[nylug-talk] Don't use Godaddy if you ever want to get your mail

[George Bourozikas]

Since I went through Godaddy hell a couple of months back, I think I 
should contribute my 2c's:

On Sunday 22 October 2006 11:46, Ron Guerin wrote:
[...]
> Just to clarify, as a registrar, Godaddy is tolerable.  If that
> doesn't sound like a rousing endorsement, it's because I've dealt
> with their customer support people too often to suggest they're
> anything other than occasionally marginally competent over there.  
> That does put them above much of the pack however, as registrars
> compete on how incompetent they can be and still remain in business. 

Not just registrars...

> If you're waiting to hear who is "good", don't hold your breath. 
> I've yet to hear anyone is good, from someone who's had to deal with
> them afterward.  

Gandi (gandi.net) are actually on the clueful side.  I have two domains 
that I use for personal/professional e-mail.  One _was_ with Godaddy 
and one with Gandi.  In both cases I use e-mail redirecting as I don't 
have time to host my own sites. 

I encountered the well-known Godaddy problem (NYLUG keeps going in and 
out of SPEWS for some reason) and I had no luck with their tech support 
(Ron and others have been much more eloquent than I could ever hope to 
be in describing their interaction with Godaddy tech support - a mix of 
Monty Python and Kafka).

Gandi didn't have any such issues.  When I e-mailed Gandi asking for a 
clarification of their spam-blocking policy they were clear and their 
policy seems sensible.  So then I transferred my other domain from 
Godaddy to Gandi and haven't looked back since.

> Any registrar should be capable of selling you a 
> registration, that's the easy part.  The question is always about
> everything that comes after, and what happens when you actually have
> to talk/write to them.  That's where they all fail to get even close
> to acceptable.

And as long as you use them only for the registration and nothing else 
(not even for the free DNS they throw in, let alone e-mail redirection, 
website redirection or - God forbid - hosting) they are all fine.  The 
one problem you might encounter is transfering your domain (the roach 
motel issue) but I haven't heard anything like that in a while.

> However, Godaddy's hosting arm is the pits, and refuses to fix their
> blatant mistakes or do anything about their incompetent
> administrative choices like using SPEWS in pass-fail mode, or
> blocking servers for "spamming" that in fact never sent any spam. 
> I'm not sure Godaddy even knows what spam *is*.
>
> That said, I just read mail from Godaddy announcing our server has
> been unblocked.  This just might have had something to do with my
> telling them I was beginning a campaign to let people know not to do
> business with Godaddy, and that the 120+ domains I have registered
> with them would not be renewed with them.  More likely though,
> they're just tired of hearing from me, and they'll have us blocked
> again in a couple of weeks.

I don't think they bothered one way or the other.  From what I remember 
from back when I was in Godaddy limbo, the nylug.org IP goes in and out 
of SPEWS for reasons that are not clear to anyone outside of the cabal.  
Probably some feud within the SPEWS maintainers ("Yes they are 
spammers!" "No they are not!" - that kind of thing.)  You could try to 
find out - from the SPEWS FAQ:

Q41: How does one contact SPEWS?

A41: One does not. SPEWS does not receive email - it's just an automated 
system and website, general blocklist related issues can be discussed 
in the public forums mentioned above. The newsgroups 
news.admin.net-abuse.blocklisting (NANABL) and 
news.admin.net-abuse.email (NANAE) are good choices. Google makes it 
quite easy to post messages via the Web in the unmoderated NANAE group. 
Newsreader software should be used to post to the prefered moderated 
NANABL group. First time newsgroup posters should read the NANAE FAQ. 
Note that posting messages in these newsgroups & lists will not have 
any effect on SPEWS listings, only the discontinuation of spam and/or 
spam support will. Be aware that posting ones email address to any 
publicly viewable forum or website makes it instantly available to 
spammers. If you're concerned about getting spammed, change or "mung" 
the email address you use to post with.


> If you're using Godaddy and you get this mail after not getting mail
> from us for weeks, it's only because I manually resubscribed you to
> the list from the Mailman unsub notices.  I strongly suggest you take
> your business elsewhere if you want to get mail from NYLUG.  You can
> take it to the bank we're not the only ones they're wrongfully
> blocking on a regular basis.
>
> - Ron

I, too, suggest you take your business elsewhere.  Gandi works for me, 
for now.  No guarantees for tomorrow, this evening or even later in the 
afternoon.

--george

-- 
George Bourozikas