Gone Daddy Gone

December 23, 2011 12:07 AM

As triggered by a post on reddit explaining GoDaddy's support over the controversial SOPA bill, web techies everywhere have started their "internet walk of shame", finally finding the final reason to ditch the popular domain registrar. Others have tried to start a boycott over use of services. It's not the first time they've shaken up issues online.
posted by xtine (104 comments total)

people should leave godaddy because they're a shitty host.
posted by nadawi at 12:17 AM on December 23, 2011 [23 favorites]

Just one more reason not to use them, in a whole, long list of reasons why.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 12:22 AM on December 23, 2011 [3 favorites]

StackOverflow, Cheezburger and a handful of other big sites have walked.

It is not just GoDaddy, here is a list of SOPA supporters
posted by Ad hominem at 12:26 AM on December 23, 2011 [7 favorites]

Virtual world's protests and barriers now beginning to reflect the real
posted by infini at 12:28 AM on December 23, 2011

Oh, here is a step by step guide to transfer domains from GoDaddy.
posted by Ad hominem at 12:28 AM on December 23, 2011 [4 favorites]

I'm not sure about this, guys. Without GoDaddy where am I supposed to get my tits&ass when buying domains and hosting services? Really worried now :|
posted by Foci for Analysis at 12:33 AM on December 23, 2011 [4 favorites]

re: the Step-by-Step Guide to Transfer Domains Out Of GoDaddy – I'd make sure your email info is up to date on each domain first, just in case you have deal with any problems. If the domain is associated with an email you no longer have access to, you could have trouble.

Anyway, I managed to get my few old domains (I started using alternative registrars years ago when Go Daddy pulled some ridiculously deceitful billing shit) transferred completely in a few hours the last time Parsons creeped me out so much that he was able to singlehandedly wrestle my superhuman procrastination to the ground and kill it with a quick shot to the head. It was merciful, really.

I never turned off or filtered emails from Go Daddy after that, because I'm so completely delighted every time I get a we-miss-you-come-back-special-offer notification from them. It reminds me that I don't have any domains there any more, and that always cheers me up a lot.
posted by taz at 12:44 AM on December 23, 2011 [17 favorites]

I am always intrigued by their sexist advertising, until I remember there's better stuff out there.
posted by KokuRyu at 12:44 AM on December 23, 2011 [1 favorite]

Ad hominem: "It is not just GoDaddy, here is a list of SOPA supporters"

It's interesting to note that GoDaddy appears to be the only primarily internet- or technology-focused company on the list. Besides Comcast I guess, but "Comcast/NBCUniversal" negates that a bit.
posted by vanar sena at 12:45 AM on December 23, 2011

LolCat Kingpin May Pull 1,000+ Domains from GoDaddy in SOPA Protest
posted by homunculus at 12:52 AM on December 23, 2011 [1 favorite]

Yeah, they have a statement. It is not obvious to me why they would support it from a business perspective. Everyone else makes sense, media companies who worry about piracy and companies in industries where knockoffs are a problem (SOPA is supposed to protect us from Mexican Viagra and knockoff purses as well). If I was on the GoDaddy board I might be asking for a compelling business reason why we should continue to support SOPA.
posted by Ad hominem at 1:04 AM on December 23, 2011 [1 favorite]

Also: SOPA supporting companies no longer welcome at YC Demo Day.
posted by Lorin at 1:08 AM on December 23, 2011 [5 favorites]

It is not obvious to me why they would support it from a business perspective.

SOPA aims to block DNS records for alleged copyright offenders. So anyone that is blocked is likely to just spin up another domain name - hence another potential customer for GoDaddy.
posted by xtine at 1:10 AM on December 23, 2011 [9 favorites]

Ok, makes sense. Make money churning short lived domains. Better to have someone pay $19.95 and stay for a month than have someone pay the same and stay for a year.
posted by Ad hominem at 1:16 AM on December 23, 2011 [1 favorite]

Well, I have gotten things set up, I hope, to be ready to end run around SOPA if it passes. In the mean time, I have been trying ever so hard to use what little influence I may have to get people against it.

I understand the reasoning behind the bill and appreciate the motivation. What I cannot get behind is the heavy-handed, ill advised, and basically for sale way the government conducts these matters.
posted by Samizdata at 1:18 AM on December 23, 2011

So, I presume the people moving away now are those that said "Well, torture is fine, but you threaten my torrents at your peril!"
posted by pompomtom at 1:18 AM on December 23, 2011 [1 favorite]

Everyone else makes sense, media companies who worry about piracy and companies in industries where knockoffs are a problem (SOPA is supposed to protect us from Mexican Viagra and knockoff purses as well).

