Godaddy No Longer Just Doesn’t Support But Actually “Opposes” SOPA

http://techcrunch.com/2011/12/29/burned-by-fleeing-customers-godaddy-no-longer-just-doesnt-support-but-actually-opposes-sopa/

by sethbannon • 15 years ago

111 48 15 years ago

techcrunch.com

iamandrus2• 15 years ago

It's too late for sorry, GoDaddy. Take your medicine.

sounds• 15 years ago

To anyone saying, "Hey, don't be vindictive! Don't we _want_ people to come around and be forgiven?"

I see it as the difference between what a politician says and what a politician does. (That metaphor is not really a stretch here.)

Saying, "We oppose SOPA," is not the same as opposing it.

GoDaddy participated in drafting the bills (SOPA, PROTECT-IP, and probably COICA and ACTA -- remember, GoDaddy is the de facto recipient of ICS/DHS seized domains).

GoDaddy laughed when their customers threatened a boycott.

Today is "transfer your domain away from GoDaddy day." And only today their PR says, "we oppose SOPA!"

If a politician says they'll bring home the troops* ... do you forgive them for the needless deaths when they say it? Or when they do it?

* I believe the USA has the best armed forces in the world, who then suffer the whims of both political parties shedding blood and treasure for pointless aims. Have we learned the lessons of Vietnam yet? I support the _troops_, but if you're not happy with my political metaphor, please use whichever political decision best fits for you.

iamandrus2• 15 years ago

Exactly. If we say we're going to boycott a company and don't do it because they claim to have changed, that makes us look stupid.

mquander• 15 years ago

Yeah, OK. Let me know when they OPPOSE making serious decisions that affect real people based on who needs the most sucking-up-to today.

michaelty• 15 years ago

In an email? Whatever.

drcoopster• 15 years ago

GoDaddy's prior SOPA support isn't the only reason why people are leaving them.

gte910h• 15 years ago

Many of GoDaddy's customers have wanted to leave for awhile. This was just the final straw.

Turing_Machine• 15 years ago

Right. I know I was only on there out of inertia. As hard as it might be to believe, at one time GoDaddy was the least evil registrar (note that "least evil" isn't the same as "good" :-). That changed, but it was still easier to keep registering new domains with them just to keep everything in one place. This SOPA crap, though... sorry, not going to forgive and forget on this one.

I don't think I'll make the boycott date 'cause I'm traveling at the moment and don't want to risk breaking anything while I'm away, but I will definitely be moving all of my domains when I return.

nextparadigms• 15 years ago

Things like these seem to happen to market leaders, who hear complains for years about certain stuff, but don't mind it because they aren't seeing their customers leaving in droves. But that doesn't mean it doesn't add to the growing frustration of their customers. They are only creating a ticking time bomb, and when they do eventually go over the top with something, that's when the bomb explodes, and then they wonder why there isn't anything they can do to stop the customer exodus.

The same has been happening with Facebook and their privacy issues. This year they finally got called out a little more on it, but probably not enough of their users left to take it too seriously. So when they will screw up in a major way again, they shouldn't be surprised if a lot of people walk away "all of the sudden".

scrrr• 15 years ago

About Facebook: There's probably no serious competitor for people to switch to (Google+ isn't quite there yet) and the majority of Facebook's users are not "techies" that care about SOPA. But yeah, who knows, in the future..

raldi• 15 years ago

The reporter from TechCrunch refers to GoDaddy's "new CEO Warren Adelman", but according to CrunchBase, he's been in that position for over two and a half years:

http://www.crunchbase.com/person/warren-adelman

oozcitak• 15 years ago

The page was edited a week ago. He appears to be COO before that:

http://www.crunchbase.com/person/warren-adelman/diff/12/13

Bobby_Tables• 15 years ago

I'll believe they "OPPOSE" SOPA when I see a commercial during SportsCenter with Danica Patrick talking about the evils of internet censorship and telling us to contact our Congresspeople.

dangrossman• 15 years ago

A couple minor edits to GoDaddy's first superbowl commercial and it could be repurposed as GoDaddy vs internet censorship instead of the original GoDaddy vs broadcast censorship.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0DQS8mqBYOM

dkl• 15 years ago

Opposes in current form. I don't believe they've changed their stance. It's just a ploy to get people to stop transferring domains.

crikli• 15 years ago

GoDaddy does not get that this isn't like the elephant thing or using moderately attractive B-listers to sell stuff.

