Round 1
This was the initial blow. It was a right hook to the jaw that I didn't see coming at all. I had a couple of dozen domains parked with GoDaddy and, while they weren't generating a lot of income, I figured that I was on the right track with them. And then I received this ...
From: cashparking@godaddy.com
Sent: Tuesday, 27 November 2007 8:58 AM
To: dave@fatherdave.org
Subject: CASH PARKING SUSPENSION NOTICE
Dear David Smith,
In accordance with our Cash Parking Service Agreement, (linked
below), the Cash Parking services associated with your account with
customer number: XXXXXXXX has been terminated.
http://www.godaddy.com/gdshop/legal_agreements/show_doc.asp?prog_id=GoDaddy&se=%2B&pageid=Cash%5FPark%5FSA
The termination of the service is done in accordance with the above
mentioned Agreement. Cash Parking is designed to give you a share in
the revenues and Click Through Rates generated by "Natural Traffic".
A recent review of traffic reports indicated that all or some of your
domains were involved in fraudulent amounts of Click Through traffic
or other fraudulent traffic patterns. The non-randomness of these
patterns showed that the traffic was deliberate and represented non-
natural or non-human traffic.
Under the terms of the Agreement for this service, "GoDaddy.com
specifically reserves the right to require the forfeiture of any
previously earned revenue in connection with the Services, which has
yet to be paid." We also "reserve the right and sole discretion to...terminate Your use of the Services".
Please note that this suspension applies to the domains in your Cash
Parking account as of this time. If you wish to fully cancel your
Cash Parking service, you will need to log in to your account and
cancel the service. This will ensure that your account does not get
charged for any Cash Parking service renewals.
If you have any questions, please let us know. Please be aware that this decision is final, and is not up for debate.
Thank you,
GoDaddy.com
Cash Parking Team
cashparking@godaddy.com
The phrase we use in this part of the world is 'gob-smacked'. I didn't know what to say. I'd hadn't had any difficulty with Godaddy up to this point, and I had certainly never been accused of fraudulent activity of any sort before by anyone. I assumed that it must be some sort of mistake. What I didn't anticipate at all was that Godaddy would refuse to even discuss the matter with me!