GoDaddy

GoDaddy is a global domain name registrar and hosting provider. GoDaddy provides dozens of cloud services. The company's office in Sunnyvale, California, USA.

The goal of the business project is to provide users with an easy and affordable way to implement their ideas on the Internet.

Performance indicators

GoDaddy confidently retains the status of the largest domain registrar. This is evidenced by company statistics Verisign published by DomainNameWire. As of October 2017, GoDaddy accounts for 46,325,700 of all registrations in the.COM domain zone.

History

2024: Reverse penalty for violation of landing law

In January 2024, a Moscow court imposed negotiable fines on 11 hosting companies totaling 367.5 million rubles for refusing to open representative offices in Russia. Read more here.

2023

Termination of Russian Customer Service

In December 2023, the American domain registrar Godaddy announced the termination of service to Russian customers. The company sent out notifications warning that user accounts would be suspended on December 31, 2023.

Based on our information, you or the contact on your account may be in Russia. If our data is correct, your accounts and/or affected products will be closed on December 31, 2023, Godaddy said in a notice.

Theft of source code as a result of a multi-year cyber attack

On February 16, 2023, GoDaddy, one of the largest web hosting operators in the United States, reported a cyber attack that lasted several years. During the hack, the attackers, in particular, managed to steal the source codes of the platform.

In early December 2022, the company began receiving complaints from customers about periodic redirection of their websites, the official notice said. During the investigation, it turned out that cybercriminals gained access to servers in a shared hosting environment cPanel and installed malicious ones. software GoDaddy says the incident is part of a complex and well-organized attack targeting hosting services.

Parts of the source code were obtained by hackers as a result of a multi-year attack

According to the information we received, the obvious goal of attackers is to infect websites and servers with malware for conducting phishing campaigns, spreading malware and other malicious actions. We are cooperating with several law enforcement agencies around the world, as well as forensic experts, to continue our investigation, GoDaddy said in a statement.

According to reports, the attack is associated with at least two more hacks carried out between 2020 and 2022. GoDaddy claims that the same attackers attacked in 2021 and gained access to the email addresses of about 1.2 million customers of the Managed WordPress service. The group is also suspected of involvement in the 2020 attack, when attackers compromised the accounts of about 28 thousand hosting clients and several GoDaddy employees.

We believe that these incidents are part of a multi-year attack by a group of sophisticated attackers who, among other things, installed malware on our systems and received code fragments related to some GoDaddy services, the company says.[1]

2022: Acquisition of the trading platform Dan.com

GoDaddy announced the acquisition of the domain trade site. Dan.com This was announced on June 29, 2022. National Internet Domain Coordination Center (CC) More. here

2020: Extending privacy protections to US registrants

GoDaddy, the domain registrar, announced that it is extending privacy protection to domain name registrants from. USA This was announced on June 10, 2020. National Internet Domain Coordination Center (CC) This means that Whois records will hide the addresses email and phone numbers of American registrants. Previously, such protection applied only to registrants from countries, European Union since two years ago the General Data Protection Regulation (GDRP) was adopted in the EU. Its violation - including the disclosure of contact information users in Whois records - entails very large fines.

At the same time, Domain Incite notes that GoDaddy's function of such protection has existed throughout this time - but as a paid service. That is, the American registrant could hide his contact details from the Whois record only for money, while the EU registrant received such an opportunity completely free of charge. It took the company two years to fix this apparent oddity. However, now American registrants who previously paid for the protection of their personal data are promised compensation. They, for example, can claim a partial refund of money spent earlier on this paid service. Another option is a preferential status increase, which provides for mandatory two-factor authentication when transferring domain names, monitoring for their illegal use and other advantages.

2019: Several thousand domains stolen due to vulnerability in GoDaddy systems

On January 23, 2019, it became known that a vulnerability in GoDaddy systems allowed attackers to "hijack" other people's domains. This is exactly what happened in mid-December 2018, when users in the United States and Canada were covered by a wave of spam.

Ransomware has stolen at least 78 domains belonging to large companies, an investigation has found. With the same vulnerability, cybercriminals have seized thousands of domains belonging to lesser-known organizations for use in other spam campaigns. During some campaigns, extortionists blackmailed users by threatening to publish intimate videos with their participation.

According to security researcher Ronald Guilmette, the Spammy Bear group "hijacked" about 4 thousand domains belonging to 600 organizations and people. Who is behind the attacks is unknown as of January 2019.

The technique, known as snowshoe spamming, significantly increases the likelihood of unwanted emails entering the mailbox by weakening the reputation metrics used by spam filters. Increasing the number of IP addresses from which letters are sent makes it difficult to recognize and capture spam by filters.

Since almost all domains affected by the attacks used GoDaddy services, Gilmet suspected that a vulnerability in the domain name registrar system could be to blame. The researcher reached out to GoDaddy for comment and received a response as follows:

Based on the results of the investigation, our team confirmed that the attacker (s) improperly used our DNS configuration process. We found a solution and immediately took appropriate action. Although the attackers managed to create DNS records on abandoned domains, the accounts were not stolen, and the customer information remained intact[2]

2016: Buying Europe's biggest hoster for €1.69 billion

At the end of 2016, GoDaddy announced the purchase of Host Europe Group for 1.69 billion euros ($1.82 billion), including the amount of debt. Host Europe Group is the largest private web service provider in Europe, managing brands such as 123Reg, Domain Factory, Heart Internet and Host Europe.

