| Opinion: When a vendor says they can cancel your | | | | Go Daddy’s Policies |
| service because they don't like you, it's time to look | | | | So what's Go Daddy’s excuse? I can imagine |
| elsewhere. Consider the capriciousness and hypocrisy | | | | that posting usernames and passwords is reasonable |
| of what Go Daddy did to Fyodor Vaskovich. | | | | grounds for taking action, but what exactly does |
| Not many of us actually read all the legal agreements | | | | their policy say? Go Daddy’s Legal Agreements |
| we enter into and this problem has gotten far worse | | | | page has a lengthy list of policies, including their |
| in the era of the Internet. We all agree to licenses | | | | "Universal Terms of Service". Let's review some |
| and contracts that we don't take seriously. | | | | excerpts: |
| Fyodor Vaskovich found out the hard way that | | | | Go Daddy reserves the right to terminate Services if |
| some terms of service are so arbitrary and capricious | | | | your usage of the Services results in, or is the |
| that they mean whatever the vendor wants them to | | | | subject of, legal action or threatened legal action, |
| mean. Vaskovich operates seclists.org, a mailing list | | | | against Go Daddy or any of its affiliates or partners, |
| archive site for most of the really important security | | | | without consideration for whether such legal action or |
| mailing lists. This means that if someone posts | | | | threatened legal action is eventually determined to be |
| content to those lists, he stores it on that site. | | | | with or without merit. |
| As Vaskovich explains in this e-mail, the day before | | | | OK, that's pretty clear. All someone (My Space for |
| Christmas he got a voice mail from Go Daddy saying | | | | example) has to do is threaten Go Daddy and Go |
| that they were suspending his domain seclists.org. | | | | Daddy has the right to cancel your service. But the |
| One minute later he received an e-mail from them | | | | next paragraph is the one that really caught my eye: |
| that the domain "has been suspended for violation of | | | | Except as set forth below, Go Daddy may also |
| the Abuse Policy." | | | | cancel Your use of the Services, after thirty (30) |
| Normally, Go Daddy doesn't respond to inquiries | | | | days, if You are using the Services, as determined by |
| about why they have suspended a domain for a | | | | Go Daddy in its sole discretion, in association with |
| business day or two, but he was able to prod them | | | | spam or morally objectionable activities. Morally |
| into revealing that they had shut down the domain | | | | objectionable activities will include, but not be limited |
| because My Space had asked them to. A list of | | | | to: activities designed to defame, embarrass, harm, |
| 34,000 My Space user names and passwords was | | | | abuse, threaten, slander or harass third parties; |
| posted to the very popular Full-Disclosure list and | | | | activities prohibited by the laws of the United States |
| therefore archived by seclists.org. Instead of | | | | and/or foreign territories in which You conduct |
| contacting Vaskovich, My Space approached Go | | | | business; activities designed to encourage unlawful |
| Daddy and had them shut off his domain. | | | | behavior by others, such as hate crimes, terrorism |
| Before I get to Go Daddy’s behavior, I must | | | | and child pornography; activities that are tortuous, |
| wonder what My Space’s goal is here. The list of | | | | vulgar, obscene, invasive of the privacy of a third |
| usernames and passwords went out on a mailing list | | | | party, racially, ethnically, or otherwise objectionable; ... |
| and thousands of outsiders have it already, | | | | [Emphasis mine] |
| irrespective of whether the archived version is | | | | Vulgar? Obscene? Embarrassing? Talk about |
| available. The cat's out of the bag and My Space, at | | | | (Predictably, that name is parked and owned by a |
| a minimum, must void the passwords and force | | | | domain broker.) Go Daddy practically invented |
| those users to reset theirs. What is accomplished by | | | | vulgarity. Their Super Bowl ads, worthy of a class of |
| taking the list down? They only reinforce the | | | | 14-year-old boys for their creativity, embarrass the |
| reasonable conclusion that they don't know what | | | | NFL, not to mention most decent people who watch |
| they are doing. And why not go through the site | | | | them. I enjoy a good dirty joke as much as anyone, |
| admin? As Vaskovich said himself: "I would cancel my | | | | but Go Daddy’s soft-core attempts at humor |
| [My Space] account if I was pathetic enough to have | | | | just fails. |
| one." | | | | |