Problem With Go Daddy Hosting

13 replies
I've just had a terrible experience with Go Daddy hosting, brought on by Facebook. I have or rather had this site called buyfacebookfansonline dot net.

Yeah it sells or sold Facebook likes, but that was just one of the services I offer, I got most of the likes through managed Facebook Ads campaigns, did custom tabs, cover photos, Facebook page SEO, design, pretty much everything that you can do as a social media service provider, which is not a crime, as far as I'm aware.

I got told by Go Daddy that Facebook had filed a trademark complaint, and I'm still not sure what exactly they were saying that I had done that was breaking their trademark.

It seems that just by mentioning the word Facebook I was breaking some trademark law, but I very much doubt that that could be proved in court, it's ridiculous, as people need to mention Facebook if they're going to offer Facebook page design.

Anyway, I had my hosting suspended, and was given it back on the provision that I move that site off Go Daddy hosting.

I was given no support, there was no email support, I couldn't afford to call the phone line from Australia on my prepaid mobile.

I searched the internet just looking for a way to back up my site properly before I moved it, and found nothing.

I decided that I'd had enough, and just cancelled the whole hosting account with only an xml file of the posts and pages as a back up.

They cost me months of work, gave me no support, did nothing to stick up for my rights as a social media service provider, of who there are hundreds of thousands in a similar boat, and made me pay for two years worth of hosting which I didn't get. The way I was treated, the quality of the site, the utter frustration of it all...

I'm just saying, don't get Go Daddy to host your site, don't even buy your domain names there, it's a horrible, messed up company with no support, who cares nothing about their customers.

Any idea how I might get back all the photos on my site which are now gone? I'm going to have to spend the next month deleting all the broken photos and replacing them with new ones.

How was I meant to back up my site anyway? I couldn't figure it out for the life of me, and they were no help.
#daddy #hosting #problem
  • Profile picture of the author drewfioravanti
    Sounds to me like you broke Facebook TOS as well as used their trademark. I'm surprised they didn't ban you from Facebook. And your "service".

    GoDaddy was contacted by Facebook stating that you were using their trademark. They shut your website down. All perfectly legitimate.

    Don't use someone else's copyright or trademark and you can avoid this problem all together.
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  • Profile picture of the author rowanman28
    Have a think for a second about how many people there out there offering Facebook Ads management, Google Adwords management, Facebook page design, Facebook page SEO, Facebook games development, Facebook apps development, these are all necessary services, and I could go on.

    The law applies to me pretending to be Facebook. It was a false claim. There is no way to avoid mentioning the word Facebook when explaining my services as a social media service provider. I can't believe that you would say that, as this issue probably affects a million people in this industry of internet marketing generally.

    It's these new SOPA laws, it's utterly ridiculous. People have to offer services on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, etc, and they can only identify their service by saying the name of the site they're working with.
    Signature
    Social Media Marketing Services
    Custom Facebook page design, Facebook Ads management, Facebook likes, Twitter followers, Google Plus, Instagram, social sharing, SEO, content production, video production, whatever you want.
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  • Profile picture of the author Alexa Smith
    Banned
    Originally Posted by rowanman28 View Post

    it sells or sold Facebook likes
    You were actually breaching GoDaddy's terms of service, as well as Facebook's.

    (I suspect you may also have been unaware of the well-earned reputation for both these companies, over issues just like this.)

    If you don't read the terms of service of the people with whom you do business online, you're going to continue to have "accidents".

    That said, I also agree with you unreservedly that GoDaddy is an absolutely horrible company for hosting, and I wouldn't dream of doing business with them at all.
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  • Profile picture of the author drewfioravanti
    Google AdWords on Google. You'll find pages full of people advertising Google AdWords help. You'll find none with the words Google or AdWords in the domain...in inner pages, but certainly not in the domain.

    Same with Facebook. Google Facebook ad help. You'll see plenty of people advertising services. None of them use the word Facebook in the domain.

    The problem is your domain name. Not GoDaddy. Not Facebook.
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  • Profile picture of the author rowanman28
    Maybe this is true, although I've never heard of that being a law that you can't have a brand name in your domain. The words face and book are two separate words when written in a long one word domain name.

