GoDaddy competitor offers discounted domain transfers to save elephants

http://community.namecheap.com/blog/2011/03/30/elephants/

by makeramen • 15 years ago

114 52 15 years ago

community.namecheap.com

ck24• 15 years ago

Namecheap is a trap.

They get you in cheap but there is NEVER a discount on renewals, always full price.

So be ready to transfer again in a year.

Polat• 15 years ago

How much is the full-price of a domain?

ck24• 15 years ago

Verisign charges registrars $7.34 for .com and $4.65 for .net

(if that's what you mean)

(why the hell ICANN gave Verisign the contract again is the most dumbfounding politics I've seen)

So Namecheap loses $2 on the transfer and then hopes to make it up on the renewal.

bkrausz2• 15 years ago

I wouldn't call it a trap: they don't claim renewals are taken at a loss (and I wouldn't expect them to).

They charge $10.16/year to renew a .com (including the ICANN fee). Pretty reasonable to me, plus they let you specify your own nameserver for the domain.

I've been very happy with NameCheap: I was originally on GoDaddy (I was young and stupid), moved to 1&1 (still young, still stupid), and I've been with NameCheap ever since (~4 years).

dchest2• 15 years ago

plus they let you specify your own nameserver for the domain

It's not "plus", it's requirement for any registrator, isn't it? I've never seen anyone not allowing to specify nameservers.

It's backwards: "plus" is the ability to have free DNS hosting :-)

ck24• 15 years ago

Domain names are pretty much a set-and-forget thing.

You can get into a cheap registrar and pay for 10 years in advance.

I'm paying $7.75 elsewhere and perfectly satisfied.

Oh and by the way, NameCheap is essentially an enom reseller,

remember the registerfly/enom fiasco a few years ago?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RegisterFly

noodle• 15 years ago

well, thats how most places work, including godaddy. but i notice you didn't say that godaddy is a trap.

plus, calling them a trap is rather disingenuous when the world is full of snail mail spammers who try and trick people who have expiring domains, and their ilk

JoachimSchipper• 15 years ago

Isn't this just a cheap shot? The video won't play on my computer, but I'm fine with putting down animals that are attacking humans or human civilization.[1]

Sure, sending Westerners over to do it is nonsensical, but presumably profitable. GoDaddy has lots of real issues (e.g. Google "godaddy fyodor"), but I don't think this private "sport" from their CEO is very relevant.

[1] You're allowed to disagree, but please keep a sense of perspective. Eating a couple hundred domesticated animals a year and telling a vegetarian not to kill one genuinely dangerous specimen is just silly.

geoffw82• 15 years ago

They killed the elephants because they were damaging crops...

earlyriser2• 15 years ago

Why don't just relocate them? He has the money.

psykotic2• 15 years ago

Bob Parsons flew all the way to Zimbabwe and trekked into the wilderness to save the village's crops and do his small part in keeping down the country's elephant population? What a stand-up guy!

Here's a more likely narrative: Bob Parsons wants to kill elephants for sport. Bob Parsons finds out where in the world he can do so legally and with some semblance of morality. Bob Parsons goes there and has a hell of a good time shooting elephants.

StavrosK• 15 years ago

The video headline should actually read:

GoDaddy CEO helps with controlled thinning of population of dangerous animal while still managing to appear masturbatory, insensitive and self-aggrandizing.

freejack• 15 years ago

More like "Godaddy competitor tries to capitalize on PR stumble with thinly veiled promotional campaign"

atourino• 15 years ago

By dangerous animal you mean humans, right? ;)

itblarg• 15 years ago

The swarm of locals butchering the elephant carcass while wearing GoDaddy hats is by far the most disturbing part of the episode.

jarin2• 15 years ago

Or the civil war that he incited between the GoDaddy hats and the non-GoDaddy hats.

terrellm• 15 years ago

Maybe they cut the scene where the other village were wearing Pittsburgh Steelers Super Bowl XLV Champions t-shirts. A tacky hat still blocks the sun better than no hat.

