Positive
- Good place to start if you want to dabble with the web
- Could be considered Hip because they have flashy diverse ads
- Generate 500+ jobs
- Active community forums / blog
Negative
- Small List of controversies involving GoDaddy
- Bad Comments
- fronting their customers for literally decades – buying domains you search for and reselling them juiced up
- 2023 – GoDaddy: Hackers stole source code, installed malware in multi-year breach
- 2021 – Price gouging for domain names related to COVID-19.
- 2020 – Massive data breach, exposed millions of customer records and login credentials
- 2020 – Faced backlash for violating their own privacy policy by sending unsolicited emails to customers promoting third-party services.
- 2019 – Suspended and seized domain of a popular gaming website without warning, leading to accusations of overreach and poor communication with customers.
- 2018 – A GoDaddy employee was caught in a phishing scam targeting cryptocurrency investors, leading to accusations of lax security measures and unethical behavior within the company.
- 2013 – CEO, Blake Irving, was criticized for past involvement in development of controversial digital surveillance program PRISM, while working at Microsoft.
- 2012 – SOPA: Does not support free and open internet
- 2011 -DNS Blackout policy
- 2006 – Domain Kiting Allegations
- Other Problems
- Domain transfer difficulties
- Website speed and uptime issues
- Multiple Security Breaches
- Questionable business ethics and advertising tactics
- Misleading pricing and hidden fees
- Outsourced Customer Support
- Limited backup and restore options
I think at the end of the day, doing business with GoDaddy means you are just giving someone money to buy another yacht.