GoDaddy supports SOPA, redditor proposes "Move your Domain Day"

http://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/nmnie/godaddy_supports_sopa_im_transferring_51_domains/

by duiker101 • 15 years ago

1121 243 15 years ago

citricsquid4• 15 years ago

To put it frankly, godaddy don't give a shit. Their domain business exists as a way to get people into their other products, hosting, whois privacy etc. the ones that actually make money (nobody makes money on domains nowadays, savvy customers use coupons which godaddy provides a lot of). This won't do anything to Godaddy as a business, they'll be losing customers they don't care about -- unless people shutting off their other services too -- but if it makes people feel good then yay! This would be like walmart losing customers who do extreme couponing and only buy the products that serve as loss leaders.

You could go as far as suggesting these people are helping godaddy. If you take away 120 domains (as one redditor is doing) that godaddy are losing money on and you're only using them because they're cheap... that's a win for godaddy surely, unless the scale at which people do this makes a dent in godaddy's total customer/domain figures, which are a marketing point, but that would require millions to leave.

ohashi2• 15 years ago

Even with their extreme coupon usage, from what I can tell they are still not using them as loss leaders (if we ignore all costs besides registry/icann).

You also neglect to see the effect of thousands or tens of thousands of savvy people actively changing their mind about a company and NOT recommending it to people or bad mouthing the company. My suspicion is, the kind of people reading HN/Reddit are also the type of people that get asked 'computery' stuff quite a bit. I know from personal experience I've probably influenced ~30-50 people's registrar choice this year. Even if it were 1-2 as the average number, the knock on effects could potentially put a nice dent in them.

shimon_e3• 15 years ago

I'm sure they are lossing money when you use a coupon to get the domain down to $1.18.

citricsquid4• 15 years ago

Not sure what prices you're paying with godaddy, but the absolute base cost (assuming godaddy don't have deals with verisign) is $7.52. If I go to the godaddy site now I can register a new domain for $5.02 (current converted) and I don't believe I have ever paid over $7.99 for a domain at godaddy, most of the time I get it below $7. They also routinely do ($1 + $0.18 ICANN fee) domains as others have mentioned

redthrowaway2• 15 years ago

>You also neglect to see the effect of thousands or tens of thousands of savvy people actively changing their mind about a company and NOT recommending it to people or bad mouthing the company

Savvy people have been badmouthing GoDaddy for years. Being recommended by the technorati simply isn't a part of GoDaddy's business model.

Here in Vancouver, there's a plumbing company called Milani. They hire bad plumbers, don't train them, and pay them poorly. They do shoddy work. Every other plumbing firm knows not to hire plumbers who used to work for Milani, and gets a significant amount of business going back to Milani sites to fix their mistakes. But, Milani takes out a full page ad on the front cover of the Yellow Pages. They advertise on bus stops and billboards. Milani spends more on advertising than the next 5 companies combined. When the average, uninformed person needs a plumber, they think of Milani. That's their business model.

GoDaddy is the Milani of registrars. They quite simply don't give a fuck whether they have a service worth recommending; they spend enough on advertising that they'll always have customers regardless.

jeremyarussell• 15 years ago

-> My suspicion is, the kind of people reading HN/Reddit are also the type of people that get asked 'computery' stuff quite a bit.

This happens to be correct for me, I'm a computer technician (to pay the bills) And I supervise several other technicians. I know for certain that no one will be recommended to go to godaddy if they come to us. And thought it's a local thing I can see it being reasonable that many of the same local shops like mine have employees that visit reddit and HN. It's obviously too early to tell but I think it's going to trickle down until they (godaddy) feels it.

gerggerg2• 15 years ago

These are horrible reasons to not stand up for what you think is right.

drzaiusapelord• 15 years ago

I'm skeptical of this claim. Registrars pay ICANN something like 7 cents a year per domain and they resell for $10+. That's a nice chunk of change there. Toss in SSL certs for at least that much, you're probably making decent money just on these alone. The hosting and other crap is just more services. I'd say low-end hosting is the loss leader here. Its a commodity industry.

