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Support For SOPA Gets GoDaddy in Hot Water

- By - Source : Reddit

A recent statement by Registrar and domain hoster GoDaddy supporting the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) has resulted in quite a frenzy on news aggregation service Reddit today.

A Reddit poster aggressively responded to GoDaddy's decision and announced that he will be moving 51 domains to show his objection and suggested that to readers that other GoDaddy customers should be moving their domains on December 29 as well.

There aren't many companies supporting SOPA and even anti-piracy organizations such as the Business Software Alliance (BSA) said that the bill needs work and would not be supported by the organizations. However, GoDaddy filed a strong statement in favor of SOPA with the U.S. House of Representatives. In the filing, the company writes:

"Go Daddy has a long history of supporting federal legislation directed toward combating illegal conduct on the Internet. […] Go Daddy has always supported both government and private industry efforts to identify and disable all types of illegal activity on the Internet. […] It is for these reasons that I’m still struggling with why some Internet companies oppose PROTECT IP and SOPA. There is no question that we need these added tools to counteract illegal foreign sites that are falling outside the jurisdiction of U.S. law enforcement. And there is clearly more that we could all be doing to adequately address the problems that exist. […] We need to find a way to preserve American ingenuity. Starting from a place of common ground will allow us to have the conversation about how best to achieve those goals. SOPA is a needed tool to get the ball moving."

It is unclear how much of an impact the move-your-domain proposal will be for GoDaddy. The company claims that it has more than 50 million domains registered. The post on Reddit had generated more than 2000 comments at the time of this writing, the majority of them being positive toward the post. GoDaddy itself declined to comment on the outrage and sent us the SOPA filing as a response for our request for a statement. The company also remained firm within its own forums and posted "GoDaddy's position on SOPA".

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Ragnar-Kon 12/23/2011 1:18 AM
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I am a GoDaddy customer, and was unaware GoDaddy supported SOPA.

I suppose you can now say that I am a former GoDaddy customer.

alidan 12/23/2011 1:28 AM
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yea, this is the worst business decision ever to support these bills.

yes they are intended to combat the foreign youtube like sites that host movies on them of things still in theaters, but you know it will be abused. and the moment the internet takes a big hit due to the bill, how many people will support godaddy knowing they had a hand it makeing it happen?

this isnt the kind of thing you could say "we didnt know" as a defense.

dalethepcman 12/23/2011 1:32 AM
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You can register your domain at Google for $10 like I did and give go daddy the finger.

Anonymous 12/23/2011 1:37 AM
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Moving 7 domains off godaddy. See ya!

There is no illegal content on my sites, but i SOPA is messed up. It will NOT stop any illegal content. It WILL screw over legitimate sites.

tokencode 12/23/2011 2:16 AM
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I say boycott go-daddy! It's one thing you uneducated people to naively think that SOPA might be a good thing, it is quite another for an industry insider like Go-Daddy to support censorship of the internet. Now that we know where they stand, IT professions need to show Go-Daddy where we stand. Move all services away from Go-Daddy, put them out of business for this.

hotsacoman 12/23/2011 2:28 AM
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Just vote with your wallet. Soooo simple.

serkol 12/23/2011 3:38 AM
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intel4eva 12/23/2011 3:43 AM
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It will be hilarious to watch them sing a completely opposite tune if enough people switch registrars. Haha! Money talks, baby. I mean, this is what this bill represents, amirite?

rohitbaran 12/23/2011 3:55 AM
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Go to dumpster GoDaddy!

RawOysters 12/23/2011 5:08 AM
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December 29th has been marked as "move your Domain day". Move your domain and don't support this lunacy.

Anonymous 12/23/2011 5:37 AM
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EPIC FAIL GoDaddy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Kami3k 12/23/2011 5:52 AM
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I feel sorry for anyone who currently works on Godaddy.

ronch79 12/23/2011 7:48 AM
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Lamar Smith (the #>?@%$ !! who introduced SOPA last October) needs to stick his head where the sun don't shine. I WONDER how much this guy was slipped under the table....

mrmaia 12/23/2011 11:13 AM
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"We need to find a way to preserve American ingenuity."

WHAT THE FUCK GoDaddy, you use the hottest girls on sports to advertise and yet want to preserve ingenuity?

del35 12/23/2011 11:49 AM
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My ISP blocking access to websites that infringe on piracy laws, is like a hardware store telling me that I can't buy a knife because it can be used to kill a person. The SOPA nanny is a unnecessary law and one that should not be supported; shame on GoDaddy.

By the way, this law is reminiscent of the Apple Apps store decision to block apps facilitating the viewing of pornography.

Sorry, let me make my own decisions about such matters.


eddieroolz 12/23/2011 3:00 PM
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The last thing these companies should be doing is to alienate the internet, but hey, here they are, never learning.

fusion_gtx 12/23/2011 3:12 PM
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dalethepcman :
You can register your domain at Google for $10 like I did and give go daddy the finger.



Wrong, registering through Google as well as a variety of other companies is still the same as registering with GoDaddy as GoDaddy is the parent company to numerous other hosting providers. Do some research before just switching as you may inadvertently give GoDaddy your business anyways. Numerous people recommend namecheap.com and as an added bonus if you use the code SOPASucks when transferring your domain they will give you a discount on the price.

