ENS cooperates with GoDaddy. Is the Web3 domain name registration track about to become popular?

Author: DeMan

GoDaddy, a world-renowned domain name registrar, recently announced a cooperation agreement with Ethereum Name Service (ENS) to provide Web3 community users with more convenient domain name linking services. This cooperation will enable users to connect ".eth" domain names with traditional Web2 domain names for free.

This move not only simplifies the domain name operation process for Web3 users, but also increases the popularity of decentralized domain names. Through cooperation with ENS, GoDaddy further demonstrates its continued efforts in promoting Internet innovation and user convenience.

Next, we will explore in detail the specific content of this cooperation and its potential impact on the blockchain field.

GoDaddy Introduction: A veteran domain name registration service provider in the Web2 era

Company Background:

GoDaddy was founded in 1997 by Vietnam War veteran and programmer Bob Parsons, originally named Jomax Technologies. In 1999, the company was renamed GoDaddy and became an ICANN-authorized domain name registrar in 2000. Today, GoDaddy has grown into the world's largest domain name registrar and successfully listed on the New York Stock Exchange in April 2015. GoDaddy has more than 20 million customers worldwide, manages 84 million domain names, and has 14 data centers in multiple regions, including Arizona, California, Iowa, Washington, Asia, Europe and India. GoDaddy currently has more than 9,000 employees.

Business Overview:

GoDaddy provides a wide range of network services covering five core areas: domain name registration, website building services, hosting, web security and online marketing. Its domain name services include registration, transfer, privacy protection, auctions and pre-registration. Website building services help users quickly create websites through website building tools and WordPress platforms. Hosting services offer a variety of options, including virtual hosting, high-end business hosting, WordPress hosting, VPS servers and dedicated servers. Web security services include SSL certificates and website security protection to ensure the security of user data and transactions. Online marketing services focus on email marketing to help companies improve their online influence.

Products and Services:

1. Domain Name Service: GoDaddy offers a variety of domain name suffixes, from traditional .com, .net to emerging suffixes. Users can easily use its domain name management tool to renew, transfer and manage DNS.

2. Website Building Service: GoDaddy's website building tool and WordPress website building service make website building simple and intuitive. Users can design websites by dragging and dropping, or use the one-click installation function to quickly build a WordPress website.

3. Host Hosting: GoDaddy's hosting services include shared hosting, VPS hosting and dedicated server hosting, providing a stable and high-speed service experience, especially the optimized WordPress hosting service simplifies the website management process.

4. Web security service: GoDaddy provides SSL certificates and website security protection to ensure the security of website data and transactions. In addition, it also provides website backup services to ensure the security of website data.

5. Online marketing services: GoDaddy's email marketing and digital marketing suites help users attract global customers and enhance brand awareness and influence.

User experience and support:

GoDaddy is known for its high-quality customer support services and provides 24/7 support. Whether by phone, email or live chat, users can get help in a timely manner. Its customer service team is known for its rich expertise and quick response, ensuring that user problems are effectively resolved.

Price and Package:

GoDaddy has a transparent pricing structure, ranging from economy packages to premium packages, to meet the budget needs of different users. Although the prices of some services are slightly higher than the market average, its stable service performance and excellent customer support make it still very cost-effective.

User Feedback and Evaluation:

Users generally give high praise to GoDaddy's domain name registration and website hosting services, especially start-ups and small and medium-sized enterprises. GoDaddy's one-stop service simplifies the complexity of website construction and maintenance, allowing users to focus more on the business itself.

In summary, GoDaddy has become a leading global domain name and network service provider with its comprehensive services, stable performance and excellent customer support. Whether it is domain name registration, website building or hosting, GoDaddy can provide satisfactory solutions.

GoDaddy cooperates with ENS, and the domain name service cooperation between Web2 and Web3 world has taken shape

Changes brought by the new cooperation:

Top-level domain name registrar GoDaddy recently announced a cooperation with Ethereum Name Service (ENS) to easily integrate traditional DNS domain names (such as .com and .net) with blockchain-based ENS .eth domain names. This cooperation enables GoDaddy users to link existing domain names with ENS names they own at no additional cost. This means that users can use .com addresses instead of .eth names in Ethereum-compatible applications. For example, if you own mywebsite.com and mywebsite.eth, you can use mywebsite.com for encrypted payments, Web3 website logins, and more.