I personally don't use them because I find their advertising extremely distasteful and find the UI to be worse than anything AOL has done in the 1990s.

citricsquid4• 15 years ago

Where are you getting that information? ICANN fee is $0.18 and then the registrars pay a cost for the domain to the company that oversees the TLD. For example, verisign oversee .com and they charge $7.34 per domain registration, so a registrar pays $0.18 + $7.34 as their base cost per .com registration.

CWuestefeld• 15 years ago

Their domain business exists as a way to get people into their other products, hosting, whois privacy etc.

Obviously I'll be moving not only my domain names, but the two hosting accounts as well.

I just spoke to them on the phone, to figure out how to unlock the DNS registration. The rep had never even heard of SOPA.

intenex3• 15 years ago

Strange logic. If they don't care about their domain business, why are they in it? Even if it's just a loss leader, you still care about the loss leader or you wouldn't continue running it.

The reason this thread is about domain transfers is because GoDaddy is at large known best as a domain registrar. If they were primarily a hosting company/etc., this thread would just as easily be about transferring your hosting/etc.

maeon3• 15 years ago

Ive been using bluehost.com for 3 years to host 3 websites. I could list them but I dont want to spam. They have everything I need and I have seen no significant outages or price increases.

Anyone here use Godaddy? How are their prices and service?

duiker101• 15 years ago

i use it for 2 domains, just because it was the cheapest at the time i bought the first domain, and since i had no problem i kept using it.

libraryatnight6• 15 years ago

I don't use any of their services except domain registration, I keep my WHOIS up to date, and keep my names regularly renewed, to avoid any mishaps, I have never had an issue.

I have used their hosting in the past, and I wouldn't recommend it to a professional, but would to someone who wants to post pictures of their cats, or run a low traffic personal wordpress blog.

realschool2• 15 years ago

ive used them for 6 years, never had a problem. vps for 2 years was comparably cheap however if you have config problems you pay out the wazoo OR figure it out yourself. The two times I was desperate enough to need to call support I figure out the problem myself while waiting on hold/waiting for a reply.

gravitronic2• 15 years ago

alternate: use godaddy, but only their loss-leading coupons when they appear.

For example, I registered a domain last week using a code that got me $1.00 domain registration.

The code expired last week unfortunately so posting it would be irrelevant.

libraryatnight6• 15 years ago

I always do a coupon search, or just take the code from whatever their lowest Google ad price is. Just google "domains" they're always the first ad for me, and it's usually 4.99, 5.99, or 7.99 at the absolute most. (For .coms)

shimon_e3• 15 years ago

Or if you follow a deal website, you'll be notified when they are running a $1.18 coupon.

jonursenbach• 15 years ago

Why even support them at all?

neutronicus• 15 years ago

S/he's saying you should only buy things on which you're pretty sure they're losing money, so that you're actively hurting them by buying them. It's like buying a PS3 and never buying any games - I suspect people buying PS3's by the truckload to use as Linux clusters is what made Sony pull the Linux support.

thebigshane• 15 years ago

The purpose of loss-leading products/services is to get consumers to purchase other things and that is where they make a profit. If a large enough group only purchases loss-leading products/services and don't purchase anything else, GoDaddy should be at a loss.... until they change their pricing models, and then you can just boycott them all together.

ceejayoz2• 15 years ago

Same thing's true for their SSL certificates. $12 if you Google, $60+ if you don't.

sunchild3• 15 years ago

Careful, they'll autorenew those at a much higher price. Mine went up to $100+ when it renewed last month. I'm kicking myself for being stuck with that cert, especially since the GoDaddy badge isn't exactly the mark of trustworthiness.

krogsgard• 15 years ago

I don't like GoDaddy any more than most others here, I'm sure. And I certainly hate the idea of SOPA. But don't a lot of big companies support it?

In a quick Google search, I found this post referencing support by the Business Software Alliance, which includes Microsoft, Apple, and many others: http://thenextweb.com/insider/2011/11/17/which-tech-companie...

hamedh• 15 years ago

yea but GoDaddy being a domain registrar and hosting DNS for many domains already is a bit more scary in this case

cdr2• 15 years ago

The BSA backed off SOPA support several weeks ago - the linked piece is from more than a month ago.

Its initial support did lead to a couple of firms quitting the BSA though, notably Kaspersky.

