GoDaddy, the largest registry in the world, has announced that it has terminated the contract of an employee who violated its internal rules. The employee, whose name and rank remain undisclosed, set up an account under a different name in order to participate in auctions selling expired domain names which had not been renewed by their previous owners. GoDaddy stressed that the employee did not use any confidential client data and probably did not have any malicious intent, but such actions contradict the company’s policy.
According to Domain Name Wire, this policy has obviously undergone significant changes since last June, when its then VP Adam Dicker participated in domain auctions. GoDaddy didn’t have any internal rules against that at the time. It is noteworthy that there is an ambiguous attitude towards the participation of staff members in auctions held by their companies. On the one hand, it is obvious that companies want to employ domain business professionals, but such people often try to actively buy and sell domain names in their own interests. So why wouldn’t companies allow this if the employees concerned don’t abuse their official positions? On the other hand, in situations like this, the employees often automatically raise the prices of the domains, thus going against the interests of the companies’ clients. It is clear that the latter point of view was predominant at GoDaddy.
