A friend of mine forwarded me an email he received from GoDaddy informing him that McAfee “blacklisted” one of his domain names. The subject of the email was, “McAfee has blacklisted [domain name redacted]” and the email had GoDaddy’s logo and branding. In the heading of the email, the message was clear in bolded font: “Security warning: McAfee blacklisted your domain. It’s important you resolve this issue as soon as possible. Contact our security team if you need any help.”

The messaging provided a bit more information, although the owner of the domain name was encouraged to call GoDaddy to rectify:

During a routine security audit of our network, we found that [redacted domain name] (hosted via ns2. redacted .com,ns1. redacted .com) was blacklisted by McAfee. This audit was performed by the GoDaddy Security Unit to ensure the integrity and trust of the network.
You can find details of why your domain was blacklisted here: https://www.mcafee.com/threat-intelligence/site/default.aspx?url=[redacted]
What this means for you.
A McAfee blacklisting means visitors with McAfee antivirus or who use Opera for browsing can’t see your website. It also means your site may be inaccessible to other networks too.

McAfee flagged your website because it has identified it as a potential threat based on its own web reputation ranking system. It’s ranking system is proprietary and crawls websites looking for indicators of malware and spam.

I could tell the email was legitimately from GoDaddy because it had my friend’s name and account number at the top. However, I reached out to GoDaddy to confirm its authenticity and see if the company could share additional details about the email warning. Here’s what I was told by Tony Perez, Head of Security Business at GoDaddy:

I was looking through my daily Registrant Alert email from DomainTools, when I noticed what appeared to be another domain name portfolio acquisition by GoDaddy. A very large number of domain names that were privately registered at Uniregistry changed hands and are now registered to NameFind, the portfolio holding company owned and operated by GoDaddy.

I reached out to GoDaddy’s Paul Nicks, and he confirmed an acquisition. “Can confirm another portfolio purchase, but we wont be disclosing price or seller information,” he told me in an email this morning.

Some subsequent research using DomainTools Whois history tool shed some additional light on the acquisition

We all know that Symbolics.com was the first domain name ever registered. That domain name was registered on March 15, 1985. That domain name is currently owned by Aron Meystedt of Napkin.com (and Heritage Auctions).

Here’s a bit of domain industry trivia for you: What was the first domain name ever sold by GoDaddy? The domain name is still registered, and the owner of the domain name still has it registered at GoDaddy.

The first person to answer the question correctly gets a virtual high 5 from me.