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2011/11/even-the-bus...

jeffem• 15 years ago

I was just going to ask the same. I've been thinking about moving away from GoDaddy for a while and this would be just another reason among many. I take it on a case by case basis whether I do business with a company, and I'll continue to do so with many that support SOPA (explicitly or implicitly) as much as I'm opposed to the bill.

There's that expression, "Don't hate the player, hate the game". In the same way that I'm not a fan of a basketball player flopping to draw a foul, I'm not a fan of a company supporting this bill. I totally understand why they do it, but it's not in the spirit of the game IMO.

The bigger problem is the way the game itself is set up. Most people think it's a good idea to hand over their power to a small group of people who get to make decisions for everyone. Businesses see this and figure out that they can realize the benefits of the larger group while only incurring the costs of catering to the smaller group.

l0c0b0x2• 15 years ago

Yet another reason to move away from GoDaddy. They're making it way too easy now!

freejack2• 15 years ago

This blog post from their lead lobbyist defending their support is absolutely grating.

http://rudysyndrome.com/2011/10/28/online-copyright-laws-won...

"Most of what we are seeing is either 1) rhetoric, 2) regurgitated lobbying spin, 3) criticism of language we have already fixed, or 4) retweets by people who like to steal music and buy fake, but cheap, goods."

Ugh.

(oBDisclaimer: I work for a registrar that unequivocally supports the Open Internet."

maximusprime5• 15 years ago

What does "Open Internet" mean though?

You can't reasonably support free speech in all instances, just like you can't reasonably support an "open internet" in all instances. There have to be some exceptions.

It's the listing of those exceptions and how you deal with them that's the tricky bit. So saying "I support an open internet" is just ignoring the issue.

praptak2• 15 years ago

> you can't reasonably support an "open internet" in all instances. There have to be some exceptions.

Why? I am fine with the internet not blocking anything at all, even though I accept limits on free speech.

To drag the "speech" analogy further, I can shout whatever I want and I'm ok with the fact that in some cases this can bring consequences.

revscat3• 15 years ago

My list of what should be legally restricted in its availability is as follows:

1) Child pornography

End list.

National security is not enough of a reason for restrictions. Copyright is not enough of a reason. Further, the assumption that corporations or governments have exclusive moral authority to determine what constitutes impermissible material is, frankly, ridiculous. Giving them the authority to make such decisions is destructive, to both freedom and economy.

InclinedPlane2• 15 years ago

At a minimum "open internet" means an internet that is not a constitution free zone.

fuzzylizard• 15 years ago

To me, Open Internet is the same as an open city. SOPA is like going into a city and shutting down a street corner because someone was heard quoting passages from a book or giving away pirated movies. It's ridiculous. Instead of closing down the website (the street corner) close down the people behind the site.

The US, instead of enacting laws that restrict movement, needs to put into place laws that make copyright infringement illegal. Oh wait, they already have them.

In short, go after the people not the domain. I want to be able to walk around the internet the same way I can walk around a city. If there are seedy places online then it is my choice to avoid them and not the governments right to simply declare them quarantined or off limits.

freejack2• 15 years ago

Its a networking issue, not a legal or political issue. Big Media has decided to go to the mat to defend their dying business model at the expense of the Open Internet by lobbying for legislation like this.

If you want to make the Internet safer, more secure, better for commerce, more accepting of DRM, whatever, then let's take that up as a technical discussion and figure out how to amend the infrastructure so that it continues to work. Hiving off slabs of address space and putting them under the control of national legislatures is the fastest and most direct way to ensure that the entire network stops working real quick.

nextparadigms4• 15 years ago

I know probably many people would agree with stopping "cheap fake goods", but can people really not distinguish between originals and fake products?

If anything I wouldn't be for a law that completely bans the cheaper versions of the original. I'd be for a law that only makes it illegal to say they are originals when they are not. But I would allow them to be sold in the market, as long as they state it's a "clone" product or something.

It might or might not hurt the big corporations (would the people buying the cheap clones really have the money to buy the expensive originals otherwise?), but I think it would be much better for the market overall

biot• 15 years ago

Many "fake" products are manufactured in the same factory with the same materials by the same workers who produce the genuine thing, only they do it during the night shift. Keep in mind that a $3000 designer purse is really just a $50 purse with a $2950 designer label.

didntdrinkjuice2• 15 years ago

In case anyone was suspicious, Nima Kelly (the author of the comment supporting Christine) is one of the GoDaddy legal department heads. Needless to say, she and Christine are quite familiar coworkers and friends.