The International Brotherhood of Teamsters???
posted by Jimbob at 1:24 AM on December 23, 2011

Jimbob: "Everyone else makes sense, media companies who worry about piracy and companies in industries where knockoffs are a problem (SOPA is supposed to protect us from Mexican Viagra and knockoff purses as well).

The International Brotherhood of Teamsters???"

Well, they want to get paid Teamster wages, and neither sweatshop clone makers nor pissed off due to lack of support major companies want to pay those rates.
posted by Samizdata at 1:28 AM on December 23, 2011

Pompomtom: That, or we didn't happen to be following their website because why would we?

That just makes me all the happier I have now stopped giving them business.
posted by flaterik at 1:29 AM on December 23, 2011

It is not obvious to me why they would support it from a business perspective.

Well, boy-howdy, if you're a good upstanding Amuurican Patriot DNS company who better to be handed the root domains if those fucking commie faggots who run them now don't play ball?

Seriously, I wouldn't be surprised, if the reason isn't some variant on hippie-punching, if the end-game looks something like GoDaddy getting a bunch of power and control over the DNS currently vested in others, as payoff.
posted by rodgerd at 1:35 AM on December 23, 2011 [1 favorite]

Lifehacker has posted a short list of anti-SOPA registrars offering a discount for switching right now. Personally, I've used Dreamhost for nearly a decade. They had some problems early on, but I've not seen an outage for at least five years. Here is their statement of opposition to SOPA.

Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon has promised to fight SOPA, including filibustering whatever version comes before the Senate. You can go to stopcensorship.org and add your name to a list of people against SOPA, which Wyden has agreed to read aloud as part of his filibuster.

Wyden is also co-sponsoring theOPEN Act, an alternative that focuses on foreign sites and requires due process before shutdown or seizure.
posted by Zimboe Metamonkey at 1:47 AM on December 23, 2011 [6 favorites]

Ben Huh of Cheezburger.com will be pulling over 1k domains if GoDaddy doesn't change it's position.

I actually have some domains with them I was too lazy to pull in the weak of the Gitmo thing, which he did walk back. I think I may move my stuff this time.
posted by delmoi at 1:52 AM on December 23, 2011

OK, working on this now. I hadn't heard alot of the bad stuff about Go Daddy, but this thread provides plenty of background. I have to switch hosting AND my name registration. I'm using Joomla. Will this be as simple as copying stuff from one server to another, and then restoring the SQL tables from a backup? Or is there a better way to do it?
posted by Philosopher Dirtbike at 1:56 AM on December 23, 2011

Wyden is also co-sponsoring theOPEN Act, an alternative that focuses on foreign sites and requires due process before shutdown or seizure.

From reading the text, the mechanism seems to be financial embargo of any payment processing or advertising for that domain, by U.S. companies. So essentially they would get the wikileaks treatment, I think. Although I'm not sure if the law would require the denial of payment processing for foreign users. Would people in, for example, Sweden still be able to use their Visa card to donate to the pirate bay? Or buy knockoff Louis Vuitton bags?

For going after ad-supported sites (like the piratebay), I don't see how it can work, so long as Americans can purchase ads on foreign ad networks, there will still be able to make money off u.s. traffic.

But, fortunately this will not actually take the sites off the internet, at least not while it can afford hosting. (based on my skimming the doc)
posted by delmoi at 2:03 AM on December 23, 2011

I've just graduated to Webfaction from GoDaddy after advice in an Ask Mefi question. Oh what a wonderful suggestion. The people at Webfaction are so incredibly helpful, and patiently walked me through a few complicated procedures (complicated to me, at least) . Not only did they do this kindly, they generally responded to my brief flood of questions within 30 mins or less.

My interactions with GoDaddy have usually been quite dismal. For one, they promise to respond within 24 hours which is not great. Then, they frequently just send you a formulaic response without any real information which requires a follow-up question. And, I am convinced that their control panel/user interface is designed to be as confusing as possible so that you don't try to change things around (like turn off auto-renew hosting, for example). Ugh, so glad to be rid of them.
posted by a womble is an active kind of sloth at 2:56 AM on December 23, 2011 [2 favorites]

Namecheap won't accept incoming transfers of my .de domains. Now I remember, that's exactly what happened when I tried to leave GoDaddy over the elephant thing. Can anyone recommend a registrar who accepts .de transfers? Thx.
posted by muckster at 3:18 AM on December 23, 2011

