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Phishing Alert: “Special Savings! $1.99 .COM now at GoDaddy!”

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I am beginning to sound redundant here, but there seems to be another phishing email aimed at infiltrating GoDaddy customer accounts. I was forwarded an email from a DomainInvesting.com reader asking me to warn others about a phishing email he received with the subject “Special Savings! $1.99 .COM now at GoDaddy!

The email has a large graphic coupon (which I couldn’t see because Google flagged it as spam), and the link appears to utilize a url shortener to send the recipient to an unknown website. Most likely, the landing page will ask for the visitor’s account name and password under the guise of registering a domain name at a discounted price. If the visitor does not have 2 factor authentication enabled (or other account locks), it could make the domain names in that account vulnerable to theft.

Last week,

New GoDaddy Phishing Email: “Immediate Verification Required”

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I want to share another GoDaddy account phishing email that is playing on the ICANN verification requirements to get people to open the email and possibly click a link to a phishing website. One giveaway is the link to a non-GoDaddy owned website that tries to give people the impression it is associated with the company. The email subject is “Immediate Verification Required” and it may have one of your domain names listed as well.

I won’t mention the website used to avoid giving it publicity, but if you click any links (or paste links into a browser), make sure the website is the one you intend to visit. In addition, the GoDaddy email should have your name or registrant name, and any email requiring action should have a corresponding notification in your account to confirm that it is an outstanding issue.

If you ever have a question about whether or not a domain name is a phishing email, or if you know it is, you can report a phishing email to GoDaddy very easily and they can confirm.

Here is the content of the email:

NamesCon: Spotlight on GoDaddy

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This article is part of a series of interviews and discussions with representatives from NamesCon exhibitors and sponsors. NamesCon 2015 will be held  January 11-14, 2015 at the Tropicana Hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada. Over 800 people are expected to attend this conference, making it the largest domain investment conference of the year.

Today’s NamesCon Spotlight discussions is with Paul Nicks, Senior Director, Aftermarket, at GoDaddy. You are welcome to post comments and questions for Paul in the comment section if you would like.

GoDaddy CMO Named in Top 50 Most Influential by Forbes

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Last week, Forbes’ announced its 2014 list of the 50 Most influential Chief Marketing Officers, and a domain industry CMO is included in this year’s list. Barb Rechterman is the Executive Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer at GoDaddy, and she was ranked by Forbes as the 18th most influential CMO for 2014.

The list includes Chief Marketing Officers from some of the largest and most well known companies in the world. Other CMOs you may recognize on this year’s list include Phil Schiller of Apple (#1), Kevin Krone of Southwest Airlines (#14), Anne Finucane of Bank of America (#20), Ariel Kelman of Amazon (#30), and Lorraine Twohill of Google (#36).

According to Rechterman’s LinkedIn profile, she has been GoDaddy

Nima Nojoumi Named a Top Entrepreneur by Arizona Republic

The Arizona Republic recent published the 2014 edition of Arizona’s top 35 entrepreneurs 35 and younger, and someone who got his start in the domain space was named to the prestigious list. Nima Nojoumi was once a popular Executive Account Manager at GoDaddy, and he left the company in January of 2013. This was the first year Nima was named as one of the top entrepreneurs 35 years old and younger in Arizona.

Nima has been very active in the Arizona startup space, and he is the Co-Founder & CEO of a company called Sourcely, which is billed as a “simple and scalable recommerce platform and reverse logistics as a service.” Essentially, the company allows people to trade their unwanted electronics for cash.

In addition to being given this honor, Nima also

Reported GoDaddy Account Phishing Email: “Status Alert: Code”

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A few months ago, I reported what seems to be a Register.com account phishing email. This morning, Bill Sweetman from Name Ninja reported a similar type of phishing email. The difference with this reported email is that it is targeting GoDaddy account customers. I presume there may be similar emails targeting customers of other domain registrars, so if you see something similar, it is most likely an illegitimate phishing email.

With domain registrar account phishing emails, the sender tries to get people to click a link to a website they control that asks for account information (or may possibly download malware) from a domain name registrant. Once a hacker has the account holder’s login credentials, they may be able to make changes to the account or even hijack / steal domain names from the account. Oftentimes, they are able to do this without the domain owner even knowing, making it even more problematic.

To reduce the chance of this happening to you, I recommend adding the highest level of security at your accounts. This includes two factor authentication and additional account or domain name locks to prevent unauthorized transfers. In addition, you want to use different passwords (and logins) at different registrars, and you should not click on links within marketing or other emails from registrars unless you are certain the email is legitimate.

Here is the