failed to do their jobs.That is why I decided to post my story here on Reddit.
I want to let more people know the inaction of Godaddy, BBB, and FTC. I want to warn more people not to fall and not to trust Godaddy, BBB, and FTC. I want to expose their incompetence and negligence.
I think my experience gonna help you to report others. And I also need your help and advice. Please share your thoughts about reporting Godaddy with me. I appreciate any feedback and support. Thank you for reading my post and for your help.
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.
I oversee domains for a number of clients and a lot are registered with GoDaddy. Recently somebody submitted an abuse complaint stating that the domain sold unauthorized products. They basically saw something on the site and reported the url to GoDaddy. They came across as this serious sounding enforcement agency but in reality they were a private consumer watchdog group. I guess somebody anonymously reported a url to them and they just wrote GoDaddy to make quick work of the site.
So GoDaddy gets the email and instantly locks up the domain which takes the domain down. We write GoDadday and they state that we mist communicate with those who submitted the complaint and once they agree the drop the complaint only then will GoDaddy unlock the domain.
SO basically this watchdog group had me by the cajones and I was forced to comply with their every demand. My attorney spoke to them and even he admitted they seemed misinformed about the business but they simply didn't like me and knew GoDadday was giving them absolute power. So they gave me a list of demands basically refusing to sell 4/5 products, not ship to specific areas, etc. and since I was desperate to get my site back and didn't want to waste time and argue, I signed off on everything.
About three days later, taking their sweet time, they dropped the abuse complaint with GoDaddy. I got my domain back after wasting nearly a week. By then Google had stopped indexing our domain and we had disappeared from search results. When it finally recovered we landed on page 4-5 for top keywords when we were a solid page one prior to the ordeal.
I was so furious. I came to find out that most domain registers will allow both parties to communicate before they get involved in abuse complaints. They said showing favoritism for one side or giving them control in the conversation is wrong but it's a common issue with GoDaddy. From the day of the abuse complaint to the locking of my domain, it was less than 24 hours. It's not like I ignored requests.
Others tell me this is how GoDaddy is. Either way other domains I oversee want me to take registrar services off of GoDaddy.
I know every situation is different but I found the entire experience unprofessional and crazy. Does anybody know of other services that operate differently? I'm speaking a few registrars now that said they would never do that.