Philosopher Dirtbike, usually migrating the files and database will do. Joomla might also have an import/export/backup tool that facilitates this.
posted by Foci for Analysis at 3:19 AM on December 23, 2011

muckster, Gandi supports .de but it will cost you $15. Gandi has a very good reputation and a good domain management tool with full dns support. I've been using them for a couple of months and the costs is the main reason why I don't transfer all of my domains to them.
posted by Foci for Analysis at 3:23 AM on December 23, 2011

Thanks Foci, but 12 Euros per domain is a bit much. Maybe I'll see if I can find a reputable German registrar to move the .de domains to and go with namecheap for the rest. Oof. Really wishing GoDaddy weren't such jerks.
posted by muckster at 3:51 AM on December 23, 2011

Why the hell does Pfizer support SOPA?
posted by Effigy2000 at 4:07 AM on December 23, 2011

> Why the hell does Pfizer support SOPA?

Online "pharmacies" are quite a headache for Pfizer.
posted by adamt at 4:19 AM on December 23, 2011 [3 favorites]

Muckster - Moniker used to take .de transfers for less than $10. That's before they sold to Oversee but it might be worth looking into.
posted by phoenixphoenix at 4:25 AM on December 23, 2011

Daddy, daddy, you bastard, I'm through.
posted by gwint at 4:51 AM on December 23, 2011 [8 favorites]

I guess two ethical registrars are better than one shitty one -- moved my .coms to Namecheap and the .de domains to domainfactory (df.de). Whew. I feel better already.
posted by muckster at 4:57 AM on December 23, 2011

It's admirable that people would be willing to go through the total hassle that is moving a website -- especially when it has db hooks and other features like that. I used to think that protests like this don't really amount to very much, but 2011 saw the reversal of the big banks on those nasty ATM surcharges when people squawked loudly enough, so here's to the hope that Godaddy (an detestable company no matter what their stand on SOPA is) feels the pinch.
posted by crunchland at 5:00 AM on December 23, 2011

And, I am convinced that their control panel/user interface is designed to be as confusing as possible so that you don't try to change things around (like turn off auto-renew hosting, for example). Ugh, so glad to be rid of them.

Yes, this.

My limited interaction with Godaddy consisted of sitting down with a friend in 2005 or 2006 and trying to help her transfer her hosting to another company. After an hour or so of intense frustration, I cried uncle and gave up. I had seen perhaps a dozen different control panels from different companies and what I was trying to do could be accomplished in perhaps 5 minutes or less in all of them.

I've repressed all of the gory details, but my burning contempt for their obvious ploy to retain customers never left.
posted by jeremias at 5:10 AM on December 23, 2011

I think the U.I is as bad as it is mainly because they are just too lazy to fix it. If all you want to do is occasionally update some IP addresses, it's not that terrible. The worst thing about it, though is how slow it is.

Also, remember that SOPA goes after more then just digital copyright, but also any website selling knockoffs.
posted by delmoi at 5:23 AM on December 23, 2011

Oh what a f**king headache -- df.de doesn't accept the GoDaddy AuthInfo because it's not registered at DENIC -- but they'd be happy to sell this service for me for a cheap one time fee of 11 Euro per domain! Not sure this was worth my entire day.
posted by muckster at 5:23 AM on December 23, 2011

I am taking my domains off of GoDaddy over to Namecheap. Namecheap provides you with a whole host of how-to files for many major registrars and the process of transferring filenames.

GoDaddy has a "domain locking" feature where you can prevent any transfer attempts. Good enough.

What Namecheap's how-to explains, and which probably would have stumped me, is you have to select the domains, select LOCKING DOMAINS, and then unclick the only selection on the window, "Lock Domains", to get it to unlock the domains.

Either you can be the asshole and admire how intentionally confusing this is, or you can realize that a company that has to work that fucking hard to confuse you must really have an issue with people wanting to leave.

There's a billion examples of this on there and I had joined them back in 2003, when it was just that they were hells-a-poppin' cheap compared to Network Solutions, who themselves had broken DNS (via their default-to-us-if-the-domain-isn't-around trick) for greed, that GoDaddy seemed like a win-win.

To be honest, I was if not fine, indifferent to the offensive-ads and yay-I-killed-an-elephant and let's-drape-women-on-this approach - I figured that was their gimmick, trying to be the Hustler of domain registrars. But SOPA and PROTECTIP fly totally in the face of that - they restrict free speech and make life such a living hell for anyone allowing user-contributed content, that no sane registrar would want a part of that, especially the "ha ha, women have boobs, buy our dns over by this shot elephant" people.

So, assholes, AND hypocrites AND well here I go to Namespace. See ya, Bob.
posted by jscott at 5:25 AM on December 23, 2011 [6 favorites]

It is not obvious to me why they would support it from a business perspective.