RexRollman• 15 years ago

Godaddy has to be one of the least trustworthy domain registrars I have heard of and I am surprised that people still use them. I guess their crass commercials must be drawing in the customers.

atourgates• 15 years ago

When was the last time you saw a commercial during a football game for any other registrar?

Unless I've missed something, the answer's never. So, when Joe Public wants to register a domain, he only knows about one way to do it.

Seems like a pretty effective marketing strategy to me.

jsolson• 15 years ago

I've registered a few domains through Google Apps. At least the last time I did this GoDaddy was one of the places you might get randomly bounced to. It may have become the only place.

moocow01• 15 years ago

I would expect that SOPA on the whole would discourage domain registration and the general development of web properties amongst the masses so I'm a bit surprised GoDaddy supports it just from a business perspective.

Anyone care to enlighten me about what I'm missing here?

notahacker• 15 years ago

As I understand it SOPA results in a shift of the burden for policing content from registrars and hosts towards government bodies and the administrators of the DNS system. Alternatively-framed bills introduced in the name of combating piracy could have much more damaging implications for Godaddy.

maximusprime5• 15 years ago

Please can we at least try to ensure HN doesn't go the way of Reddit?

I'm against SOPA as much as the next guy, but it's a moot issue. Browsers will just release new versions that use alternate DNS systems or get past any 'blocks'.

There's nothing uglier than an internet hate/protest mob.

jbrechtel• 15 years ago

It sounds like you're suggesting apathy instead?

To say it's a moot issue because there are technical work arounds is pretty naive. I seriously doubt any major browser would ship with a work around to this...I don't know why you assume they would.

maximusprime5• 15 years ago

I just think the sky isn't falling that's all. I think the endless posting of articles, protesting, etc etc is a big waste of man hours.

sequoia• 15 years ago

A mob of unruly domain registrants? Not exactly Kristallnacht, if you ask me...

dextorious2• 15 years ago

"""I'm against SOPA as much as the next guy, but it's a moot issue. Browsers will just release new versions that use alternate DNS systems or get past any 'blocks'."""

I really can't stand this kind of stance.

Technical workarounds are NOT AN ANSWER to law/political problems.

At best, they are a kludge.

At worst, they get illegal, and some people end up in jail.

It's nice to have them, but only as a last refuge.

The number one priority is to have a sensible legal/political system, not to work around it.

mitchellhislop• 15 years ago

...except that would be illegal to do under SOPA

pyre2• 15 years ago

I'm pretty sure that (at least in one of.its iterations) Sopa made workarounds for the DNS issue illegal.

wes-exp2• 15 years ago

What's uglier than a protest mob?

A world without Youtube, Flickr, Etsy, and Vimeo. Plus the suppression of future innovative startups, all at the behest of dying media companies grasping for control.

If you think SOPA is a moot issue, you aren't paying attention.

bad_user• 15 years ago

On one cheap Linode VPS instance I already have 5 websites hosted, plus a personal email server, plus several private git repositories, all for ~ $20 per month. I get my domains from other services, like namecheap.com; and good/cheap hosting for PHP stuff (and even Rails) can be found on DreamHost.com.

There really isn't any reason for anybody to use GoDaddy anymore, unless you're hunting for their coupons, but in this instance you really get what you pay for.

libraryatnight6• 15 years ago

Right now I'm hosting with Chunkhost, it was their free beta period that got me off the crummy shared account I was on with GD. I could never go back, now.

evandena3• 15 years ago

And more often than not the coupons are good for the first year only, and transferring after that year (for me anyways) is a bigger PITA than the coupon savings offered.

georgieporgie2• 15 years ago

I've heard that GoDaddy is good if you want Windows-based hosting. (personally, I use DreamHost and love them)

sixQuarks• 15 years ago

I've been preaching about the evils of GoDaddy for many years now. The founder is a war-mongering, ultra right-wing POS.

dmerfield• 15 years ago

Serious question: Has anyone in the HN community actually bought anything from GoDaddy?

