Go Daddy Bites the Hand that Feeds Them

Passing SOPA would be a web owners worst nightmare. Godaddy’s support of it is a stand against its customers,  SOPA and its sister bill, PROTECT IP Act, in the Senate is a bad idea that promises to censor and restrict the web as we know it,  and threatens the very existance of websites like this that don’t have a staff of lawyers and editors to maintain compliance.   It is understandable that if not to be expected that Godaddy has pissed of its customers base.

There has been a tremendous backlash against GoDaddy.

Talk of a Go Daddy boycott began yesterday on community link-sharing site Reddit, and quickly grew to include several influential business leaders and media personalities. Among them were Y Combinator founderPaul Graham, Cheezburger CEO Ben Huh and celebrity/investor Ashton Kutcher. The company’s change-of-heart was announced today around the same time Wikipedia’s Jimmy Wales Tweeted he would be transferring Wikipedia’s domains from Go Daddy in protest.

Go Daddy initially shrugged off the protests, issuing a nonchalant response to let people know it hasn’t negatively impacted its business — which was the equivalent of shaking the hell out of a giant beehive and not expecting to get stung. Boycott participators responded by publishing step-by-step tutorials for transferring a bulk of domains to a new registrar, complete with recommendations to competitors.

Go Daddy’s response didn’t get to to the heart of it. They basically claimed that SOPA might be poorly written, although they support the basic idea behind it, they are withdrawing support. They didn’t offer to fight it it or withdraw support from the  Senate’s PROTECT IP ACT. It gets worse for Go Daddy.

Hosting and domain registrar company Go Daddy has lost more than 37,000 domains in the past two days due to the company’s wishy-washy stance on the Stop Online Piracy Act.

Talk of a Go Daddy boycott began yesterday on community link-sharing site Reddit, and quickly grew to include several influential business leaders and media personalities. Among them were Y Combinator founderPaul Graham, Cheezburger CEO Ben Huh and celebrity/investor Ashton Kutcher. The company’s change-of-heart was announced today around the same time Wikipedia’s Jimmy Wales Tweeted he would be transferring Wikipedia’s domains from Go Daddy in protest.

Go Daddy initially shrugged off the protests, issuing a nonchalant response to let people know it hasn’t negatively impacted its business — which was the equivalent of shaking the hell out of a giant beehive and not expecting to get stung. Boycott participators responded by publishing step-by-step tutorials for transferring a bulk of domains to a new registrar, complete with recommendations to competitors.

37,000 in two days before Christmas, looks like the beginning of an avalanche of bailouts. Now I’m left with a dillema.  This blog and the domain is hosted by Go Daddy, I’m paid up ahead, and I’ve been pretty happy with their service.  Host Gater is a local Houston Company has a good reputation, and is opposed to Govenment and Hollywood censorship. Their statement opposing SOPA:

Imagine if you were able to genetically combine Osama bin Laden, Saddam Hussein, Darth Vader and Barbara Streisand into one horrifically terrifying being. Now imagine that being is actually a piece of proposed legislature — the terrifying creation in your midst would then be the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) which is currently being considered by the House.

SOPA, aka H.R. 3261 is a bill right now in the House sponsored by R-TX Lamar Smith. It’s not just any bill though, it’s a bill that would allow the USDOJ, RIAA, MPAA and anyone else who lobbies for the entertainment industry to effectively censor the internet to suit their needs.

So, I’ve got a lot to consider. moving the content and the domain is a scary thing,  a lot of work and some money. Perhaps if Go Daddy took a substantial stand to actually fight this thing my decision would be a little easier. A significant donation to someone like the Electronic Frontier Foundation perhaps?

About Liberty

Blogging is something I do for myself. I've been blogging since Sept. 2003, mostly about politics, guns, and observations about the word around me.
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