On December 19, 2006, GoDaddy received a third party complaint of invalid domain contact information in the WHOIS database for the domain FamilyAlbum.com.[112] GoDaddy wrote a letter to the owner of FamilyAlbum.com saying, "Whenever we receive a complaint, we are required by ICANN regulations to initiate an investigation as to whether the contact data displaying in the WHOIS database is valid data or not...[112] On 12/19/2006 we sent a notice to you at the admin/tech contact email address and the account email address informing you of invalid data in breach of the domain registration agreement and advising you to update the information or risk cancellation of the domain. The contact information was not updated within the specified period of time and we canceled the domain."[112] The editor of "Domain Name Wire" said that since domain names are valuable it was reasonable to expect that the registrar would try to contact the domain owner by phone or postal mail.[112] On February 28, 2007, GoDaddy offered to get the domain name back for the previous owner if he would indemnify GoDaddy from legal action by the new registrant.[113] GoDaddy stated that the new owner paid $18.99 for the domain, the price of a backorder, not a regular registration.[113] On November 2, 2007, Domain Name Wire reported that it appears that GoDaddy no longer cancels domains for invalid WHOIS.[114] The editor on Domain Name Wire received a message from a reader who is trying to acquire a domain with obviously false WHOIS information.[114] The message from GoDaddy said, "The domain has been suspended due to invalid WHOIS. The domain will remain in suspension through expiration, including the registry's redemption period, unless the owner updates the contact information before that time."[114]
GoDaddy charges a monthly fee for its Linux- or Windows-based shared web servers, but it reduces the price if you commit to a multi-month or annual package. However, GoDaddy requires you to sign up for its pricier Deluxe, Ultimate, or Maximum plans (starting at $10.99, $16.99, an $24.99, respectively) for the option to pay for hosting on a month-to-month basis (the basic Economy plan requires you to sign up for a minimum of three months). This may not have much impact on businesses, but a cash-strapped blogger may not appreciate GoDaddy's lack of a single-month option in its Economy package.
Important Note: GoDaddy has recently stopped giving out promo codes for renewals of their products. We’ll try to host as many as we can until they dry up forever. If you own many domain names, then we recommend the Domain Discount Club, which gives you exclusive codes that will pay for the initial membership fee many times over. You can save 33% off membership in the club with the 2nd code in our list below. We also have some great coupons for new products, including a 35% off site-wide code as well as web hosting for under one dollar, and .COM domain registrations for just 99 cents!