I find it difficult to imagine that any HN reader would. Was there ever an era when GoDaddy's reputation and service were respectable?

cdr2• 15 years ago

For years, yes - years ago they were cheaper than anyone else and no worse than anyone else. It wasn't until last summer, I think, that I finally moved the last domain off of GoDaddy.

If you find one of the not-infrequent "Which registrar do you use?" posts, even on HN a lot of people still use them.

jinushaun2• 15 years ago

You're forgetting the people and companies that bought domains back in the early 2000s who now have dozens or hundreds of domains on GoDaddy. People stay because it's easier than transferring. A lot of people still use them even for new domains because they're still the cheapest game in town.

absconditus• 15 years ago

You are giving the HN users too much credit.

sunchild3• 15 years ago

While I would never use them for domains, I did buy a $12 SSL cert back when everyone else was charging hundreds of dollars for the same thing. Before someone points me to a free SSL service, this was for an enterprise class application that was more about security theater than actual security. I was able to get away with GoDaddy instead of Verisign, etc. because my client used GoDaddy for their domains – go figure.

realschool2• 15 years ago

I signed up with GoDaddy 6 years ago and have been using them since, stuck with them because it was easy but I want to move my stuff to Canada cause I know its safer here.

devmach• 15 years ago

People makes mistakes. I bought some domains from GoDaddy. As they expire i'm transfering them to namecheap.

BrandonM• 15 years ago

You don't have to wait until they expire! Transferring adds another year to your current registration, and you don't lose anything at all, unless you bought hosting at GoDaddy.

For basic website hosting, I've been very happy with HostGator. For about $7 a month you get unlimited space, bandwidth, and domains. It takes care of DNS for your sites (just point your registrar nameserver information at HostGator's nameservers), has SSH access, provides unlimited MySQL databases, and has a pretty nice interface.

bodyfour• 15 years ago

I have a domain that's (shamefully) hosted on GoDaddy. Worse, I had the domain on a better registrar and I transferred it to godaddy.

I needed a registrar that was able to handle IPv6 glue records, which was rare at the time. (The TUCOWS-backed services only got this capability last month! Before that you had to email TUCOWS and have them manually add the AAAA records to your glue, which I didn't consider a solution.) For all their many flaws, GoDaddy was surprisingly ahead of the curve on IPv6 support.

I suppose by now some of the other registrars probably have gotten their act together. Anybody with experience running IPv6-hosted nameservers have recommendations?

keidian• 15 years ago

I believe name.com does ipv6 glue

georgieporgie2• 15 years ago

Yep. I registered my first domain with them about a decade ago. I've finally moved on to NearlyFreeSpeech.Net (don't really like their weird account funding thing, though) for a couple of new domains last year.

iamdave• 15 years ago

Move your Domain Day?

Something tells me the affiliates are about to have a very wonderful christmas.

tuananh• 15 years ago

Hover offers promo code for transferring too. 10% off http://twitter.com/#!/hover/status/149887742778683392

emehrkay2• 15 years ago

I have a few go daddy domains. Where should I move my .it domains to?

sunchild3• 15 years ago

Namecheap, if you can.

l0c0b0x2• 15 years ago

I'll second that!

emehrkay2• 15 years ago

Doesn't look like they have .it registration

justincormack• 15 years ago

Europeregistry is where I have my .eu, they also do .it

jeltz3• 15 years ago

We recently moved most of our domains from GoDaddy and various other registrars to Safenames. And vased on reading their list of support TLDs they do support .it.

What I like about Safenames is the simplicity of their user interface, not the huge number of clicks required by many of the other registrars. Simple text areas where you just can paste the list of domains or a DNS zome file for example.

seles• 15 years ago

I have been using GoDaddy for years. I'm just using it for a simple webpage+domain hosting and email. It works but I'm probably being overcharged since I don't bother with coupons. I have always been annoyed about the privacy complaints I've seen about them, but never cared enough to switch. Now I do care enough to switch, thanks.

ubuntuftw• 15 years ago

"I have always been annoyed about the privacy complaints I've seen about them, but never cared enough to switch. Now I do care enough to switch, thanks."