What a Domain Name Registrar Does:

Whenever a user visits a website, the computer looks up its IP address, gets the website content from the web server, and then loads the web page in the browser. To make it easier to remember, the Domain Name Service (DNS) converts these numerical addresses into names that are easy to read and remember, such as Bitskwela.com. The .com part of the website URL is called the top-level domain (TLD) and is used for websites and email addresses (such as [email protected]). These domain names can be purchased from registrars such as GoDaddy, which provides domain name registration and web hosting services to more than 20 million individuals and businesses worldwide.

Uniqueness of Ethereum Name Service (ENS):

Unlike centralized domain name registrars such as GoDaddy and Namecheap, ENS uses .eth as the TLD to provide blockchain-based decentralized domain name registration on the Ethereum network. ENS domain names are created through smart contracts, stored on the blockchain, and are compatible with wallets, NFT platforms, the metaverse, decentralized applications, and other aspects of the blockchain ecosystem.

Advantages for GoDaddy users:

This new integration has many significant benefits for GoDaddy users:

1. Lower barriers to entry: Millions of Web2 users around the world can more easily access blockchain-based decentralized domain names without paying additional fees or complex multi-platform integrations.

2. Unified identity: Users can use a single domain name on Web2 and Web3 platforms to achieve unified identity.

3. Simplified payment and integration: Website owners can receive cryptocurrencies in their wallets or integrate with Web3 applications without having to connect to a Web3 wallet address separately.

For example, users of the Brave browser may already be familiar with this concept. Brave allows users to set up wallets and earn Basic Attention Tokens (BAT) through browser activities, and then withdraw funds or reward content creators through crypto wallets. Similarly, the GoDaddy-ENS link allows customers to seamlessly connect existing websites with blockchain-based applications.

Limitations and Challenges:

Although this integration brings many conveniences, there are still some limitations:

1. Compatibility issues: Some browsers do not yet fully support ENS.

2. Blockchain network issues: Network congestion or other problems with the blockchain network may affect the success of transactions.

Users need to ensure that they use compatible software and a stable blockchain environment when using this feature.

Impact on future Web3 adoption:

Through this collaboration, traditional web giant GoDaddy and next-generation blockchain service ENS demonstrate the potential for Web2 companies to coexist with Web3 services. The future is not to compete with each other, but to simplify the integration between the two and leverage the strengths of each ecosystem, thereby improving the experience of all users.

For example, a fashion e-commerce website called fashionclothing.com wants to accept crypto payments from Ethereum users. They can achieve seamless integration of crypto payments by purchasing the ENS name fashionclothing.eth and linking it with a traditional domain name on GoDaddy. This approach allows websites to start accepting crypto payments without additional service integration fees or coding changes.

In short, GoDaddy's cooperation with ENS marks a new era of coexistence between traditional centralized Web2 companies and decentralized Web3 services, providing users with a more convenient and unified Internet experience.

The future is unpredictable: Web3 domain name registration is still in the conceptual stage, far from reaching the level of widespread popularization and application

Although GoDaddy is a leader in domain name registration and web hosting, and has demonstrated the potential integration of Web2 and Web3 services through its cooperation with ENS, there are also many challenges in this process. In September 2022, True Names Ltd., the company behind ENS, filed a lawsuit against GoDaddy, accusing it of falsely declaring the eth.link domain name expired and selling it to a third party. The lawsuit has been filed in the U.S. District Court for the State of Arizona and involves Dynadot and Manifold Finance. True Names Ltd. said the domain was originally registered by former employee Griffith in 2018.

In addition, leaders in the Web3 field have also questioned the use of GoDaddy's DNS service. In August 2022, Binance founder Zhao Changpeng commented after the Curve domain hijacking attack that no Web3 project should use GoDaddy's DNS service because it is vulnerable to social engineering attacks. Although Curve Finance officially denied that the incident was related to GoDaddy and pointed out that the problem was with the domain name server iwantmyname, the incident triggered widespread discussion about GoDaddy's security and reliability.

GoDaddy's security issues are not limited to the above incidents. In November 2020, the crypto mining company NiceHash discovered that its domain name registration records with GoDaddy were changed without authorization, resulting in a brief redirection of the website's email and web traffic. Although no data was stolen, the incident exposed GoDaddy's shortcomings in preventing social engineering attacks. In the same year, GoDaddy also suffered multiple security breaches, including a phishing scam and 28,000 web hosting accounts being attacked. These incidents not only affected GoDaddy's reputation, but also raised questions about its security measures.

In general, the cooperation between GoDaddy and ENS demonstrates the possibility of coexistence between traditional Web2 companies and decentralized Web3 services, providing users with a more convenient and unified Internet experience. However, the legal challenges and security issues that follow still need attention. In the advent of the Web3 era, can GoDaddy resolve security vulnerabilities and win the trust of the Web3 community? Time will tell.