Not everyone cares as much about SOPA as reading the internet would lead you to believe. My interactions with non-techies on the topic have elicited either shrugs or tepid support for the basic idea that "the government should be able to seize bad websites."

GoDaddy's customers aren't startups and open internet advocates -- they are domain speculators, SEO guys, bloggers, and bored salarymen dreaming of starting the next Facebook. This is not going to hurt them in the least -- unfortunately.
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 5:50 AM on December 23, 2011

muckster: As phoenix^2 mentioned https://www.moniker.com/ seem to do .de transfers at $8.40 a shot. No idea if there's going to be the same problems with the auth code.

Their support seemed OK the one time (actually payment rather than tech related, even though I had a couple of hundred domains with them at the time) I actually had to use it.
posted by titus-g at 5:56 AM on December 23, 2011

There are various anti-GoDaddy discount transfer and hosting deals listed by lifehacker. DreamHost offers your first registration free. Coupon code "NOTOSOPA", and maybe "switch2nc" or "SOPAsucks".

GoDaddy shut down Cosmic Book News for discussing/linking a leaked trailer.
posted by jeffburdges at 6:47 AM on December 23, 2011 [3 favorites]

There's a billion examples of this on there and I had joined them back in 2003, when it was just that they were hells-a-poppin' cheap compared to Network Solutions, who themselves had broken DNS (via their default-to-us-if-the-domain-isn't-around trick) for greed, that GoDaddy seemed like a win-win.

I still have a couple domains at register.com that I need to move somewhere else. The worst part is that I never even log onto it, so I usually renew the domains for a long time so I don't lose them. Which makes me log on even less. I ended up losing a domain that way, one that had hosted a somewhat popular website for a while, one that I thought would be fun to re-start at some point in the future.

It's not just lazyness, that's keeping me from moving. I'm also worried that something might happen to the domains, if something gets screwed up. But yeah, I need to get over it.

bored salarymen dreaming of starting the next Facebook.

Hahah, true. My domain list is mostly detritus from thinking up some awesome idea that mostly never really got any farther then then buying the domain name.

---

By the way, are there any domain name registrars that have an API for managing domains, the way you can use AWS to manage virtual machines and file hosting? Seems like it could be useful.
posted by delmoi at 6:48 AM on December 23, 2011 [1 favorite]

I've used DynDNS for my names for as long as they've offered the service; I thought it was an appropriate way to pay them back for their free DNS names service they provided to the net at large.

I find SOPA as the straw that broke the camel's back to be an odd one when it comes to GoDaddy. They and their head honcho have been so repulsive and unpleasant for so long I just assumed anyone still doing business with them were immune to good taste or would forgive anything for the right discount.
posted by phearlez at 6:56 AM on December 23, 2011 [2 favorites]

How SOPA's 'circumvention' ban could put a target on Tor
posted by jeffburdges at 7:08 AM on December 23, 2011

I transferred all my domains to Namecheap last night. It took a while, but was worth it. I'd been meaning to get away from GoDaddy for a while, but the SOPA shit was the last straw.
posted by bashos_frog at 7:17 AM on December 23, 2011

I've used DynDNS for my names for as long as they've offered the service;

Dyn for reals...
posted by mikelieman at 7:34 AM on December 23, 2011

I can't even look at my Danica Patrick posters anymore.
posted by I'm Doing the Dishes at 7:49 AM on December 23, 2011 [1 favorite]

It's really interesting that this took a month to catch fire. November 15th blog post

Does anyone know what started it?
posted by smackfu at 8:09 AM on December 23, 2011

And personally, I think all this noise about GoDaddy is a huge distraction from putting pressure on the actual legislatures. If GoDaddy turns around and changes their position... who cares?
posted by smackfu at 8:10 AM on December 23, 2011

Whenever I would see any mention of GoDaddy, it made me feel vaguely uncomfortable about the one remaining domain I still had registered there, but I never got around to doing anything about it. This is just the catalyst I needed to make me finally transfer to another registrar.
posted by lovermont at 8:17 AM on December 23, 2011

May I gloat about having my 'last straw' moment with GoDaddy over five years ago? Even then, it was obvious that to them, "Customer Service" was a synonym for "Upsell". One of the sleaziest entities on the Web, and that's saying something! And considering how it seems to market itself to other Web Sleazes, this may be a bigger hit on them than most of their multitude of PR disasters. I noticed uberblogger Dave Winer finally fled the Daddy's grasp only a couple months ago; anything that makes me feel superior to Winer is nice.
posted by oneswellfoop at 8:21 AM on December 23, 2011 [1 favorite]

I knew GoDaddy was scummy, but I am also very lazy. All these on-line tutorials that have popped up showing step-by-step instructions on how to transfer have provided me with the kick in the pants that I needed to finally move my domain. So thanks, Internet Outrage!
posted by Aznable at 8:30 AM on December 23, 2011 [1 favorite]

I'd imagine the fact that legislators didn't drop the ball after the initial outcry motivates this, smackfu.