+1. GoDaddy, you lost a customer today.

jberryman• 15 years ago

Lots of people probably have recommendations, but I've been using nearlyfreespeech.net for a couple of years for hosting my personal site. They're great.

hobbes2• 15 years ago

They will be great when they finally allow their users to run cron jobs.

https://www.nearlyfreespeech.net/about/faq?&keywords=cro...

pardner• 15 years ago

If you decide to move your domains from Godaddy, and if your DNS is hosted there too, and if you have enough DNS records to not want to recreate them, there's an undocumented way to export the nameserver records from Godaddy to another DNS provider such as Zerigo. In a nutshell (1) upgrade to Godaddy Premium DNS ($35 but refundable within 5 days) (2) Export each domain's DNS settings (3) Cancel Godaddy Premium DNS. Now you can quickly import your DNS settings at your new registrar or DNS host if they handle importing of bind files. Not everyone imports nicely, but Zerigo worked for me. Details here http://pardner.com/2011/11/how-to-switch-dns-painlessly-from...

wes-exp2• 15 years ago

Any recommendations on alternative services?

X-Istence2• 15 years ago

I moved my personal 25+ domains away from GoDaddy to name.com and gandi.net. Best move I have ever done. I don't get shitty advertisements emailed to me anymore, I don't have to jump through hundreds of hoops to purchase renewals where I get bombarded with advertisements for various other services.

And name.com is a small company here in Colorado, so I am supporting local while I am at it.

unreal372• 15 years ago

I still find this funny. I used to work for a web incubator called NAME (and had the name.com domain) in 1999-2000 before they went out of business in the .com bust. I always thought they had a great domain name. Not surprised it was snapped up by a registrar.

lincolnwebs• 15 years ago

I already moved all my domains after their CEO's elephant hunting earlier this year. That company is a pit of depravity.

nextparadigms4• 15 years ago

I think going after the supporters of SOPA one by one is a pretty effective method, if enough time. First let's go after the representatives who support it, and then after all the companies, and either terminate your account with them if applicable or at least e-mail them to express your feelings about them supporting SOPA.

sp332• 15 years ago

Going after a few and making public examples of them might be effective faster than trying to take them down one-by-one.

spenvo• 15 years ago

For those interested in switching, Dreamhost offers an affiliate program, and I have created a discount code with the maximum discount of 5 free domain registrations (a 75$ value). Simply use the discount code REDDIT5FREE when joining!

"SCREW GODADDY" is on a loop in my head right now.

bronson2• 15 years ago

There's no need to move all your domains today (that can be a HUGE job). Just pledge to not give GoDaddy another cent and move your domains as they expire. In five years, problem solved.

libraryatnight6• 15 years ago

This what I'll likely end up doing, I only have, maybe, 60-70 names but that's a lot of money (for me) to move them all at once.

bronson2• 15 years ago

It works great. And it's a nice feeling every time you receive a GoDaddy email complaining that they were unable to charge your credit card.

ONLY 60-70??? Can you just abandon 2/3 of them...?

lambda• 15 years ago

Why is anyone who pays any attention still on GoDaddy anyhow?

They're a scummy company that have no respect for their customers, obnoxious advertising, and a clunky, annoying web interface. Why would you use them when you could use any of hundreds of other name registrars and web hosts?

danso• 15 years ago

I try to avoid helping anyone who needs help with their GoDaddy-hosted website. Not only is the interface atrocious (at least compared to DreamHost), I hate logging in and seeing Dana Patrick splayed out...if I want people around me thinking that I'm browsing Maxim magazine, I'll buy a Maxim magazine.

pg2• 15 years ago

Even if domains are just a loss leader for GoDaddy, they surely look at their numbers, so this is a way to send them a message they'll hear.

Maybe it will work, maybe it won't, but no one who still has a domain at GoDaddy will be entitled to complain about SOPA if it passes.

solipsist3• 15 years ago

While I understand your sentiments towards SOPA, are you really going to distance yourself from all of these companies?

http://judiciary.house.gov/issues/Rouge%20Websites/SOPA%20Su...

shmerl• 15 years ago

It's good to be distanced from this kind of crowd ;)

pg2• 15 years ago

Actually that's exactly what I thought when I saw the list yesterday. Several of those companies send people to Demo Day, and when I saw the list I thought: we should stop inviting them. So yes, we'll remove anyone from those companies from the Demo Day invite list.

unreal372• 15 years ago

That list would be a whole lot shorter if you removed the names of Law Firms. Why are they even on there? And the Congressional Fire Service supports SOPA? That's "stretching it" for supporters.

greyfade• 15 years ago

I'm sure going to try.