2015

Raising $460 million during IPO

On April 1, 2015, it became known about the results of the initial placement of GoDaddy shares on the New York Stock Exchange: $460 million was raised. The company is valued at $4.5 billion^[3].

The company sold 23 million ordinary shares during the first day of trading at a price of $20 per unit. The indicated price was higher than the planned corridor ($17-19). Placement organizers Morgan Stanley, JP Morgan Securities and Citigroup.

In 2011, GoDaddy acquired an investment consortium led by funds from KKR & Co. and Silver Lake Partners for $2.25 billion.

After the change of owners, there was less frank advertising, but it did not completely leave. The new owners hired a former product Yahoo director from Blake Irving to turn GoDaddy into a small business provider. As of April 1, 2015, the company specializes in both the consumer segment and corporate clients.

GoDaddy filed an IPO application in 2006, but later canceled it, citing unfavorable market conditions. In June 2014, the application was resubmitted.

GoDaddy Goes IPO

March 20, 2015 it became known about the preparation of GoDaddy Inc. for the exit IPO - the company filed an application for an initial public offering of 22 million shares, which are expected to be sold at a price of $17 to $19 apiece.

The domain company could raise $418 million if the IPO passes the upper end of the expected range. The papers will be traded on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), under the ticker symbol GDDY.

Leading IPO underwriters:

• Morgan Stanley
• JP Morgan
• Citigroup.

Expected yield of 30-40% at the site of 3 months. IPO date: March 31, 2015.

The company's IPO, according to market experts, is a natural and expected step, which will undoubtedly be perceived positively by the market. GoDaddy for a long time remained private and was an unattainable tidbit for exchange investors waiting for the registrar to enter the public markets.

• Amount of funds raised during IPO: $418 million
• Expected capitalization: $2.87 billion
• Expected IPO date: April 2015.
• Ticker: GDDY
• Exchange: NYSE
• Price: $17- $19
• Lockup period: 3 months from the date of IPO

World No. 1:59 million domains (21 %)

As of March 19, 2015, GoDaddy is the world's largest domain name registrar: 59 million domains (21% of all domains), 12 million clients worldwide. The company offers related services for creating websites, e-commerce tools, online marketing services.

GoDaddy takes domains from residents of Crimea

Шаблон:Main 'IT blockade of Crimea

Domain registrar and hoster GoDaddy sent warning letters to its clients, according to which it is going to close the accounts of Crimean users and take away the provided domains from them^[4].

A screenshot of such a letter was published on Facebook by domainer Pavel Gross.

In this letter, GoDaddy reminds users of the trade sanctions imposed on Crimean residents by US President Barack Obama, and reports that the recipient of the letter falls under those restrictions, since, according to the registrar's data, he lives in Crimea. Therefore, writes GoDaddy, he must block the user account.

If the GoDaddy account is closed, the user-owned domains will be canceled and put up for public auction again, the registrar reports, and warns that the user's data and content will be destroyed because GoDaddy cannot provide backup storage.

On February 11, 2015, Yulia Elanskaya, Deputy Director of the Department of International Cooperation of the Ministry of Communications and Mass Media of the Russian Federation, made an official statement at the 52nd meeting of the Domain Name and IP Address Management Corporation (ICANN), which opened earlier this week in Singapore. The representative of the Ministry of Telecom and Mass Communications of Russia drew the attention of the delegates of the meeting to the recent decision of the American registrar, who canceled the domains that were registered in the Republic of Crimea.

would like to draw your attention to the recent decision of the US registrar, who notified his customers located in a certain geographical region, about the termination of their accounts, the cancellation of their domains and their recall starting from January 31, 2015. The registrar referred to trade restrictions that prevent American companies from doing business with individuals and legal entities located in Crimea.

We want to note that the Russian Federation has always opposed the use of sanctions in the field of ICT, and in particular on the Internet.

Sanctions, in particular those imposed on Internet users, should be considered to limit the universal human right to receive and disseminate information and ideas through any media and regardless of national borders, as set out in article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

This precedent is contrary to the principles and spirit of the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS), particularly the use of ICT to promote universal access to information in accordance with the Tunis Programme for the Information Society.

We would like to note that such a precedent makes visible the real situation in the field of Internet management, when one state unilaterally takes measures that discriminate on the territorial principle of user rights, given the fact that the same state controls the management of the domain name system around the world.

Such unilateral restrictions undermine universally recognized principles and values, trust in an open and interconnected information space, can discredit the process of further development of effective Internet governance mechanisms, and ultimately pose a serious threat to its fragmentation.

Russia calls on all interested parties of all countries to refrain from any attempt to use the practice of blocking on the Internet, including blocking domain names, to achieve politically motivated goals and take all possible efforts aimed at ensuring all the rights of Internet users. "

2014: Annual customer growth of 1.1 million to 12.7 million

The customer base of the company is growing. From 2010 to 2014, it increased from 8 million to 12.7 million.

In 2014, the number of customers increased by 1.1 million. Revenue grows by an average of 17% annually. In 2014, revenues amounted to $1.4 billion, compared to $741 million in 2010.

The volume of orders increases by an average of 16% each year. In 2014, the company received $1.7 billion in total orders, compared to $939 million in 2010.

GoDaddy Performance Indicators

2010: No. 1 in the market: 35 million domains (30 %)

In 2010, an American company remained the leader in the domain registration market GoDaddy.com. About 35 million different sites around the world received a domain name from GoDaddy^[5] is^[5].

1997: Establishing a Company

GoDaddy was established in 1997.

Notes