As I noted before, we could potentially defeat Austin TX rep. Lamar Smith, SOPA's biggest champion in the house, in 2012. Austin student organizations could organize for a campaign against "Lamar Smith's Attack on the Internet" or whatever.

I don't know if Patrick Leahy, SOPA's chief proponent in the senate, could be defeated, probably worth trying anyways.
posted by jeffburdges at 8:33 AM on December 23, 2011

I haven't been following this closely, but I have given regularly to Patrick Leahy over the years. So I just wrote his office and told them to take me off his email list and never expect another check from me.
posted by spitbull at 8:38 AM on December 23, 2011 [3 favorites]

Protect IP act senate cosponsors

Including Al Franken, Diane Feinstein, and 38 others who damn well oughta know better.
posted by jenkinsEar at 10:21 AM on December 23, 2011 [2 favorites]

12 Euros per domain is a bit much.

While Gandi is definitely more expensive than the most competitively priced tier of the market, it ends out coming to few coffees or sodas per year. In return, you're buying from an organization that explicitly supports the EFF, a bunch of open source project, and was one of the first registrars to explicitly affirm that you own your domain name (not the registrar) and they're an agent acting on your behalf.

And I have to say it's almost always been a smooth, really low hassle experience to work with them. On the rare occasion over the last 11 years when I've had to contact support, the time difference and some rough English skills (much better than my French, though!) have been the only bumpy aspect of support, and even with those communication obstacles, it's been pretty good.

I've been really happy with them as my registrar of choice for my most important domains.
posted by weston at 10:26 AM on December 23, 2011 [3 favorites]

I had to leave GoDaddy a couple of years ago because…well they’re sleazy and weird, but it was also too embarrassing when someone asked and I had to say they were my host. I didn’t even know about the torture comments. I had read rumors that GoDaddy was forcing people out of their domain names so they could sell them to someone else for more.

I had no trouble switching to Hostgator, it was really simple, but I have a simple website. While I was at it I split my domain registration to 2 different European companies (Gandi and DomainDiscount24) so as not to have all my eggs in one basket.
posted by bongo_x at 10:31 AM on December 23, 2011

Why the hell does Pfizer support SOPA?

Because anything that will stop US drug buyers from getting drugs at international prices is probably worth a shot.
posted by rodgerd at 10:48 AM on December 23, 2011

As ethically and aesthetically distasteful as I find GoDaddy, can I ask why they're being singled out for this boycott? There are plenty of other companies on that list, many of who've done far worse things in the past. Is it simply because it's easy to boycott GoDaddy, but not - for example - Visa and MasterCard, or News Corp?
posted by vanar sena at 11:03 AM on December 23, 2011

GoDaddy captitulates

Targeting GoDaddy made a ton of sense, because they were a well-known internet company, and the primary argument against SOPA is that it harms the Internet. When there's debate within an industry, then the industry is a far less effective advocate. Plus, it's where those who oppose SOPA have the most power. Boycotting Vias, MasterCard, or News Corp. would be laughably ineffective. The GoDaddy boycott is far more effective.
posted by Llama-Lime at 11:13 AM on December 23, 2011 [5 favorites]

GoDaddy captitulatesGoDaddy captitulates

Wow. I guess I'm happy to eat my former cynical words :) Way to go, Internet!
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 11:16 AM on December 23, 2011

Is it simply because it's easy to boycott GoDaddy, but not - for example - Visa and MasterCard, or News Corp?

Plus companies were willing to say "I will take my domains from GoDaddy" but not "I will stop taking Visa", so it felt like it was a meaningful action, as opposed to the actual complaints to Congress.
posted by smackfu at 11:16 AM on December 23, 2011

Dianne Feinstein co-sponsored Protect IP? Ugh. Way to sell out all of silicon valley. I just wrote her a letter, not that it will do much.

And yeah fuck GoDaddy. I wish cheezburger dude didn't just threaten, but actually pulled. I know it's a lot of work, 1k domains, but really, fuck GoDaddy. Would've had the same effect wrt capitulation, AND they'd be out 1k domains.
posted by danny the boy at 11:26 AM on December 23, 2011

In this age, phoning or writing your congressperson is not a very meaningful action.