Those things, while some find them objectionable, don't really reflect much about how they view their customers in relationship to their core business offerings, domain registration and hosting.

I've seen a few questions to the effect of, "Why do tech savvy people use GoDaddy."

I can't speak for everyone else, but I used them because the customer service people spoke good English, they were always helpful and polite, the services were cheap, and the DNS control panel was constantly improving (we only use them for domains, their hosting has always been crap).

But their support of SOPA made it now clear that not only will they happily toss me and my clients right under the bus, but they'll put their name on something that makes it easier for someone else to be the one doing the tossing.

sitkack2• 15 years ago

joker.com is awesome.

loupgarou21• 15 years ago

The DNS control panel was really my big reason for sticking with GoDaddy for a long time.

I gave namecheap's DNS control panel a shot. It's acceptable, but nowhere near as nice to use as GoDaddy's

Someone was suggesting 1and1 to me and I cringed at the thought of using theirs. 1and1 has about the worst UI I've ever seen.

If anyone can suggest a domain registrar with an excellent DNS control panel, I'd love to take a look at it.

viking• 15 years ago

I will believe that Godaddy is opposing the legislation when they demand that the exception for Godaddy is removed from the legislative text. An email is cheap, especially one stating that they don't like "the current form".

sixothree• 15 years ago

"Our company regrets the loss of any of our customers..."

At least it's honest.

kstenerud• 15 years ago

"Go Daddy opposes SOPA because the legislation has not fulfilled its basic requirement to build a consensus among stake-holders in the technology and Internet communities."

That's a pretty weak "opposition". Basically GoDaddy now "opposes" SOPA because of a "lack of consensus", not because they oppose what SOPA stands for.

This sounds a lot like "Wait! Come back! I promise I won't beat you anymore! I was drunk and things just got out of hand!"

zach• 15 years ago

Exactly — every GoDaddy "opposition" of SOPA seems like you could insert ", while we still think it's a great idea, " somewhere.

This is like one of those apologies where the miscreants "apologize if anyone was offended" or "are sorry that they were misunderstood" instead of admitting what they did was wrong.

api• 15 years ago

Translation: we are now backpedaling with egg all over our faces, and will get to drafting a new lobbyist-driven assault on the open Internet in secret. This time we'll try to help market it better.

FuzzyDunlop• 15 years ago

> “We have observed a spike in domain name transfers, which are running above normal rates and which we attribute to GoDaddy’s prior support for SOPA, which was reversed,” said Go Daddy CEO Warren Adelman.

Funnily enough, the people transferring domains made one decision, and most likely, will stick with it and be able to justify it.

And to think, there could have been a market niche for a pro-SOPA registrar. Imagine the features page for that.

akavi• 15 years ago

Namecheap has been pretty successful at capitalizing on GoDaddy's SOPA boneheadedness, I'd say.

csmt• 15 years ago

Moved my hosting service out of Godaddy. Next is to move my domain name as well.

shuri• 15 years ago

So what would you do if you were Godaddy? I say it would have to come from Daddy himself. He would have to say something to the effect of: Obviously we have mistepped here and we are taking it as a wake-up call. We are here because of our customers and in the future we will do all we can to listen to them and defend their interests and rights. Later actually do that.

motoford• 15 years ago

I don't see Bob Parsons doing that, at least not with any sort of sincerity.

npaquin• 15 years ago

Regardless of their SOPA stance, Godaddy needs to die. They have the Worst UI ever, the CEO is a piece of excrement, their logo so god-damned stupid (If I were an employee I'd be embarrassed to wear a shirt with that POS on it), and their adverts remind me of 1990's "going out of business" furniture ads. It's time for us to flush the waste out of the system.

Zirro• 15 years ago

"Our company regrets the loss of any of our customers, who remain our highest priority..."

If your customers had been your highest priority, you wouldn't be in this mess. I promise you that. How many of your customers asked you to draft and support a legislation which risks permanently damaging the Internet as we know it?

