
StackOverflow also planning to switch from GoDaddy due to SOPA concerns. - AgentConundrum
http://meta.stackoverflow.com/q/116891/1588
======
d_r
Perhaps off-topic, but after reading GoDaddy's letter, I am surprised that our
discussions against SOPA don't focus on the root -- the fact that the
legislation is presented in an incredibly misleading and vague manner.

At face value, its purpose is to stop the foreign counterfeit drug/goods
sellers -- you know, the same guys who spam us with "enlarge your..." and such
offers. The same guys who pollute Google search results with "buy handbags"
trash. Now suppose someone had asked you: "do you want legislation against
these foreign illegal drug sellers?" Surely you'd say yes. Heck, I'd say yes.
What reasonable person would oppose this?

But the problem is that the legislation is presented as this, but is actually
likely going to be used for other things (censoring online content, special
interests of the movie industry, etc.)

So when we write to our congresspeople and explain our concerns with SOPA, I
wonder: do they think "Hmm, I am just protecting the internet from so-and-so
baddies selling drugs. Why are all these tech people suddenly up in arms about
this? Do they somehow not want to stop those baddies?"

When we write, we say that we oppose SOPA. Would we be more effective if we
asserted that we _do_ hate those sellers and oppose SOPA because of its
specific implications? Unless of course, the bad "side effects" are actually
_the_ main purpose and the "good" cause is just a very clever gimmick.

~~~
tjogin
> Now suppose someone had asked you: "do you want legislation against these
> foreign illegal drug sellers?" Surely you'd say yes. Heck, I'd say yes. What
> reasonable person would oppose this?

I would. Not every nuisance should be outlawed, most nuisances probably
shouldn't. Legislation always bears a cost, and, for instance, in this case
the cost outweighs the benefits by a wide margin. As is often the case.

~~~
dclowd9901
Precisely. While it is a cat-and-mouse game, I think the tech industry has
shown that there is a vested interest in cleaning this crap out of our lives.
The internet seems to be the last place where a market is free to tackle and
solve problems on its own.

------
markbao
I cannot believe how many people are using the worst domain registrar in
existence, even if you don't consider SOPA support. Out of all of the domain
registrars, why GoDaddy?

~~~
onedognight
Name another registrar that is cheaper and comes with DNS?

~~~
BrandonM
Why do people equate registrars with DNS? Wherever you're hosting your site is
where you should be handling DNS.

~~~
justincormack
That is not particularly rational. It makes moving hosting providers harder
and many provide very different dns services. You might want an api or support
for different record types that otherwise good hosting services dont provide.
I use zerigo just for dns because they are really goid at it...

~~~
BrandonM
Managing DNS completely separately is fine, too. I just don't think it's a
particularly good idea to use your registrar as your DNS provider unless
you're also using it for hosting. I'd much rather point my registrar at my
host's DNS than to have to update DNS records every time something changes on
the host.

~~~
Nick_C
> have to update DNS records every time something changes on the host.

On the other hand, you might want to be able to do that rather than not be
able to.

I'm thinking of the situation where your host goes down. If it is host-wide,
your (their) DNS servers might be down too.

I intentionally use a different company for DNS than hosting, so if the host
goes down I can point my DNS to somewhere else.

------
mekoka
Actually, what surprises me is that SO would be registered with them in the
first place.

~~~
suhair
It is registered way back in 2003. may be not many popular alternatives then.

~~~
josephcooney
really? I'm the guy that suggested the name 'stackoverflow.com' to Jeff, and
at the time I suggested it it was NOT registered.

see: [http://jcooney.net/post/2010/08/26/Back-in-the-day-
preferred...](http://jcooney.net/post/2010/08/26/Back-in-the-day-preferred-
the-name-gosub10com-over-stackoverflowcom.aspx)

~~~
mr-ron
Registered through: GoDaddy.com, LLC (<http://www.godaddy.com>) Domain Name:
STACKOVERFLOW.COM Created on: 26-Dec-03 Expires on: 26-Dec-14 Last Updated on:
30-Nov-10

Though its possible that it was registered in 03, someone let it expire, and
then it was up for grabs again. Im not 100% certain how the 'Created on' value
works

------
foobarbazetc
Why did anyone ever use GoDaddy in the first place?

There are _much_ better options out there. Dynadot, Moniker, Gandi, ... the
list is endless.

~~~
ceejayoz
Gandi locks my Chase credit card each time I pay them. Using (ugh) PayPal is
the only way I can use them.

