So its been a very busy month. I took some holiday time at the beach. From there I was in Bangkok for a week of Vendor training. My return home was filled with long days and nights trying to get caught up as well as, prepare for a week long business trip to Singapore next week.
During all this hubbub of activity, I accidentally let my domain expire. Opps! Oh well, there is a grace period, I can just renew it right? Not exactly. Turns out that the grace period is only 12 days. After that GoDaddy penalizes you with on outragous $80 USD "Registry Redemption Fee". Umm, what? Srsly?
"Ok, no problem", I think. I'll just re-register it at another Registrar. NOPE! The domain still shows up as registered to me, but locked by GoDaddy.
So..... Just wait for it to expire and then pounce on it again to re-register? NOPE! Not so easy. Then GoDaddy puts your domain up for Auction for 10 days! Ok, so wait for the auction to finish and hope nobody bids on it? WRONG AGAIN! GoDaddy then puts your domain up on a 5-day Closeout auction /Firesale!
So, in reality when GoDaddy says "Registry Redemption Fee" what they really mean is "We Are Holding Your Domain Hostage Until You Pay an Ungodly Ransom".
Now, because I am in Thailand, lets put that $80 USD into prospective. The average Thai salary here in Chiang Mai is about 10,000 THB/ month. Assuming a 4 week month and 40 hours per week (most work more hours and days than that), that means the average pay here is 62.5 THB/ hour. Exchange rate is approximately 35 THB per $1 USD. That means that GoDaddy's ransom money equates to about 45 hours of work here. MORE than one weeks pay!! Or in other terms, about 93 average lunches (30 THB).
So GoDaddy, as I really have no recourse other than to publize your horrible business practises. Additionally, did a little bit of google searching, and seems I'm not the only one upset with GoDaddy.
I urge everyone to take a look at (nmap) Fyodor's NoDaddy site.
So, again, screw you GoDaddy. Enjoy the extortion money.