I only have dealings with GoDaddy and Comcast; and while I can't get away from Comcast, I'm going to do my damnedest to get away from GoDaddy.

dclowd9901• 15 years ago

So glad I'm only seeing Marvel Comics and not DC. I don't think I could give up my Vertigo graphic novels.

seanp2k2• 15 years ago

Yes, no problem. F*ck every last one of those companies. The only two that I still have no real choice but to support would be Comcast because of my local ISP monopoly (I can get 512K DSL from SBC [ATT] or 100mbit Comcast...not really what I'd call a "choice") and MasterCard because my credit union does not offer debit cards via AmEx.

mikeknoop• 15 years ago

What are the incentives for Visa and Mastercard to support SOPA?

zethraeus• 15 years ago

Hmm. last.fm's parent corp. CBS is on that list. I wonder what those guys think of the bill.

someone13• 15 years ago

I'm going to piggyback on your comment here, since it's at the top of the comment thread.

From the Reddit link:

"Name Cheap messaged me with a special discount code for reddit users: BYEBYEGD I'm not taking any positions i'm just reporting it. I asked him to give reddit users a better deal."

I'm not affiliated with NameCheap at all, but if you're going to move your domain, this might make things easier.

Shenglong• 15 years ago

Yeah I'm moving mine too. That, or code SOPASUCKS, I believe. Extends domain for another year so it's decently cheap.

tdfx• 15 years ago

I transferred my domains to NameCheap from GoDaddy during their last PR nightmare. I wish I had done it sooner. NameCheap's interface isn't the best in the world, but not having to use GoDaddy's site is worth more to me than 5x the transfer fees I paid. Plus the domain privacy option is bundled, meaning cheaper domain registrations ($11 for a .com vs. $17 at godaddy -- at least for the first year).

bobergstrom• 15 years ago

Name.com also has a rocking transfer special if you use the promocode "NoDaddy" as a response to their SOPA position.

Anechoic• 15 years ago

I've been seeing a lot of recommendations for NameCheap, but there is one thing that makes me hesitate: I get a staggering amount of spam from domains registered by NameCheap with the Whois info shielded by WhoisGuard. Yes, I've used their reporting tool to report spammers, but it still comes.

Is this about scammers flocking to NameCheap because it's, well, cheap? Or is NameCheap somehow marketing to spammers while trying to maintain plausible deniability? I'd be happy to consider moving my sites over to NameCheap, but I don't want to move from one evil registrar to another registrar.

amartya916• 15 years ago

I'd actually highly recommend iwantmyname.com - I found the whole process to be a breeze (transferred from Name Cheap to them actually :)).

Again, I am not affiliated to iwantmyname nor do I have ties other than my own domain being with them.

gerggerg2• 15 years ago

Along those lines. It seems pretty important to do what you think is right, even if it's effect on convincing others of your correctness seems negligible.

didntdrinkjuice2• 15 years ago

Employee here. GoDaddy does care very much about their registrar roots. The fact that we have over half of all registered domain names is a source of tremendous pride, and unlike the elephant scandal I'm willing to venture their registration will not go up because of this, namely because there doesn't seem to be any support of SOPA from consumers, educated or not. And Godaddy's users are decidedly less technologically educated, generally speaking.

larrys• 15 years ago

In the past godaddy has invited (and thrived) based on negative publicity as well as questionable sales practices. (Godaddy girls, exploitation of women, the elephant hunt as a few examples).

(Note: We are a competitor of godaddy.)

int3rnaut• 15 years ago

"but no one who still has a domain at GoDaddy will be entitled to complain about SOPA if it passes."

I was going to complain about this sentiment from someone not that rich and who can't afford the fanciest red polo shirts money can buy ha ha, but then I said forget it, for what it truly costs to move a domain it's far less then the cost on our liberties if SOPA passes, so I went outside shoveled a few driveways and earned enough money to move over the domains I have without cutting into my budget. There really isn't a reason for people not to do this.

