that is pretty scary

Am I reading the story wrong here Jax?
If plime was listing all of Worth1000 users names and passwords and Worth1000 complained to GoDaddy, they could pull the plug on plime until the list is taken off, is the way I read it.
Not for simply talking smack about GoDaddy.
Maybe I'm not reading it correctly.

I think you're bang on Hoosker. I think Jax just took it one step further though.

It's the fact that GoDaddy are somewhat arbitrarily deciding what they'll pull sites for which is potentially scary.

I still don't get, what is scary. The site was taken down to prevent lawsuits being brought against GoDaddy.

If a landowner evicted a family for running a crackhouse out of a rented property would that be scary?

The site was engaging in illegal activities, the owner of the site promptly took it down, protecting who knows how many people.

Scary? No, I think GoDaddy should be commended unless I am missing something here.

Nah, I think you're bang on.

It's just fun to be paranoid about the big guys sometimes.

GoDaddy is not responsible for the content of a site which has only used GoDaddy's services as a DN registrar.GoDaddy does not own the site nor do they have the right to take it's DN out of service unless the offending site somehow violated GoDaddy's rules related to DN registration.No, VERY SCARY! It's an abuse of power that GoDaddy actually does not have. It's only through a technical loophole that GoDaddy could even do it.

They caved to MySpace who had NO RIGHT to ask GoDaddy to do what they did. It would be like asking Network Solutions to remove the domain "AOL.COM" because of something someone posted on AOL.

A simpler anology would be to have the USPS take away your street address because of something you mailed.

On one hand, it would be a stretch to say that GoDaddy had any kind of liability with a website that hosted any sort of illegal material. For them to capitulate to a "demand" from MySpace is pretty weak.

On the other hand...
It's kinda hard to argue with that. Bottom line, if you don't like it, use another registrar.

The fact that they were made aware of the illegal activity made them liable for inaction.

If they failed to prevent the crime from continuing to happen they were indeed liable.

Heck even if they weren't it would still cost them thousands of dollars to defend themselves against even a frivolous lawsuit

Sfeldner, your analogies make no sense.
It is more akin to the post office removing your post office box because you were committing mail fraud or simply using it to operate an business selling stolen merchandise.

This would be the case if GoDaddy would have been providing the hosting service. As far as I know, they didn't, they didn't even provide the name servers. They just maintained the information about the nameservers.

Now, I have to say that I would never, ever register my domains with a registrar that has a TOS like GD. It's just retarded.

This is the scary bit. If it was a hosting service, I could almost understand the action. The registrar has no liability issues here.

Sorry for the longevity - first cup of coffee of the day and I'm off on a tangent.

My thoughts exactly. One of my websites in the past was running out of date packaged software that was used to give a worm access to the shared server I was on and start infecting sites. As soon as this was found out the site was taken offline.

Of course, it was my hosting service which removed the content, not my registrar who didn't have the right to become involved in the decision.

I'm not familiar with seclists.org, so don't know the details of why passwords would be shown on that site or how illegally they were gathered in the first place - but surely contacting the registrar would be one of the last things to do? In the case of myspace, why not take this list of accounts, change their passwords and email the users affected stating that it has been changed for security reasons and providing a little further information as to the exact reasons? I'm sure the myspace users would appreciate the steps taken by the company. At the same time, contact the owners of seclists.org and ask for it to be removed, as well as contacting the web hosting service they use to alert them to the content.

I work for a registrar and couldn't possibly imagine having to do something such as removing the nameservers due to the content (luckily we don't deal with retail so our clients only really have their corporate websites and not illegal content ones).

Saying that - it does pose an interesting moral dilemma which is highlighted at the end of the article. Imagine - and this is moving away from the seclists.org issue - that you own a company that is an accredited registrar and you have a small client base. Say you've been running six months and have four corporate clients and a handful of retail clients - some strangers, some that are friends or friends of friends. You do not provide hosting, but you do provide DNS management so a name can be on your nameservers and simply point to the hosting location.
Now, you arrive to work one morning and see an email from a concerned internet user that highlights a domain name you have registered for one of your clients is carrying a live website with child pornography on it. Do you wash your hands of all responsibility, or do something about it?
Let's say it is a new retail client of yours who arrived last week and registered 5 names which now show this content. Would you leave it in the hands of the webhost? Would you still accept a domain registration request from this individual, knowing that it's likely he would put up more of this content?

I feel there is line somewhere. I want to say that I would do little, as all they have done with me is register a domain - I don't control the content. But then I do hate the content of the sites and would not like to register more names for him knowing it will lead to further sites like this. Can I cut him off due to my concerns that the corporate clients, who pay a lot more, show concern of being with a company that also registers names that go on to content like this? Can I cut him off just because I disagree with the end result of my actions?

As I write this it's become clear to me that, as a registrar, I should do nothing. Thousands of domain names are in legal battles every day, and it's not the registrars responsibility (unless in certain countries that may require trademark clearance before registration). A name infringes on a brand and it's the owner of the name who is the guilty one. It's nothing to do with the company who hold the name - and this is especially the case when it comes to content on that name if the hosting is not with the registrar.

If a Ford driver ploughs into a group of schoolchildren on purpose - is Ford to blame? Heck no, it's the driver all the way.

Mxx

How can GoDaddy Administer domains that are not registered with GoDaddy? is this possible?

Bottom line: the site had a list of passwords and personal info from MySpace, MySpace complained to GoDaddy, GoDaddy shut down the site and the owner got pissed. Why the hell did he have that info posted in the first place?...

My guess is that it was user submitted material, much like you could post a password list on plime, or any other website in the world that has a forum, guestbook or some other commenting system.