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Go Daddy

Go Daddy is an Internet domain registrar and web hosting company, which also sells e-business related software and services.

History

Go Daddy was founded in 1997 as Jomax Technologies by Bob Parsons, who previously founded the software development company Parsons Technology, Inc.

The Go Daddy Group, Inc., which includes flagship registrar GoDaddy.com, Wild West Domains (its resale brand) as well as Blue Razor (its bulk domain brand) has offices in Arizona, Colorado, Iowa and Washington D.C.

Go Daddy is currently the largest ICANN-accredited registrar in the world, and is three times the size of its closest competitor.

It was first ranked largest ICANN-accredited registrar in April 2005, when it surpassed Network Solutions in market share of total domain names registered. Media speculation for the gain included lower prices and the expansion of the Go Daddy product line. The company also offers Web site design and hosting packages, among other services.

As Go Daddy has grown, it has taken part in activities concerning the Internet in general. In 2007 and 2008, the company increased its presence in Washington D.C., lobbying in favor of legislation that would crack down on unscrupulous online pharmacies and child predators. In 2006, Go Daddy was sued by Web.com for patent infringement. In 2005, GoDaddy criticized the US Department of Commerce for disallowing private registrations of .us domains. In 2003, Go Daddy sued VeriSign, Inc., over its Site Finder service. The event caused controversy over VeriSign's role as the sole maintainer of the .com and the .net top-level domains. VeriSign shut down Site Finder after receiving a letter from ICANN ordering it to comply with a request to disable the service.

From 2003-2005, Go Daddy was recognized as one of the fastest-growing tech companies in Arizona.

Awards

In 2007, Go Daddy was named "Most Innovative Company" by the 2007 Arizona Corporate Excellence (ACE) awards. Go Daddy also ranked number 2 on the ACE "25 Fastest Growing" companies list. Go Daddy has been listed among the "Best Places to Work in the Valley" for four consecutive years (2003-2007). Go Daddy was recognized by Linux Journal as the "Readers' Choice" for Favorite Linux-Friendly Web Hosting Company.

Marketing

Go Daddy's advertising is produced in house, and typically emphasizes sexually suggestive material (with the exception of their NASCAR advertising, in an attempt to avoid being attacked by fans, networks, and NASCAR). Featured on their website, most of Go Daddy's commercials began with the 2005 Super Bowl advertisement, and from there went further to other television stations, with many being rejected for content. CEO Bob Parsons refers to the marketing as "GoDaddy-esque" which he describes as "fun, edgy and a bit inappropriate.

Most of Go Daddy's early TV ads starred current WWE Diva Candice Michelle, in some sort of sexual-related theme. Candice Michelle has been referred to as "Miss GoDaddy.com" or "The Go Daddy Girl" by fans and on WWE TV shows, where she also does the "Go Daddy Dance" (twirling her arms around her body while slowly turning) as part of her wrestling gimmick. In 2006, Go Daddy began sponsoring IndyCar driver Danica Patrick, who subsequently joined "The Go Daddy Girl" lineup, and began playing a prominent role in the registrar's commercials. In late 2007, Olympic swimmer and model Amanda Beard became the third Go Daddy Girl.

Commercials in 2008 have appeared, however, with a fourth spokesman, with commercials which are not sexually suggestive. These ads, which air in NASCAR broadcasts, feature NASCAR Nationwide Series owner Dale Earnhardt, Jr., who owns, designed, and occasionally drives the #5 JR Motorsports Chevrolet in the series. Go Daddy's sponsorship of the team includes five races in 2008 with Mark Martin and Ron Fellows (who won the NAPA Pieces d'Auto 200 presentee par Dodge in the Go Daddy Chevrolet) sharing duties in the races along with Earnhardt, who designed paint scheme for the car, which in true Earnhardt tradition, is dominated by black with green and orange (the colors of Go Daddy) nearer to the back of the car. GoDaddy.com also has sponsored the Randy Moss Motorsports (fka Morgan-Dollar Motorsports) truck when Landon Cassill drives it, both in the original #46 and later as #81, as Cassill is a Hendrick Motorsports Developmental Driver, which includes selected Nationwide Series races in Earnhardt's #5 car.

