GoDaddy Responds To Blocked Namecheap URL Transfers

GoDaddy on Monday responded to claims from customers that the site did not allow for domain name transfers away from their services following the company’s controversial SOPA support.

The world’s largest registrar said they were not attempting to stall domain transfers but instead were not contacted by Namecheap in order to have their transfer access increased to handle an additional flow of transfers. According to the company GoDaddy and “many other registrars” routinely limit transfer requests to prevent WHOIS abuse and domain information requests that provide owner contact information.

GoDaddy Senior Product Development Director Rich Merdinger told TechCrunch the restriction could have easily been removed:

“Because some registrars (and other data gathering, analyzing and reporting entities) have legitimate need for heavy port 43 access, we routinely grant requests for expanded access per [a standard operating procedure] we’ve had in place for many years,” Merdinger explained. “As a side note, we have seen some nefarious activity this weekend which came from non-registrar sources. But, that is not unusual for a holiday weekend, nor would it cause legitimate requests to be rejected.”

At the time of their response GoDaddy was already actively lifting the restrictions placed on Namecheap domain name transfers but acknowledged that some issues may still arise.

For their part Namecheap didn’t seem too worried about the issue, thanking GoDaddy for their support and not directly talking about the restrictions that occurred.

Among GoDaddy’s losses was Ben Huh and his I Can Haz Cheeseburger network which was preparing to transfer more than 1,000 domains upon news of the company’s support involving the Stop Online Piracy Act.

In the meantime some customers claim to have received direct phone calls from GoDaddy to renew their services with discounts after making transfer requests, during those phone calls GoDaddy explained to customers that they had changed their position on SOPA.

Did you move a domain away from GoDaddy because of SOPA support?