GoDaddy - Military Audit

Direct Defence Contracting & Procurement

No public evidence identified of any contract, tender award, framework agreement, or memorandum of understanding between GoDaddy and the Israeli Ministry of Defense (IMOD), the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), the Israel Prison Service, or the Israel Border Police. No public evidence identified of GoDaddy appearing in SIBAT directories or other Israeli defence export/procurement registries. The one documented nexus between GoDaddy and the IDF is not a procurement contract but a standard commercial web-hosting account: the IDF migrated a psychological-operations/extortion website to GoDaddy hosting after being deplatformed successively by Webflow and Namecheap, with the move to GoDaddy occurring shortly after Namecheap’s takedown of the site ¹.

Dual-Use Products & Tactical Variants

GoDaddy’s product line - domain registration, web hosting, website-building tools, email marketing, and website security services - has no ruggedised, tactical, or mil-spec variant identified in any source reviewed. No public evidence identified. No public evidence identified of export licence applications, end-user certificates, or government export-control reviews tied to GoDaddy sales to Israeli defence or security end-users; Israel’s dual-use export control regime is administered under a Wassenaar-aligned framework by Israel’s Ministry of Economy, but no GoDaddy-specific finding was located within that framework.

Heavy Machinery, Construction & Infrastructure

This section is not applicable to GoDaddy’s product category, which is software and hosting services rather than physical equipment. No public evidence identified of GoDaddy equipment, vehicles, or machinery present in settlements, along the separation barrier, or at military installations. No public evidence identified of GoDaddy involvement in construction or engineering contracts for checkpoints, detention facilities, military bases, the barrier, or settlement infrastructure.

Supply Chain Integration with Defence Primes

No public evidence identified of any component, sub-system, or manufacturing-service supply relationship between GoDaddy and Elbit Systems, Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI), Rafael Advanced Defense Systems, or Israel Military Industries (IMI). Direct company-name pairing searches returned only general Israeli-defence-industry background material with no GoDaddy connection. No public evidence identified of joint development, co-production, or technology-transfer agreements between GoDaddy and Israeli defence firms.

Logistical Sustainment & Base Services

The primary substantive finding of this audit falls in this section, though it is a hosting-service episode rather than a formal base-services contract. In May 2024, the IDF operated a psychological-warfare and extortion campaign website targeting Gaza residents, publishing names and photographs of alleged Hamas informants and threatening further exposure unless targets made contact with the army; a military source told Haaretz the army “received legal permission for the operation” ². The site was first hosted on Webflow, which removed it within 24 hours of public exposure by the “Zionism Observer” activist collective, and then on Namecheap, which removed it roughly nine days later; the IDF subsequently re-hosted a modified version of the site - with child-victim imagery and a countdown timer removed - with GoDaddy ¹. GoDaddy initially declined to take the site down, with the company’s position characterized by Mondoweiss as relying on legalistic evasions of responsibility ¹. On 20 July 2024, following a third public takedown campaign and renewed press coverage, GoDaddy suspended the hosting account; GoDaddy issued no public statement explaining the suspension ¹. No public evidence identified of any other GoDaddy service contracts - catering, transport, fuel supply, waste management, or facilities maintenance - to IDF bases, training facilities, or detention centres. No public evidence identified of GoDaddy service provision geographically tied to installations in the West Bank, Golan Heights, East Jerusalem, or the Negev. No public evidence identified of GoDaddy shipping, freight, or port-handling contracts, consistent with GoDaddy’s business model not encompassing physical logistics.

Munitions, Weapons Systems & Strategic Platforms

No public evidence identified of any GoDaddy role in lethal-systems manufacturing, munitions supply, or strategic/existential defence platforms such as Iron Dome, David’s Sling, Arrow, fighter aircraft, tanks, or warships; this domain is not applicable to GoDaddy’s business. The GoDaddy-hosted IDF extortion/psychological-operations website documented above is an informational-coercion tool rather than a targeting or kill-chain system, and is treated in this audit as a hosting-relationship fact under Logistical Sustainment & Base Services rather than as a weapons-system finding, since its designed output does not produce a targeting decision or weapons effect ¹.

Export Licensing, Regulatory & Legal History

No public evidence identified of any export-licence grant, denial, or suspension decision in any jurisdiction concerning GoDaddy products supplied to Israeli military or security end-users. No public evidence identified of arms-embargo or sanctions-compliance investigations or enforcement actions against GoDaddy related to Israel defence trade. The only enforcement action identified against GoDaddy in 2025 is an unrelated Federal Trade Commission action concerning alleged lax data security in its web-hosting services generally, with no Israel or defence nexus ³. No public evidence identified of court proceedings or judicial reviews specifically challenging a GoDaddy defence-supply relationship with Israel.

Civil Society Scrutiny & Documented Investigations

GoDaddy does not appear in the PAX “The Companies Arming Israel and Their Financiers” report (June 2024), based on direct-text review of the report ⁴. GoDaddy was not identified in available secondary coverage of the OHCHR settlement-business database or of the named-company annexes referenced in UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese’s “From economy of occupation to economy of genocide” report (A/HRC/59/23), based on review of press coverage, the OHCHR press release on the September 2025 database update, the underlying A/HRC/60/19 database report, and the OpenSanctions mirror of the OHCHR dataset; direct row-level confirmation of the primary database was not obtainable through this methodology ⁵⁶⁷⁸⁹. No public evidence identified of GoDaddy being named by Who Profits, AFSC Investigate, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, B’Tselem, Al-Haq, SOMO, BankTrack, or Don’t Buy Into Occupation in connection with Israel/OPT. No public evidence identified of an organised boycott or divestment campaign specifically targeting GoDaddy over defence-sector activity, distinct from the ad hoc activist takedown pressure applied by the “Zionism Observer” collective in the IDF-hosting episode described above rather than a formal BDS or divestment campaign ¹. No public evidence identified of any GoDaddy corporate statement, policy change, or end-use monitoring commitment issued in response to the IDF-hosting episode or broader civil-society pressure; GoDaddy did not release a public statement following the July 2024 account suspension ¹.

For contextual reference, GoDaddy maintains a commercial and investment presence in Israel unrelated to defence: it operates an Israeli subsidiary, GoDaddy Israel Web Services Ltd (company no. 515118859, incorporated 6 August 2014) ¹⁰; it acquired the Israeli-founded email marketing company Mad Mimi in August 2014 ¹¹; and it led a $50 million investment round in the Israeli company Tailor Brands in July 2021 ¹². GoDaddy’s governance disclosures list board member Sigal Zarmi, who holds Technion-linked education credentials, though no confirmed Unit 8200 or defense-industry directorship was identified for her or other board members in the sources reviewed ¹³¹⁴.

End Notes