2008 Super Bowl advertisement

Development

On August 13, 2007 Bob Parsons announced that Go Daddy may be sitting out Super Bowl XLII. "There's always the possibility that we might not be able to get an appropriately edgy ad approved," he said. "All things considered, there's a strong argument for staying on the sidelines this year and taking that Super Bowl advertising money and using it for other opportunities," he added.

However, on January 28, 2008, during a telecast of World Wrestling Entertainment's RAW program on USA Network in a reverse of field, it was disclosed by Go Daddy spokesperson (and WWE diva) Candice Michelle that there will be an ad during the game, which featured a "behind the scenes" look into that ad.

Once again, Go Daddy went through more than a dozen submissions before it was able to get a commercial approved by Fox, the same network that had pulled its 2005 ad before its second scheduled airing. Go Daddy had hoped to broadcast a spot called "Exposure" featuring Go Daddy Girl Danica Patrick and animatronics beavers. But Fox deemed the spot too racy for prime time television and told Parsons it would not air it unless he removed the word "beaver."

Parsons refused, and Go Daddy instead aired a completely different commercial, called "Spot On." The spot was essentially an "Ad to an Ad," and told viewers to go to the company's website to see "Exposure."

"Spot On" aired in the first quarter of Super Bowl XLII, and the company quickly deemed it an enormous success. Go Daddy logged more than one million views of the "Exposure" ad before the game ended and reported 1.5 million visits to the GoDaddy.com Website.

Reactions

The 2008 Go Daddy ad has been both maligned and praised. Ad Week's Barbara Lippert described it a "poorly produced scene in a living room where people are gathered to watch the Super Bowl. As we watch them watch, a guy at his computer in the corner of the room drags the crowd over to GoDaddy.com to view the banned ad instead."

But Lippert, like others, also acknowledges the shrewdness of the PR strategy, saying "it will probably produce a Pavlovian response in getting actual viewers in their own living rooms to do the same."

Go Daddy's 2007 Super Bowl ad was criticized, in The New York Times as being "cheesy"; in National Review as "raunchy, 'Girls-Gone-Wild' style"; and "just sad" by Barbara Lippert in Adweek, who gave the ad a "D".

However, Reprise Media, reviewing the success of Super Bowl advertising in getting potential customers online, listed the 2007 commercial as one of only eight "Touchdown"-worthy ads among the day's high-priced advertisers. IAG Research, which rated the effectiveness of likeability and memorability of the ads, ranked Go Daddy's spot as second for most-recalled.

Philanthropy

In April 2006, the company donated $10,000 to the OpenSSH development program, which is managed by OpenBSD. They have also donated $10,000 in March 2006 to Perverted-Justice.com in which volunteers pose online as minors to find child predators and report them to law enforcement.

Controversies

GoDaddy has a history of closing sites belonging to its customers when controversial material is posted on web sites operated by those customers without notifying them of the take-downs or requesting that they remove material themselves before acting on their customer's behalf.

Suspension of Seclists.org

On January 24, 2007, Go Daddy deactivated the domain of computer security site, Seclists.Org, taking 250,000 pages of security content offline. The shutdown resulted from a complaint from MySpace to Go Daddy regarding 56,000 usernames and passwords posted a week earlier to the full-disclosure mailing list and archived on the Seclists.org site as well as many other websites. Seclists.org administrator Gordon Lyon, who goes by the handle "Fyodor", provided logs to CNET News.com showing Go Daddy de-activated the domain 52 seconds after leaving him a voicemail, and he had to go to great lengths to get the site reactivated. Go Daddy general counsel Christine Jones stated that Go Daddy's terms of service "reserves the right to terminate your access to the services at any time, without notice, for any reason whatsoever."

