UPDATE: GoDaddy has doesn’t support SOPA anymore. That’s their story, at least.
For the most part, the technically-inclined world is against SOPA and it seems that only big businesses like Viacom and Universal Music Group are for it. There is one strange exception though: GoDaddy. After customers started asking about the company’s position, GoDaddy came out with this statement, one of the few arguments for SOPA. Needless to say, this has a lot of people upset, the kind of people who have a number of domains, the kind of people who are now calling for a boycott.
The matter gets a little more complicated when you realize exactly how many people are using GoDaddy. GoDaddy is the default domain registrar for Google Apps domains, and perhaps the only registrar that has any kind of name recognition with the general public. On top of that, it has historically been one of the better available registrars. Unsurprisingly, however, GoDaddy’s unapologetic pro-SOPA stance has led to a lot of migration to other registrars. Ben Huh, CEO of Cheezburger, tweeted that if GoDaddy doesn’t back down on its pro-SOPA position, he’ll be moving his 1,000 domains elsewhere. Likewise, there have been calls from reddit for Jimmy Wales to migrate away from GoDaddy considering his vehemently anti-SOPA position.
On top of it all, GoDaddy is being ridiculously cavalier about the matter. After hearing word of the boycott, GoDaddy released a statement to Ars Technica practically challenging users to join it. The statement reads:
Go Daddy has received some emails that appear to stem from the boycott prompt, but we have not seen any impact to our business. We understand there are many differing opinions on the SOPA regulations.
If you find yourself infuriated by all this and have a domain or 3 at GoDaddy, you could easily transfer them somewhere else. The process is reasonably painless and there’s a step-by-step guide. Between the SOPA support and the smugness about the boycott, there are plenty of reasons to move, so take your pick and we’ll see if they change their tune.
(via reddit, Ars Technica, TechCrunch)
- Jimmy Wales dislikes SOPA enough to consider blacking out Wikipedia
- SOPA is an ugly, ugly beast
- This anti-SOPA petition would take down Whitehouse.gov under SOPA
