Hosting Discussion
 
// you’re reading...

Featured Posts

Chillers and fuel cells: the greening of the hosting industry continues
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
By Chris Redman
WebhostingDay 2010: dates, location, speakers
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
By Chris Redman
Web hosting socially and in the cloud in 2010
Wednesday, December 30, 2009
By Renee Hendricks
One man’s data loss is another man’s lesson
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
By Chris Redman
Questions you didn’t know you can ask potential web hosting providers
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
By Artashes Toumanov

Sponsored By:


Forum Supporters:



Complaints & Rumors

Does GoDaddy practice what it preaches?

HTML clipboardIt’s Super Bowl time, and that means it’s time for another raunchy installment from domain registar and web hosting company GoDaddy. GoDaddy’s inappropriate and sexually implicit commercials during the Super Bowl are really cringe-worthy, especially if you’re sitting next to your parents. Of course, sex sells, but what exactly is sexy about web hosting? Must lust control every decision we make?

Well, the statistics are in, and evidently we are ruled by lust. After last February’s Super Bowl commercial, GoDaddy welcomed 1.5 million visitors to its site, a 616% increase in one day. Largely due to its aggressive advertising, GoDaddy is now one of the top names in domain registration, and a rising star in web hosting. The unsavory methods in which GoDaddy gains business leads me to question their possible hypocrisy.

After being censored during the Super Bowl of 2005, Bob Parson unleashed a pointed response to detractors and praisers alike, where he called out Fox Networks for being hypocritical. Fox Networks, relenting under pressure from the NFL, decided against showing the second GoDaddy advertisement during the Super Bowl. Every year since then, GoDaddy has experienced a love-hate relationship with network censors, this time NBC. Due to censorship, GoDaddy has heavily edited two commercials for Super Bowl Sunday, promising to have available the uncut version on its website on February 1. Bravo! You can’t beat these guys in lead-in advertising. However, the point is that GoDaddy seems to enjoy provoking the censors, and yet it can’t seem to tolerate freedom of speech.

One of the most popular opposition voices against GoDaddy is NoDaddy.com (really catchy). NoDaddy was started by super hacker Gordon Lyon, also known as Fyodor Vaskovich. Once a loyal GoDaddy customer, Lyon’s site SecLists.org was shut down without notice. GoDaddy was the domain registrar, and took it upon itself to suspend service based on a complaint by MySpace. GoDaddy censored Lyon’s site, and his is not the only. NoDaddy is filled with unhappy customers with similar stories to tell.

With all big name hosting companies, there will be a fringe with something to complain about, but are these complaints valid? I’d say so. This type of censorship is incongruent with GoDaddy’s blatant disregard for appropriate content when it comes to its own self-promotion. One can only hope that the inevitable flock of people arriving at GoDaddy’s site on Sunday evening for an uncensored view will not be censored in the process.

Rating: 0.00% Thumbs DownThumbs Up

Discussion

4 comments for “Does GoDaddy practice what it preaches?”

  1. Jacqueline,

    Thanks for your post. I’ve been thinking about this too recently. If people are would rather GoDaddy spend its money and attention on improving service, they can join me in the service not supermodels campaign.

    Jon

    Posted by Jon Garfunkel | Tuesday, January 27, 2009, 3:31 am
  2. I absolutely agree with you. I have been a domain and hosting customer of theirs and I have not been very happy. I remember that on the day that .EU domains were launched that I spend over 1000 dollars on registrations. Afterward it seemed that they were not able to register any of the domains and I had to wait nearly a month for my refund.

    Posted by Jamesb | Saturday, January 31, 2009, 3:44 pm
  3. this is a common issue among many existing godaddy customers , but to be frank , i have never faced any problem till date ( i have been with godaddy from past 6 months). hope i dnt face any problems in future , but still would love to participate in the problems which existing users

    Posted by ali | Thursday, February 12, 2009, 5:16 am
  4. I absolutely disagree with you. Your comments are unbelievably slanted. If you don’t like the GoDaddy commercials, don’t watch them – look for the mute or channel button on your remote. Inappropriate content? By your standard maybe, but obviously not by millions of others.

    Personally, I don’t purchase based on commercials.

    Posted by Steve-Hostirian | Monday, January 18, 2010, 1:57 pm

Post a comment