DavidSJ• 15 years ago

pg, this makes me uncomfortable. While I strongly oppose SOPA, this seems like an attempt to intimidate people for expressing views we dislike.

Confusion• 15 years ago

If you care about who will be offended or who will feel intimidated, free speech is not for you. This is about putting your money where your mouth is.

Hexx• 15 years ago

If they lose money on domains we should all buy domains from them (and only domains).

frabcus• 15 years ago

This doesn't feel aggressive enough.

How about blocking any domain registered with GoDaddy from a certain date? Do it on DNS servers Hacker News techies control.

Extreme I know, but less extreme than what SOPA will do!

noomerikal• 15 years ago

I wish I could participate but I moved my domains to namecheap and pledged not to use gd when Parsons went on that elephant hunt.

kevinburke• 15 years ago

Just trasferred all of my domains out of Godaddy a few days ago into Namecheap. The timing couldn't have been better.

richtaur• 15 years ago

Here's a helpful article I used to move my domains off of GoDaddy:

http://www.namecheap.com/support/knowledgebase/article.aspx/...

mrcalzone• 15 years ago

I've been thinking of moving away from GoDaddy for a long time, and this was the last drop. It is crazy how they design the webpages to make it as hard as possible to cancel anything. In the email I got, there were two (identical) links telling me how I could cancel the transfer-request, but no link to accept it. It took me a couple of minutes of poking around in my account before I figured it out.

mindprince• 15 years ago

Doesn't Google have a partnership with GoDaddy for registering Google Apps domains? Conflict of interests?

zbuc• 15 years ago

I sent an email:

Hello,

I am writing to you to inform you that because of GoDaddy's continued support of SOPA I am transferring my domains to a different registrar as soon as I can(they were renewed recently so I have to wait).

I read your press release today and I felt that you didn't actually respond to a bulk of the criticism of SOPA, that is that takedown requests can be filed by private parties and the respondent is legally required to remove the content before even considering challenging the takedown request. This obviously presents a large challenge to sites based on user-created content.

A world with SOPA is one in which businesses can't run websites with user-generated content without having a legal team on hand.

SOPA is bad for the open internet and if GoDaddy refuses to look into the issue and actually give a reasoned, intelligent response(as opposed to the "well, we have to stop piracy!" argument your press release made -- yes, something should be done about piracy but SOPA is NOT the answer) then GoDaddy, too, must be considered bad for the open internet and I will stop hosting my domains with you and stop recommending my clients host domains with you.

Thanks,

<me>

clark-kent• 15 years ago

GoDaddy always rubbed me the wrong way. Their support of SOPA is about the 50th reason to stay away of GoDaddy.

plasma• 15 years ago

I've transferred about 10 domains from GoDaddy now, thanks for the step-by-step guide.

kenamarit• 15 years ago

Embarrassed to still be on Godaddy when I vowed to move away a few years ago. And timing is unfortunate. I just paid them lots of $$ to renew everything.

Still, biting the bullet and (finally) transferring everything over now.

tyrelb• 15 years ago

Transferring my domains to https://dnsimple.com/ :) A little more expensive than the cheap registrars... but Anthony who runs the company is amazing! Shameless plug: he did some development work from the back in the day, and is one of the best RoR programmers in the world!

intenex3• 15 years ago

And let's not forget: GoDaddy is evil to begin with. You're not just fighting SOPA, you're fighting the very forces of evil themselves.

MattBearman• 15 years ago

I thought it would be interesting to see how many domains are moved away because of this, so I just knocked together this quick site - http://stopsopa.mattbearman.co.uk/

It would be awesome if anyone who is transferring domains away from go daddy could add their to the list

stanmancan• 15 years ago

So... I know spams bad and all. But what about writing a crawler that sends a single email to the owner of every domain it finds hosted on GoDaddy? Just something that says "Incase you haven't heard, this is SOPA, this is what it means, GoDaddy supports it, this is how to switch if you decide to" type of thing. Sure, it's certainly in a grey area, but even if you could send out 10 million emails and 0.2% actually took action as a result, thats another 20,000 customers.

GoDaddy supports SOPA, redditor proposes "Move your Domain Day"

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