... We've got to educate activists on how to more effectively send their voice to Washington, and we've got to educate Washington on how to more effectively hear those voices.

[Photo of unreadable defense-contractor schlop software]

So ask yourself: does this look like the kind of software that you'd want to use to hear from your 717,000 constituents? Sure, it's a CRM, and not a lot of CRM's look "great to use" but this one, clearly belongs on Daring Fireball's User Interface of the Week not just for its patently bad interface but also for the harm its doing to democracy. --Dear Internet: It's No Longer OK to Not Know How Congress Works

posted by Llama-Lime at 11:27 AM on December 23, 2011 [1 favorite]

But that's not to say that I don't still do it... There's just got to be some better way for representative democracy to work when a congress person is representing hundreds of thousands of people.
posted by Llama-Lime at 11:29 AM on December 23, 2011

How about a a PAC that encourages votes for the congresscritters' primary challengers? I'd shovel some money into that.
posted by mullingitover at 11:33 AM on December 23, 2011 [2 favorites]

I hope the capitulation is seen as too little, too late.

Yeah.. I would like to see that capitulation in memo form sent to the Attorney General ...
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 11:33 AM on December 23, 2011

Yesterday they were doubling down on their SOPA support. If it weren't for that, I *might* be able to suspend disbelief and attribute some kind of heart-grew-one-if-not-three-sizes transformation.

As it is, I just think today maybe they realized they have something to lose by continuing that path. But they're still the same company that they were yesterday, still managed by the people who thought this was a good idea they had something to gain from yesterday, and probably still think so... just not a good idea to say so in public.

And they probably realize their *public* support isn't crucial to passing something SOPA-like. It probably helped, in that it boosts the perception that there are tech/internet companies "on both sides" of SOPA, but a little private discussion along with the weight of the content industry will probably do just about as well.
posted by weston at 11:36 AM on December 23, 2011 [4 favorites]

Personally, I've used Dreamhost for nearly a decade. They had some problems early on, but I've not seen an outage for at least five years.
posted by Zimboe Metamonkey

I've been with dreamhost for at least that long, and I love them, but they've had constant outages over the years. If you haven't experienced any, you've been very lucky. At one point a few years ago, it almost became comical how often dreamhost went down. For a personal site, dreamhost is great in my opinion. For anything other than that, they've been far to flaky to depend on.

Also, if you're hosting at dreamhost, it's preferable to have your domain registered elsewhere.

I've had no problems with gandi, hover, and name cheap.
posted by justgary at 11:40 AM on December 23, 2011 [1 favorite]

I think Llama-Lime's link was meant to point here:

Dear Internet: It's No Longer OK to Not Know How Congress Works

And while we're at it, I want to quote this tweet pointing to the same blog:

"Can't emphasize this enough: GoDaddy nominally folding because of a boycott changes *nothing* about SOPA. Read [How to Talk to Congress]"
posted by weston at 11:47 AM on December 23, 2011 [2 favorites]

@llama-lime's link

infovegan

oof.

It’s Someone who makes a deliberate decision to remove a vast amount of news and information sources from one’s diet, sticking to a well constrained allowable set of consumption inputs for their own health’s sake.

:|
posted by This, of course, alludes to you at 12:06 PM on December 23, 2011 [1 favorite]

Yup, the fact they 'capitulated' doesn't actually mean anything in terms of how that support's actual impact. Probably didn't matter very much at all unless Godaddy was spending money on lobbyists to push this, which they probably weren't.

But it means we've drawn blood. which is good. People are really freaking out about this bill, and actually a lot of people are way over interpreting what it does. But people are actually starting to panic. Stuff like reddit saying they might have to shut down, tumblr and other sites (including metafilter!) putting up banners, etc. SOPA is also only one of several bills that would probably end up being merged under normal circumstances.
posted by delmoi at 12:49 PM on December 23, 2011 [2 favorites]

Victory! Boycott forces GoDaddy to drop its support for SOPA
posted by Foci for Analysis at 1:17 PM on December 23, 2011

Ah - just coming here to post the Forbes.com link...

Something that the Ars Technica article doesn't mention is that about a week ago Go Daddy closed its investment partnership (significant equity purchase) with Silver Lake, KKR and Technology Crossover ventures, and Bob Parsons, the CEO people love to hate, moved upstairs to be Executive Chairman, with Warren Adelman taking over as CEO.