galactus• 15 years ago

Is this the same guy who supported torturing prisoners at gitmo?

schintan• 15 years ago

Domain transfer's or not,they are getting enough eyeballs to make this a successful promotion.

sucuri2• 15 years ago

Hungry people or an elefant? I am actually on godaddy side on this one..

ohashi3• 15 years ago

Really? Because I am sure it cost a lot more money to fly over and shoot the elephant himself than if he had just donated it to hungry people to buy the food or means to protect their food supply.

true_religion• 15 years ago

So you are arguing that the part of the money was wasted?

By that order of thinking, its always better to send monies to the native population than to transfer even one Westerner to the area since the cost of their ticket would have been better spent on actual resources.... right?

No!

This is not a humanitarian mission---its a vacation in disguise.

The man clearly wanted to kill elephants. Why he wanted it is of no consequence. It's better to allow him to exorcise this bloodlust when there is a positive benefit to humanity than it to either fester or be released via investment into illegal poaching.

kennethologist• 15 years ago

Well I will never buy another domain name from Godaddy again! In addition to being more expensive their CEO clearly has no heart!

dpcan• 15 years ago

But what about all their employees who rely on us continuing to buy domains from their company so they can have jobs? Are they all heartless?

So, you are against slaying a single elephant that jeopardizes an entire villages food supply AND you are for not giving money to a company that pays the salaries of hundreds of people.

Hmm.

binarysoul• 15 years ago

fyi the discount code is BYEBYEGD and it's a discount on domain transfers. I just transfered my domain from enom to namecheap. So you don't have to be leaving go daddy to take advantage of this.

hoop• 15 years ago

Isn't namecheap an enom reseller?

RyanAmos2• 15 years ago

No. See my response: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2392095

bherms• 15 years ago

Zimbabwe is home to over 100,000 elephants, when they state the eco-system can only handle half that many. The video even starts off with a "hunting problem elephants". I also wouldn't call it hunting for sport when the village eats every remaining bit.

protomyth• 15 years ago

It doesn't really matter if it was ethical or not, it is a picture that will offend people and sounds like a good topic for pundits on 24-hour news networks to argue over. If you are a CEO, don't do this stuff.

_ouxp• 15 years ago

Unless that is your M.O. and it has consistently worked for you.

Sindisil• 15 years ago

Oh, for the love of Pete.

I use namecheap for all my domains, but this sort of pandering crap may well be enough for me to transfer everything elsewhere. Don't know if I'm willing to use godaddy or not, but I must may.

gk1• 15 years ago

Actual "live chat" with Namecheap's support:

Gregory: Hey Asia

Asia K.: Hello Gregory, you've contacted Live Support! How can I help you today?

Gregory: I heard you have a discount for people wanting to transfer domains from the scumbags at GoDaddy. Is this true?

Gregory: ...

Gregory: Wake up.

Gregory: ... Nevermind. With "support" like this, I don't think I want to use Namecheap.

No thanks.

getpost• 15 years ago

CEO Bob Parsons' sickening behavior is reason enough to quit Godaddy, but by coincidence, I'd already decided to transfer my domains to Namecheap. Here's why 1) Godaddy's domain admin web site in almost un-navigable. Beyond being an awkward design, the site makes it difficult to avoid purchasing add-ons I do not want, 2) Godaddy's grossly sexist advertising, 3) namecheap is cheaper, even without this promotion, 4) namecheap has more features (e.g., mail forwarding) included in the basic fee, 5) Goddaddy robocalls me. It's possible to opt out of robocalling now, but that doesn't make up for all the robocalls in the past.

Done. Checkout on namecheap is slow. I wonder if they are getting a lot of new customers.

I feel sorry for Bob Parsons being so ignorant. Of course, I am ignorant too. May everyone become less ignorant.

GoDaddy competitor offers discounted domain transfers to save elephants

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