Deletion of FamilyAlbum.com

On December 19, 2006 GoDaddy received a third party complaint of invalid domain contact information in the Whois database for the domain FamilyAlbum.com. GoDaddy wrote a letter to the owner of FamilyAlbum.com saying "Whenever we receive a complaint, we are required by ICANN regulations to initiate an investigation as to whether the contact data displaying in the Whois database is valid data or not." "On 12/19/2006 we sent a notice to you at the admin/tech contact email address and the account email address informing you of invalid data in breach of the domain registration agreement and advising you to update the information or risk cancellation of the domain. The contact information was not updated within the specified period of time and we canceled the domain," GoDaddy added. The editor of "Domain Name Wire" said that since domain names are valuable, it was reasonable to expect that the registrar would try to contact the domain owner by phone or postal mail. On February 28, 2007 GoDaddy offered to get the domain name back for the previous owner if he would indemnify GoDaddy from legal action by the new registrant. GoDaddy stated that the new owner paid $18.99 for the domain, the price of a backorder, not a regular registration.

On November 2, 2007, Domain Name Wire reported that it appears that GoDaddy no longer cancels domains for invalid whois. The editor on Domain Name Wire received a message from a reader who is trying to acquire a domain with obviously false whois information. The message from GoDaddy said "The domain has been suspended due to invalid Whois. The domain will remain in suspension through expiration, including the registry’s redemption period, unless the owner updates the contact information before that time."

Nuremberg Files

On the other hand, Go Daddy is currently hosting Neal Horsley's websites, including the Nuremberg Files, which were found by the Ninth Circuit to represent a "true threat". It was a website that displayed the names and locations of various doctors who performed abortions throughout the United States. They came under fire as controversial because of their practice of changing the listings of those doctors who had been injured or murdered, or stopped performing abortions, usually as a result of extreme activism by pro-life individuals.

Shutdown of RateMyCop.com

On March 11th, 2008, GoDaddy shut down RateMyCop.com — a Rate my professor type site where people would comment on their interactions with law enforcement officers — after complaints from police officers. After being contacted about the shutdown, GoDaddy responded that it was due to "suspicious activity". However, the owner of the site was later told by GoDaddy that the site was shut down for reaching its 3 terabyte bandwidth limit, although doubt has been expressed about the second explanation as the site had only 80,000 connected users that day and 400,000 the previous day. Go Daddy stated the reason for shutting down the Web site had nothing to do with censorship or complaints. The Web site was receiving too many simultaneous connections. In a similar incident, GoDaddy also quickly complied with a demand that the Irish website RateYourSolicitor.com be censored.

"Fines"

GoDaddy frequently "fines" customers accused of spamming or other policy violations — without giving customers any recourse to dispute the allegations against them. When accused of a policy violation customers are given the option of paying a US $199 fine and staying with GoDaddy, or paying a US$75 administrative fee and initiate a transfer within 24 hours to another web host & registrar, or having their domain names suspended and made nontransferable until they expire if they do not pay.

Donations to opponents of network neutrality

GoDaddy donated a total of $4.6 Million to Sen. Ted Stevens from April to December 2007, a period during which a speech made by Stevens on 28 June 2006 opposing network neutrality was still a popular internet meme. In June and July 2007, GoDaddy donated a total of $4 Million to Sen. John McCain, who had publicly stated his opposition to network neutrality on 29 May 2007 at the 2007 D: All Things Digital conference.

Canceled IPO

On April 12, 2006, Marketwatch reported that Go Daddy Group Inc., had hired Lehman Brothers to manage an initial stock offering that could raise more than $100 million and value the company at several times that amount.

On May 12, 2006 Go Daddy filed an S-1 registration statement prior to an initial public offering. On August 8, 2006 Bob Parsons, CEO of Go Daddy, announced that after some serious consideration, Go Daddy was not going to go public and that he had withdrawn the company's IPO filing.