    There is a site in the Google search for the warrior forum, warrior forum sucks dot com. I just think if you start going down that road, you could suspend millions of sites, and it's against the spirit of the internet.
    Signature
    Social Media Marketing Services
    Custom Facebook page design, Facebook Ads management, Facebook likes, Twitter followers, Google Plus, Instagram, social sharing, SEO, content production, video production, whatever you want.
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    • Profile picture of the author Alexa Smith
      Banned
      Originally Posted by rowanman28 View Post

      Maybe this is true, although I've never heard of that being a law that you can't have a brand name in your domain.
      It's not about "brand names". It's about "trademarks".

      They may have used that as an excuse, because you were breaching their TOS.

      You have a strange concept of "law". Nobody's suggesting that you committed a crime or that the police will come to your house and arrest you, or that you can be prosecuted for anything. People have civil law rights, as well, and you've breached them. You could be sued, not prosecuted. (You realise that those are two totally different things, right?).

      Originally Posted by rowanman28 View Post

      The words face and book are two separate words when written in a long one word domain name.
      Do you have no knowledge at all of Facebook's history of litigation on this subject? They've been known to sue people, in civil courts, just for using the word "face". (I didn't say they won!).

      Originally Posted by rowanman28 View Post

      There is a site in the Google search for the warrior forum, warrior forum sucks dot com.
      You genuinely don't realise that different principles apply to "comment"/"criticism" sites from those applying to sites which people have set up for primarily commercial purposes?!
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    • Profile picture of the author Johnny12345
      Originally Posted by rowanman28 View Post

      The words face and book are two separate words when written in a long one word domain name.

      Seriously? You're going to invoke the ol' "It's two separate words" defense?

      You know that excuse won't fly, right?

      General Motors...

      International Business Machines...

      Apple Computer...

      Micro Soft...

      ... and scores of other businesses use trademarked names that combine separate, simple words.

      Here's the bottom line...

      If you use a trademark in a domain name, you're ASKING for trouble... even if those marks use "separate words."

      At this point, all you can do is learn from your mistake... and make certain not to repeat the error again.

      John
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  • Profile picture of the author TheFranchiseMarketer
    Banned
    Yeah rowanman28, I never heard of this happening to anyone ever. But maybe that's just me. And I had no idea that the big billion dollar facebook team would even care to put their time into investigating something like this. I think thats very petty on their part.
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    • Profile picture of the author Alexa Smith
      Banned
      Originally Posted by TheFranchiseMarketer View Post

      Yeah rowanman28, I never heard of this happening to anyone ever. But maybe that's just me. And I had no idea that the big billion dollar facebook team would even care to put their time into investigating something like this. I think thats very petty on their part.
      You don't think that they might think that people "selling likes" detracts from their site, and their brand, and undermines their image, which they pay fortunes to protect?!

      I don't know what's wrong with people, today. Or are you being sarcastic/ironic about this, and I've missed the point and the humor?

      You must realise that they employ teams of people on decent salaries specifically to check out things like this and take action over them?
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    • Profile picture of the author Johnny12345
      Originally Posted by TheFranchiseMarketer View Post

      ... I had no idea that the big billion dollar facebook team would even care to put their time into investigating something like this. I think thats very petty on their part.

      It's not petty; it's essential. If a company doesn't defend it's trademark, it could fall into generic use and lose its protection.

      It's called trademark erosion. Words such as aspirin, thermos, and zipper used to be trademarks... but they lost their U.S. protection when their usage became generic.

      As a result, companies -- like Facebook -- MUST defend their marks. Google has even tried to discourage the press from using the word "googling" for fear that it could become generic.

      But I'm not a lawyer... so see this Wikipedia link for more info: Generic trademark - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

      John
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  • Profile picture of the author drewfioravanti
    Register a domain with the word Amazon in it and see how quickly they email you. It took less than a week in 2008 when I did it.
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  • Profile picture of the author talfighel
    Originally Posted by rowanman28 View Post

    I got told by Go Daddy that Facebook had filed a trademark complaint, and I'm still not sure what exactly they were saying that I had done that was breaking their trademark.
    You bought a domain name that had their name in it so there you go.
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  • Profile picture of the author MichaelEmily
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