Keep learning the same lesson – Read Your License Agreements
Well, it seems GoDaddy has covered itself with regard to taking my domain. It’s not looking good as far as avoiding their $75 fee to recover my domain name. After reading through a few sections of the Domain Registration Agreement, I see the following…
6. suspension of services; breach of agreement
You agree that, in addition to other events set forth in this agreement, (i) Your ability to use any of the services provided by Go Daddy is subject to cancellation or suspension in the event there is an unresolved breach of this agreement and/or suspension or cancellation is required by any policy now in effect or adopted later by ICANN, and (ii) Your registration of any domain names shall be subject to suspension, cancellation or transfer pursuant to any ICANN adopted specification or policy, or pursuant to any Go Daddy procedure not inconsistent with an ICANN adopted specification or policy, (1) to correct mistakes by Go Daddy or the registry operator in registering any domain name or (2) for the resolution of disputes concerning any domain name.
You agree that Your failure to comply completely with the terms and conditions of this agreement and any Go Daddy rule or policy may be considered by Go Daddy to be a material breach of this agreement and that Go Daddy may provide You with notice of such breach either in writing or electronically (i.e. email). In the event You do not provide Go Daddy with material evidence that You have not breached Your obligations to Go Daddy within ten (10) business days, Go Daddy may terminate its relationship with You and take any remedial action available to Go Daddy under the applicable laws. Such remedial action may be implemented without notice to You and may include, but is not limited to, canceling the registration of any of Your domain names and discontinuing any services provided by Go Daddy to You. No fees will be refunded to You should Your agreement be cancelled or services be discontinued because of a breach.
Go Daddy’s failure to act upon or notify You of any event, which may constitute a breach, shall not relieve You from or excuse You of the fact that You have committed a breach.
Unfortunately, there’s not a whole lot you can do to prove you are NOT doing something (proving a negative is not an easy thing to do), so they have configured things to make it easier on GoDaddy and harder on the customer.
Right now, GoDaddy is holding all the cards. They have the domain. They have my web hosting. They have my databases. And, they have all the leverage and they know it!
GoDaddy Web Hosting
So, I am just going to pay the money. But, while I have this opportunity, let me take a swipe at GoDaddy’s web hosting
.
While the up-time has been good, the service has been inconsistent when you are trying to use all the features. For example, I host multiple domains from one account. Each domain pulls an RSS feed to populate a section of the home page. While this worked fine for the first month, now it doesn’t work at all!
Now, this may be a simple problem they are going to fix soon. But, it’s no fun having to call these guys at my expense to learn why they are not doing the job for which they are being paid. Now, this is not to say other hosts don’t have similiar problems, because they most certainly do. It’s just they don’t make you pay for the call, the way GoDaddy does.
With all the money GoDaddy is extracting from me, you’d think they would at least provide a toll free number!
What Not to Do
Do not have your domain name registered at the same place you are hosting your website.
I mean never do this, no matter how good a deal or how easy they make it. This is a trap! Once they have you completely locked-in, you are now at their mercy.
Never buy a hosting package for more than a year! EVER!
Just don’t do it! In fact, the shorter the better. Every time I call GoDaddy about hosting, they are always trying to sell me some long-term hosting. It is amazing they try to sell it to me like they are doing me a favor. I always think to myself, when has GoDaddy EVER done me a favor?
Be VERY careful with auto-renew for domains and hosting.
This is another way hosting companies and registrars like to lock you into their plans. Auto-renew is really insidious because if you don’t read the agreement, they won’t even tell you when they are taking money from your account. If you have a lot of domains and hosting, you are going to find yourself paying for things you no longer need nor want.
Another thing about auto-renew is sometimes they’ll bill you way in advance of termination (e.g 2 weeks). So, while you are trying to determine whether to keep the hosting account, too late, they’ve already billed you for service. So, if you signed up for a long-term, you’ve just re-committed. A web host tried to pull this with me, but fortunately, the card they had on file was no longer valid.
What really bothers me is they didn’t give me any notice they were going to do this. Some registrars and hosts will tell you in advance they are going to bill you. This gives you a chance to decide what to do next. But, obviously, not everyone does this. So, unless you specifically intend to stay with a certain host, look to disable auto-renew.
Conclusion.
Losing my domain to GoDaddy has taught me a lesson about reading the license agreement. Now, if you are getting a service for free, reading these contracts may not be as important. But, when your property and money are on the line, make sure you know exactly what type of agreement you are entering.
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[...] reading through the 50 different sections (not including sub-sections) of the GoDaddy Domain Name Registration Agreement and 21 sections of the Namecheap Registration Agreement, it’s clear there is no such thing as [...]