Robin Majumdar 2.0

It’s official: GoDaddy to offer .ca domain name registration – GoDaddy Canada office in Ontario is open.

The news was somewhat buried in a GoDaddy press release announcing their sponsorship of Ron Fellows in the #5 GoDaddy NASCAR race vehicle…

I like verbatim quotes, so here goes:

The Go Daddy Group, Inc. is leveraging the sponsorship to officially announce entry into the Canadian market with its new subsidiary, Go Daddy Domains Canada. While Go Daddy already counts some of its 5.5 million customers in Canada, it’s working to serve even more. Go Daddy Domains Canada recently opened its office in Ontario, Canada. It is a certified .CA registrar and by race time, hopes to be offering customers .CA domain names.

So, what does this mean? Well, GoDaddy is now CIRA-certified and you will soon see a non-stop stream of email and web promotions announcing their ubiquitous 10-15-25% coupon code promotions for .ca domains.

I’m intrigued how much influence Adam Dicker, who is VP of the GoDaddy TDNAM domain name aftermarket division had in this foray into the burgeoning Canadian domaining marketplace. Adam is highly respected Canadian domainer most well-known for his DNForum.com domainer site. He was also recently involved in a pretty well-publicized scandal when he bid on domains listed in the TDNAM marketplace.

Is this good for .ca domain holders? I think so – GoDaddy will add some serious exposure for .ca domains and provide for some additional registrar competition.

The Canadian in me wants to support the real Canadian registrars though; MyID.ca, Namespro.ca and the others…