I’ve been raving wildly to clients about GoDaddy for years. Primarily because of their low-cost domains versus 35 bucks at Network Solutions and a myriad of other crazy pricing structures from domain resellers.

GoDaddy silenced one part of my cheering section last week by exposing (and implementing) a little-known policy that everyone quickly checks off in the mundane “I agree to the terms of this agreement”. As part of the agreement, any domain disputes sent to GoDaddy are automatically investigated and the INVESTIGATED party is charged for the investigation.

One of my domains was anonymously submitted, and I was investigated, and I was billed for the costs. I complained, but it fell on deaf ears because… I was negligent. On that particular domain, I was trying to keep my phone number private. Turns out the only way to keep some semblance of privacy on your domains is to purchase extra privacy from a proxy.

Now don’t accuse me of being a dummy; I’m just frugal. I ‘ve purchased the proxy before and thought it was a waste of money. This time around, I simply entered in the good old 555-XXXX telephone number used in TV and movies. Since being charged for the “investigation” and threatened with loss of the domain, I’ve updated the number to my real, call me at all hours of the night with ridiculous crap, phone number.

Shame on me for not forking over more cash for the options.