Move Your Domain Day – Transfer Issues With GoDaddy

Today is Move Your Domain Day, our annual tradition enabling our customers to support EFF in their fight for Internet freedom by transferring their domain to Namecheap.
We wanted to give our customers a quick update on the status of domain transfers associated with one of our competitors, GoDaddy.

Domain Transfer Issues

We’re very sorry that some of you have experienced issues or delays in transferring domains from GoDaddy over to us.
As many customers have recently complained of transfer issues, we suspect that GoDaddy is thwarting/throttling efforts to transfer domains away from them. Whether automated or not, this is unacceptable. In preparation for today, we had previously whitelisted IPs with GoDaddy so there would be no excuse for this poor business practice.
Specifically, GoDaddy appears to be returning incomplete WHOIS information to Namecheap, delaying the transfer process. This is not the first time something like this has happened.
First and foremost this practice is against ICANN rules and regulations. Secondly, we believe it violates “unfair competition” laws.

Solving the Problem

GoDaddy’s action is completely unacceptable, and we are working to resolve the issue as quickly as possible.
We are also asking customers to reach out to GoDaddy and engage with them to let them know that blocking customer-authorized transfers is not the right way to serve their customers’ clear intentions.
Don’t worry—each and every transfer request will be processed manually by our team. Every request will go through. We won’t rest until everyone who wants to join the Namecheap family can do so!