GoDaddy has served media-companies and politicians, and not their customers. And based on their weak "opposition", they are far from changing that today.

the-cakeboss• 15 years ago

>GoDaddy has served media-companies and politicians, and not their customers.

I don't understand this claim. Since the beginning of this whole fiasco, I've wondered exactly how SOPA would in any way benefit GoDaddy. But do you seriously believe their support of SOPA is from some special relationship with the recording industry? I don't see why that would be the case.

Joakal• 15 years ago

http://www.reddit.com/r/SOPA/comments/nnnfw/why_godaddy_supp...

jaylevitt• 15 years ago

The Silver Lake connection may explain some of it, but GoDaddy has historically had a Rambo philosophy towards any content they deemed objectionable. When I was working on a startup that would use trademark law to shutdown phishers, 409s, botnets, and fake pharma, GoDaddy was eager to play in that arena, and was considered a good friend to law enforcement in general.

There's a difference between

"If you want to see our server logs, you're gonna need a warrant!" and

"If you want to see our server logs, you're gonna need a warrant; the Eastern District has pretty fast turnround and they know the landcape. Just bring that warrant back over here, and we'll get you the data you need."

abraxasz• 15 years ago

I also read somewhere that GoDaddy (or as they put it, a group of websites of which GoDaddy is one) would be one of the websites exempt from censorship.

http://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/nocbt/under_the_cu...

I wonder if this still holds now that they "oppose" SOPA. If it does, then their opposition is nothing more than a joke..

JoshTriplett• 15 years ago

> "Our company regrets the loss of any of our customers, who remain our highest priority..."

That's probably the only true thing they've said here. They change their public face based entirely on what gets them customers. I don't want to do business with a company that changes their positions every time the wind changes.

daimyoyo• 15 years ago

Sorry godaddy. You supported this trash legislation and only changed your position once that support started costing you money. You've already committed the crime. Now you have to deal with the consequences.

wtvanhest• 15 years ago

If we really wanted to hurt SOPA we would continue transferring domains to make an example of the company. I will check my domains by Monday and transfer any I have with go daddy.

I'd reconsider if they used their Superbowl ad to oppose sopa based on its ridiculousness and explain why it is so bad for America and the world.

paulhauggis• 15 years ago

It's okay, the Internet mob that told everyone to leave Godaddy won't change their opinion.

ultramundane828• 15 years ago

In my eyes, this is yet another reason to avoid GoDaddy. I wouldn't invest alongside a known con artist, no matter how she tries to demonstrate her changed nature.

sitkack2• 15 years ago

Too late, too soon. Go kill more elephants.

jgeralnik• 15 years ago

So someone at Godaddy read a reddit comment about how Godaddy still doesn't oppose SOPA, and interpreted that as "Godaddy hasn't used the word oppose."

That is not the main issue. Using the word oppose does not change your position. Just as Godaddy's support of SOPA involved helping to write it, Godaddy's opposition of SOPA - to show that they actually oppose it - must involve active campaigning against the bill, and working towards making it fail.

dasil003• 15 years ago

I don't want them to oppose SOPA legitimately because that will make it harder to hate them unequivocally.

brudgers• 15 years ago

Why should I give a shit about Godaddy?

Godaddy doesn't have a vote in congress.

Anyone who wants to impact the companies actually responsible for the legislation with their consumer choices should stop buying Disney videos for their princesses, Nike's for the little jock, and Vitton for their spouse.

And of course cancel their cable/sattelite TV along with their iTunes account, stop going to the movies, professional sporting events, and forgo all branded electronics.

maeon3• 15 years ago

I oppose my own plan to break into my friends houses and install noise cancelling censorship devices (for my own profit) because there is a lack of consensus.

Well, they are getting warmer at least. I get the feeling that the only thing they are sorry about is that they got caught with helping the government censor the Web to increase profits. I expect more sopa legislation more cleverly hidden in the future from Godaddy.

Its easy to do Godaddy. One sentence: "censorship of the internet is wrong". They wont admit that though.

Godaddy No Longer Just Doesn’t Support But Actually “Opposes” SOPA

Related Stories