Phishing Email Alert: “GoDaddy invoice #”

Elliot Silver
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6

It looks like a  phishing email targeting people who own domain names at GoDaddy is making the rounds. This email was first  reported  on NamePros a week ago, and I also received the email over the weekend.

If people fall for a phishing email, they could have their domain names stolen and/or their GoDaddy-hosted websites compromised. Most domain registrars  recommend using  2 factor authentication on all domain registrar accounts to enhance security. Some registrars also offer  additional security features that can be implemented  (such as DTVS at GoDaddy) to protect accounts even further.

One thing readers need to keep in mind is that phishing attempts tend to evolve and change over time. The senders could easily change their targets and attempt to impersonate eNom, Tucows, Network Solutions, or any other domain registry or even a domain registry.

If in doubt about the validity of an email, it is always best to call a domain registrar to confirm the email is legitimate.

Here’s the content of the email with the embedded links removed for safety:

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ThePlayers.com: UDRP Filed Against NameFind Name (Updated)

Elliot Silver
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5

The PGA Tour has filed a UDRP at the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) for  ThePlayers.com domain name. The UDRP is WIPO Case D2017-0746.

ThePlayers.com is a domain name that has a creation date of January 22, 2003. It appears that the domain name was registered prior to that, but it was dropped and acquired by another party.  This domain name is now owned by NameFind, a company that is owned and operated by GoDaddy. Based on the Whois History (via DomainTools), I believe the domain name was acquired in the large Marchex domain name acquisition made in 2015.

If you visit ThePlayers.com, you can see that the domain name is parked with a  “for sale” message at the top. When I did a Whois search at DomainTools, I saw that the domain name appears to have a $45,000 asking price on Afternic. There are currently golf-related PPC links showing on the automatically generated landing page.

Screen Shot 2017-04-13 at 3.58.21 PM

I am not much of a golf fan, but when I did a Google search for “The Players” and “PGA Tour,” I learned that the PGA has an annual golf tournament known as

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NameFind Lists Names for Sale via GoDaddy Auctions

Elliot Silver
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4

If you visit GoDaddy Auctions regularly, you probably noticed a banner on top of the page announcing a special auction of domain names that “have never been at auction.”

GoDaddy Auctions

Clicking through the link takes visitors to a page with 21 domain names listed for sale. Whois records show that these domain names are part of GoDaddy’s NameFind portfolio. A cursory check shows the starting prices (and some reserve prices) are below the price level the company had been asking.

At the time of publication, several of these domain names have hit their reserve prices and will sell to the highest bidder, including the following:

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GoDaddy New gTLD Registration Number is Telling

Elliot Silver
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53

GoDaddy is the largest domain registrar in the world. According to its About Us page, GoDaddy has “more than 63 million domain names under management.” Based on my own intuition and experience, I believe GoDaddy is the most recognizable domain name registrar brand in the world.

When it comes to the new domain name extensions, GoDaddy lags far behind in registration volume. nTLDStats.com shows that GoDaddy ranks #6 when it comes to new gTLD domain names under management.  As of this morning, there are 1,560,490 new gTLD domain names registered at GoDaddy, which is 5.45% of all new gTLD domain names. Considering that GoDaddy is the largest domain registrar in the world (probably the largest retail registrar, too), I think this figure is quite telling.

For whatever reason, it does not seem like retail buyers are purchasing the new domain names. There are certainly examples of

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GoDaddy Comments on Uniregistry Price Increase

Elliot Silver
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8

GoDaddy LogoSince reading about the reported price increases on some new domain name extensions operated by Uniregistry, I emailed a few people at industry companies to get their take on the news. I have not received many comments yet, but this afternoon, I heard back from Rich Merdinger, VP of Domains at GoDaddy who had this to say about the reported news:

“It’s unfortunate that Uniregistry is going with such a dramatic price increase. Regardless of the economics, it’s an extremely poor customer experience. If our customers plan on staying on these domains, we encourage them to renew for as far out as they can before the prices change. If they want to move to do a different domain name, we’ll do our best to assist them.”

As I wrote earlier this morning, I think that domain registrars like GoDaddy are the companies that will get the most flack for the increasing prices. Although the number of extensions that are facing these large price increases is relatively small compared to the entirety of the new gTLD program, it will likely cause anger and dismay for GoDaddy’s customers who own domain names that are going to be much more expensive to renew.

It makes sense for GoDaddy to

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GoDaddy Sells BS.com

Elliot Silver
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2

In a tweet published yesterday afternoon, George Kirikos reported that GoDaddy sold the valuable two letter BS.com domain name:

I reached out to Paul Nicks, GoDaddy GM & VP of the Aftermarket, and he confirmed that the company sold the domain name. Unfortunately for those who are interested, the sale price is not being reported by the company. Paul told me that GoDaddy did not have a buy it now price set for this domain name, but they “were entertaining offers north of $1M.”

The new registrant of BS.com is based in China, according to current Whois records. At the time of publication,

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