GoDaddy customers are unlikely to understand their options.

GoDaddy has begun sending emails to customers about changes to domain privacy.

As I wrote about on June 8, the company has started redacting personal information from Whois records. This means the Domains by Proxy service is no longer necessary for most people.

GoDaddy will give customers who pay $10 a year for this service a pro-rated refund or upgrade them to an enhanced domain protection service.

Here’s the email:

(Subject) Important: Upgraded protection coming to your domains.

We’re upgrading the protection for your domains to something even better, and at no additional cost to you.

We care about your privacy and the protection of your domains, so we’ll soon be upgrading them from Private Registration to Full Domain Privacy & Protection. It will include these features to protect your domains and private information:

• Protects against active threats like domain hijackers and malicious transfers.
• Safeguards you from honest mistakes like accidental transfer or expired credit cards.*
• Prevents spam with private email forwarding.

The following domains are scheduled to be upgraded:

(redacted)

The best part? You don’t need to take any action at all. We’re going to take care of the upgrade for you.

Sincerely,

GoDaddy Domains Team

P.S. If you’d prefer not to upgrade, please click here to cancel your Private Registration add-on product by July 16, 2020. A refund will be issued for the remaining term of your current products.

* The expiration protection feature requires that your domains be set to automatically renew. Click here to learn more.

At best, this email buries the lede. At worst, it completely omits it. And that is that the product customers originally paid for is no longer necessary at all. If all they care about is keeping their information out of Whois then they should ask for a refund.

It’s not surprising that GoDaddy is trying push people to the new service. Whois Privacy likely generates over $100 million in profit for the company annually. That’s a big deal for a company that skirts around the GAPP profitability line.

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