TLDR I'm in full agreement of boycotting GoDaddy, but make sure you're actually boycotting them!

aethm 12/23/2011 3:21 PM
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I wonder why GoDaddy decided to support SOPA? I don't understand what advantage this bill would give to ANY internet based company.

wiyosaya 12/23/2011 3:35 PM
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Sounds like GoShabby does not know what they are talking about from a technical standpoint. Whoever created the press release is clearly a non-technical bobble-head type perhaps trying to rub elbows with the govt. Too bad for them; the damage is done.

igot1forya 12/23/2011 4:48 PM
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I have a few certificates registered by GoDaddy, looks like this years renewals will be coming from someone else.

whitesites 12/23/2011 5:09 PM
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rawful 12/23/2011 5:26 PM
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SOPA is about the end of net neutrality. It is a bad thing for personal freedoms.

hang-the-9 12/23/2011 5:40 PM
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TunaSoda 12/23/2011 5:47 PM
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fusion_gtx :
Numerous people recommend namecheap.com and as an added bonus if you use the code SOPASucks when transferring your domain they will give you a discount on the price.


It says right on NameCheap's site that domain transfers to them are free, they give you a discount on free?

TunaSoda 12/23/2011 6:03 PM
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Sucks it's gonna cost me over $200 to move all my domains from Godaddy :(
FU GoDaddy!

freggo 12/23/2011 6:08 PM
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dalethepcman :
You can register your domain at Google for $10 like I did and give go daddy the finger.



Interesting! Did not know that Google offered this.
I own some 20+ domains; currently with Godaddy... but not much longer.

jkflipflop98 12/23/2011 6:21 PM
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whitesites :
I have over 500 domains with godaddy. I have always liked their DNS management. I actually tell all my clients to buy their domain with godaddy as it keeps things simple. I still don't understand what this whole SOPA thing is about. Seems they want to clean up the internet, and I fully support that. Keep in mind I run my own server, so I have a slightly different view than most people who just have a shared hosting account. In all my years of running my own server I can say that I have only had 2 instances in which a godaddy customer was running botnet scripts off a VPS or dedicated server. I contacted godaddy and they were quick to shutdown the offending customer. Most ISPs are slow to act against malicious customers.I highly doubt godaddy is going to stop hosting porn sites. I used to host a ring of porn sites with godaddy, but their network was so slow it resulted in constant buffering for streaming video. Godaddy is actually very Pro Adult Content, even though their network is not built for it.



All I have to do is say "Whitesites is hosting my copyrighted material!" and you're shut down instantly. Your server can't come back up until after the court decides you didn't actually have my material on your server.

visa 12/23/2011 6:23 PM
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whitesites :
I have over 500 domains with godaddy. I have always liked their DNS management. I actually tell all my clients to buy their domain with godaddy as it keeps things simple. I still don't understand what this whole SOPA thing is about. Seems they want to clean up the internet, and I fully support that. Keep in mind I run my own server, so I have a slightly different view than most people who just have a shared hosting account. In all my years of running my own server I can say that I have only had 2 instances in which a godaddy customer was running botnet scripts off a VPS or dedicated server. I contacted godaddy and they were quick to shutdown the offending customer. Most ISPs are slow to act against malicious customers.I highly doubt godaddy is going to stop hosting porn sites. I used to host a ring of porn sites with godaddy, but their network was so slow it resulted in constant buffering for streaming video. Godaddy is actually very Pro Adult Content, even though their network is not built for it.



You need to figure out what SOPA is about. It's not about hosting porn sites. Under the guise of copyright infringement, all it will take are accusations to shut down websites.

iLLz 12/23/2011 8:19 PM
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It appears GoDaddy has changed their tune, and quite quickly I might add... http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy [...] r-sopa.ars

Khimera2000 12/23/2011 9:45 PM
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iLLz :
It appears GoDaddy has changed their tune, and quite quickly I might add... http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy [...] r-sopa.ars



Wait... it started on Thursday, and ended on Friday!?! That's less then 24 hours, any one else found this really funny?

kristoffe 12/23/2011 9:45 PM
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godaddy.com is terrible. they pale in comparison to ipower.com and in two circumstances they didn't follow their TOS.

1. a client I made a website for went to another company for SEO a year later. that company changed the secret password to the account, and though even in the client's name, he was told he had to pay an auction fee to buy back his own domain from the SEO developers. I tacked on .NET and told godaddy to screw themselves after they admitted it was a breach of TOS.

2. another client had someone write bad things about them and post checks and balance sheets scnned in as jpgs online with the client's actual first and last unique name. This is a 100% breach of godaddy's TOS, to which they replied blandly it was not, even with their TOS screen captured and sent to them, and they replied to go to the local authorities to remove it. What local authorities in this situation?

Godaddy is a joke and supports (ex1) name camping and extortion, and in (ex2) defamatory and degrading representation of individuals and does not enforce anything.

This SOPA statement is a joke. They are just covering their asses for something they can't squeak out of. FKUC godaddy.com