JoshPaul

• Concord Software Repository
  Interesting collection of LGPL’d projects, especially QT/Java multimedia
  (tags: java opensource quicktime lgpl concord education software)

• Ads growing with broadband speed
  “At one real-time moment last week, 671,280 people were enjoying rich media…”
  (tags: media advertising hollywood video digitalvideo aweli akamai)
• Advertising Age – Digital – Video Report: Mobile Marketing Stymied by High CPMs, Small Audiences
  “[mobile is] going to be competing against and those CPMs are down in the $8, $7, $4, $10 range.”
  (tags: advertising marketing media mobile cpm aweli video)

In this morning’s email from Ad Age, they promoted two articles right next to each other:. Nothing like covering your bases.

A few years ago I registered and transferred a handful of domain names to RegisterFly. The service was terrible, but I just parked the domains there. Well, over the last year I had numerous problems trying to transfer some of the domains out, and eventually lost one that I’d had since 1996. There was nothing I could do.

Apparently a lot of people were in the same boat and a class action lawsuit was filed. Long story, short, ICANN revoked RegisterFly‘s accreditation and GoDaddy stepped in and "rescued" approximately 850,000 domains. [NOTE: this was a commercial transaction!]

So, I have two domains that wound up at GoDaddy and they are expiring soon. Considering the entire situation I just want my domains with a company I’ve been doing business with for a while and haven’t had any problems with. Therefore I simply want my domains with a company of my choosing. Well, apparently I can’t.

Last night I logged into my new GoDaddy account, obtained my transfer authorization codes, and went through the process of transferring the domains. Unfortunately I received an email from GoDaddy stating "transfer denied." Odd. Okay, I have to call customer support, I can deal with that.

Today I called GoDaddy Customer Support. I was told that I would not be allowed to transfer my domains for 60 days, as they’d been recently transferred. Huh?! I didn’t request the transfer to GoDaddy! GoDaddy did so through a commercial transaction! Alright, I figured, maybe I just need to talk to a supervisor…transfer away…

After talking to a number of people, I was transferred to the Office of the President (480-505-8828) and spoke with a guy name Alon. I told him that I felt that GoDaddy was forcing me to pay them and that I didn’t like that fact. I recommended that he simply apply a credit to my account so that my domains don’t expire while we try to figure this mess out. He understood my "perception of the situation" of the situation, but informed me that an internal department within GoDaddy (which he insisted he couldn’t give me the department’s name…huh?!) had made the decision that I had to pay them. I asked to speak with Bob Parsons, President of GoDaddy, but I was told there’s no direct way to contact him (apparently the CEO of GoDaddy doesn’t have a cell phone, office phone, home phone, or email account).

So my predicament is that I’m being forced to pay GoDaddy for my soon-to-expire domain names, or (more than likely) lose them. GoDaddy is completely unwilling to work with me and provide me some level of assurance that my domains won’t be lost. I’ve already contacted a lawyer and am looking for at least two more people in a similar situation as mine.