I’m not a big fan of how Go Daddy tries to push people into adding privacy protection to their domains

Over the years I’ve seen Go Daddy get increasingly aggressive with their promotion of privacy protection for domain names. As anyone who has been buying or selling domain names for years knows, privacy protection simply means that if someone wants to buy your domain name, or get in contact with you, it just makes it harder.

On top of that, if you’re running a business, using privacy protection rather than your business name as the registrant can make it look like you’re trying to hide something. For example, Twitter.com is not privacy protected, it is registered publicly by Twitter Inc. Facebook.com, you guessed it, Facebook Inc. The list goes on, just about every legitimate company you can think of has their domain name publicly registered under the company name.

Now what about something like BlackHatWorld.com? Yeah, the domain is under privacy protection. Pincoin.io, the website for a scam ICO that stole $600M, also under privacy protection.

So…here’s the screen that Go Daddy sends you to right after you register a domain name:

domain-privacy-protection

Telling people who register a domain name that if they don’t use privacy protection they will get mobbed by spam and scammers just isn’t true. The reality is they will probably end up looking like a spammer or scammer themselves if they’re hiding their identity using privacy protection.

All this being said I think it’s important to note, I am a proud Go Daddy customer, I’ve been using them for over ten years. I really like Go Daddy and think they have great technology, a stellar platform, and some truly amazing people that work their. But I think their messaging around privacy policy is just plain wrong and instead is just a way to make more money.

What do you think? I want to hear from you, comment and let your voice be heard!

Morgan Linton

Morgan Linton