If you accepted GoDaddy’s offer of the first-year-free private registration service for your domain, you would not be so happy when you are renewing the domain for more years because you will find the private registration is bound to that domain. You can either renew the domain WITH the private registration which costs an extra $9 per year or you can remove the domain from the shopping cart. You are forced to renew it with private registration at $9 per year plus the registration fee ($10 or so) or you cannot renew it at all. Very shady.
No, they don’t have any options to exclude private registrations (Domains By Proxy) when you are renewing the domains that were registered with the free private registration for the first year. The trick is, they don’t have that option on GoDaddy.com. You will have to do it on DomainsByProxy.com.
So how to turn off private domain registrations for renewals at GoDaddy?
For every order of domain registrations with first-year-free private registration services, you will be sent an email containing the login details of DomainsByProxy.com. I found them by searching my email inbox by the phrase "domains by proxy". Chances are you can find a few messages sent from domainsbyproxy.com by the title "Welcome to Domains By Proxy".
Each of the messages is an order of private registrations for one or multiple domains. Open them one by one and look for "User Id" which is a lengthy number that you will use as Customer # or Login Name at https://www.domainsbyproxy.com.
The password is the same with that of your GoDaddy.com account.
When you are logged in, you can see the list of domains that you opted for private registrations by clicking “Domains”. Check the domains you intend to renew (or rather, all of them) and click “Continue”. Select “Yes” and click the Done button or whatever to finish the process.
Now you can get back to GoDaddy and renew your domains without being bothered to purchase additional years of private registration services.
Shame on Godaddy.
It’s a pain but you just have to cancel the private registration, then renew. Or at least that was the case about a year ago when I was in a similar situation.
excellent write-up.. thanks.
Just had the same dillema, and SHADY is really the right word for this, getting it sorted now thanks to this.
Thanks.
Thanks for the tip – trying to renew also.
This also gives Godaddy an excuse to refuse to transfer your domain to another host. In my case, the Godaddy password does not equal the privacy password and they will not allow me access to move my domain until I submit alot of paperwork. They know it is me, when I call in, as I am allowed to make any other changes (e.g. delete webpages, purchase and install other services). The ONLY part I am locked out of is MOVING my domain.