Adelman is a very different kind of operator, I think - consider his blog - not updated recently, but quite geeky and noticeably free of elephant-shooting.
posted by running order squabble fest at 1:24 PM on December 23, 2011

If you are a GoDaddy customer, and you weren't persuaded to switch before they capitulated, I'd still suggest you jump ship with them. They were defiant about their stance as recently as 24 hours ago and now they've reversed themselves. It's great that they did that, but how long before they re-reverse themselves? Screw them.
posted by crunchland at 2:36 PM on December 23, 2011 [2 favorites]

Bob Parsons, the CEO people love to hate, moved upstairs to be Executive Chairman, with Warren Adelman taking over as CEO.

Adelman is a very different kind of operator

Maybe, but if his Wikipedia bio is right, he's been a VP at GoDaddy since 2002, and Parsons is still his boss. This isn't a situation where fresh leadership is providing a new perspective and enlightened directions.
posted by weston at 2:49 PM on December 23, 2011 [1 favorite]

Just seeing on The Verge that GoDaddy has reversed engines and will no longer support SOPA.
posted by Mei's lost sandal at 2:59 PM on December 23, 2011

Except they'll still make campaign contributions to Lamar Smith and other SOPA cosponsors.
posted by jeffburdges at 3:28 PM on December 23, 2011 [2 favorites]

No doubt.
posted by Mei's lost sandal at 3:36 PM on December 23, 2011

Oh, no mistake, I'm heading forward with my leaving GoDaddy. Like I said, this is just more hypocritical, cynical maneuvering and the same people are in charge.
posted by jscott at 3:36 PM on December 23, 2011

weston: Sure - "doesn't actually shoot elephants" is not exactly super high praise. The change of ownership is more significant in the long run.
posted by running order squabble fest at 4:08 PM on December 23, 2011

Erick Ericson of Red State asks for Left-Right cooperation to eliminate all SOPA/PROTECT-IP sponsors.

Senate PIPA cosponsors  -  House SOPA cosponsors


Any opinions on what companies supporting SOPA (pdf) could be targeted?

Academics could try raising a stink against Elsevier, Pearson Education, and McGraw-Hill Education, not that we don't hate those three anyways. Any members of the Graphic Artists Guild feel like writing them a nasty letter? Anyone feel like asking jezebel.com to run an attack on Revlon and L’Oreal for their support of SOPA?
posted by jeffburdges at 4:14 PM on December 23, 2011 [1 favorite]

I'd say there are probably better people to work with against this than Erik Eriksson. His last Internet advocacy campaign wasn't exactly stellar.
posted by running order squabble fest at 4:55 PM on December 23, 2011

I'd say there are probably better people to work with against this than Erik Eriksson. His last Internet advocacy campaign wasn't exactly stellar.

Having left and right-wing grassroots working together could, in theory be pretty powerful. The whole thing with the Kotch brothers and their funding of the tea party is to fragment the middle class and poor so they can't effectively fight back against wallstreet. Plus erikson is advocating that this be done in the correct way, via primary campaigns

A fund should be created and the left should go out and find candidates to take on the Democrat sponsors. The right should go out and find candidates to take on the Republican sponsors. Heck, maybe Act Blue would let us on the right come by and we can all use their pre-existing platform (a platform no one on the right has even been able to really compete with. Seriously, I’m a big admirer).

Too many people don't realize that the only way to get rid of a long-term incumbent is to take them on in a primary campaign. Going after them in the general is just not going to work, districts are way to gerrymandered, and unless there are big demographic shifts or lines need to be re-drawn or whatever, incumbents rarely lose.

Anyway, if these people actually get removed over this bullshit it would be fantastic. I'm sure all of them thought this was just some run of the mill corporate bullshit sellout. They had no idea what a DNS server is or whatever, and the certainly had no way of anticipating the reaction.
posted by delmoi at 5:30 PM on December 23, 2011 [2 favorites]

By the way, are there any domain name registrars that have an API for managing domains, the way you can use AWS to manage virtual machines and file hosting? Seems like it could be useful.

Nearly Free Speech has a rough API, but I've never used it.
posted by BungaDunga at 6:42 PM on December 23, 2011

GoDaddy is the Ryanair of domain registration and hosting, and Bob Parsons is a detestable human being. And yet, like Ryanair, it will continue to attract business and make money because it's the domain registrar with the TV advertising and the boobies.
posted by holgate at 6:54 PM on December 23, 2011 [1 favorite]

Wikipedia will be leaving GoDaddy
posted by Foci for Analysis at 7:09 PM on December 23, 2011 [3 favorites]

So - I have dreamhost, and had my first bite in the ass w/downtime these past few weeks, and while I'm not necessarily looking for a new host (from what I've seen any host at this price is gonna suck ass in the end, because I'd have to pay for non-shared, and I can't afford that right now)... Why would switching to a different registrar be good?

I actually was quite happy w/the ease of switching to them (the previous one I had was with my old hosting service and man, trying to get off of them after not having had an account there after half a decade was not easy or pleasant, but getting onto dreamhost was easy. managing domains is easy. why should i not use them for DNS?)

I hope people continue to fuck w/GoDaddy (I hated them ever since I learned of Parson's jingoistic bullshit, let alone all the other shit)
posted by symbioid at 8:00 PM on December 23, 2011

So, why was GoDaddy so supportive of SOPA?
Polis pointed out that SOPA and Smith’s amendment already excluded certain operators of sub-domains, such as GoDaddy.com, from being subject to shutdowns under SOPA.
posted by dirigibleman at 8:34 PM on December 23, 2011 [1 favorite]

GoDaddy just happened to email me today to remind me to update several domains -- that was nice of them to prod me, as I had been meaning to get out of there for a long time now. All of this SOPA momentum really made the process easy for me, as I don't think I would have had any idea how to extricate myself from the nightmare that is the GoDaddy site without some of these tutorials. I really didn't even realize how a lot of this worked, and I am surprised I ever got a site up and running at all. I didn't really realize how the domain registration and hosting were separate. I've learned quite a bit today, though I will miss Danica and Candice hovering over one of the many confusing navigation bars on the tragedy that is their site.

I mean, seriously, how many navigation bars can one site possibly have? Nav bars, sub-nav, supra-nav, under-bars, over-bars, pop-outs, slide-unders, reach around bars? GoDaddy includes about a 12 step program for updating things like WordPress on their site -- they can't even directly link to the place on their own site where you need to go, it takes them a paragraph to explain how to do something. I hate SOPA, but I despise intentional obfuscation in order to trap, hide dirt, or fool customers (see, for example, Michael Lewis on the financial instruments created in the subprime mortgage crisis). Ugh.
posted by This_Will_Be_Good at 9:44 PM on December 23, 2011 [2 favorites]

There doesn't need to be an outright left-right collaboration so much as an unspoken agreement that we should prioritize defeating SOPA/PIPA supporters, or at least campaigning against them on SOPA/PIPA grounds.
posted by jeffburdges at 9:57 PM on December 23, 2011

Go Daddy now begging customers to stay
posted by Artw at 11:02 PM on December 23, 2011 [1 favorite]

There is a crowdsourced list of every other company supporting SOPA complete with web address, twitter feed, contact emails, and phone numbers

Via a slashdot.org post that says "Perhaps they should be contacted to find out if they still fully support SOPA, or have changed their mind."
posted by jeffburdges at 6:40 AM on December 24, 2011

Wikipedia leaving GoDaddy:
@jimmy_wales: I am proud to announce that the Wikipedia domain names will move away from GoDaddy. Their position on #sopa is unacceptable to us.
posted by inigo2 at 9:30 AM on December 24, 2011

I was already migrating to a new registrar -- Hover, current name of the old TUCOWS gang -- this week because G.D. (funny coincidence, that) are sleazy...but I will happily take credit for this, too. :7)
posted by wenestvedt at 12:16 PM on December 24, 2011 [1 favorite]

GoDaddy has NOT withdrawn its official congressional support os SOPA
posted by askmehow at 7:11 PM on December 24, 2011 [2 favorites]

GoDaddy has NOT withdrawn its official congressional support os SOPA

"Official" support is not that important. What matters is lobbying dollars. But making an example of GoDaddy is a good idea.

If people really wanted to send a message, though, they'd stop buying music and movies over the Christmas season. I doubt they care that much, though.
posted by delmoi at 10:15 AM on December 25, 2011

21,000 domains transfer out of Go Daddy in 1 day

Is there any truth to the claim that ICE has been giving seized domains to GoDaddy? Or did they simply retain the domains from their own clients?
posted by jeffburdges at 11:32 AM on December 25, 2011

While Drafting SOPA, the U.S. House Harbors BitTorrent Pirates
posted by homunculus at 8:23 PM on December 27, 2011

2011: The Year Intellectual Property Trumped Civil Liberties
posted by homunculus at 6:14 PM on December 29, 2011 [1 favorite]

SOPA Debate Highlights Congress’s Ignorance
posted by homunculus at 12:15 PM on December 30, 2011 [1 favorite]

EA, Nintendo, Sony reduce SOPA support by 50%
posted by homunculus at 11:03 AM on December 31, 2011

Or not: No, Sony Electronics, Nintendo And EA Have NOT Publicly Changed Their Position On SOPA
posted by homunculus at 12:45 PM on January 3, 2012