~~~
jws
The only time American Express has called me has been twice on my Gandi
payment. Makes you wonder about their fraud algorithms. Surely Amex can see I
make the same payment every year, or maybe that is the mark of a patient and
not greedy fraud.

FWIW I haven't had any troubles in the last few years.

~~~
vidarh
My bank is brutal about blocking my card on suspicion of fraud. Only in 11
years, there's _never_ been a fraudulent transaction on that card.

While it very often happens when I try to place an order with companies I
order from regularly, what seems to trigger them is not the transaction
itself, but that it occurs near in time to another transaction, especially if
I've ordered an online service from a company outside the UK (where I live)...
Perhaps they didn't get the memo that the internet is international...

~~~
andyking
The only time I ever had a fraudulent transaction on my card, it wasn't
stopped until they'd wiped out my account by gambling £1,900 of my money on
Littlewoods Online. The bank never stopped my account, the criminals only
stopped taking money when they'd emptied the account and run up an overdraft,
at which point my card started declining. I only found out when I tried to buy
a train ticket home and got 'card declined.'

I got the money back, but I was totally skint for a fortnight while the bank
and police sorted it out. It was nothing to do with being overseas, either. My
card got cloned at a well known Indian restaurant in Manchester.

Meanwhile, the same bank _did_ stop my card for fraud prevention when I
legitimately travelled to the US and used it there, myself, to buy a few bits
and bobs in Target and get some cash out of an ATM, totalling all of about
$70. I had to make an expensive mobile phone call back to them in Britain to
tell them that yes, it's me. I don't think they get it sometimes.

They seem to do it solely by geography. UK good, overseas bad. Whereas if they
had an iota of common sense, they would have been able to say "look, this
guy's never spent a penny on gambling before, why has he suddenly spent his
entire pay and overdraft on a betting website," and "look, he bought a plane
ticket from American Airlines the other week, now he's using his card in the
US, it's legit."

Surely there's some bright startup out there who could do this with data?

~~~
vidarh
The overseas thing used to happen to me regularly too. I was traveling to San
Francisco regularly for work, and after the first few trips I always made sure
I had at least enough in USD on me to get to the hotel, and would always try
my card first thing at the airport to get them to block it as soon as possible
so I could call and get it unblocked right away.

It's gotten better - now they (Barclays) have an option in the online banking
to explicitly inform them when going abroad to reduce the chance of a block.
It still annoys me that I have to, but at least it's a lesser nuisance than a
card block.

You'd think that after the 4th or 5th attempt, though, they would start to
accept that a withdrawal of a small amount at the _exact same_ ATM at SFO
would be ok. But no.

Also, if they were to call me and check _without_ blocking my card, I'd still
be annoyed, but less so. That's what really annoys me - in no cases has there
been a sudden flurry of rapid transactions, and so the risk of trying to get
hold of me before blocking the card is rather small. Instead they block first
and tries to call afterwards.

Another pet peeve is their security system. They call you, from a number you
likely won't know is Barclays unless you take care to check the number and
then save it on your phone. It's just _begging_ for a social engineering
attack by obtaining phone numbers and birth dates (the only authentication
used), say from a fake online survey about banking with a price, coupled with
reading up fake transactions, and proceed to put them through to an "operator"
to help reverse the fake fraudulent charges, and then have the operator ask
them to confirm the card details "for security", which the customers are
conditioned to do when initiating the call themselves.

As much as it's more convenient, you'd think their fraud department would be
more security conscious and ask you to find their number of the official
website or something, but I guess that'd raise the number of complaints about
their frequent blocks too much.

~~~
commandar
>That's what really annoys me - in no cases has there been a sudden flurry of
rapid transactions, and so the risk of trying to get hold of me before
blocking the card is rather small. Instead they block first and tries to call
afterwards.

I'm not sure what the laws are in your home country, but in the US, banks have
incentive to block first and ask questions later because they're legally on
the hook for any fraudulent charges under federal law. Quite simply, they'd
rather mildly irritate you than potentially lose money to a lost or stolen
card.

------
k-mcgrady
I started moving away from GoDaddy recently. I'm sick of the up-selling when
buying domains. I know it's how they make their money but I now use Hover and
it is much quicker and simpler to purchase domains.

I was also getting tired of GoDaddy's constant domain management changes.
Every time I go there they have a new UI. Again Hover is A LOT simpler.

I still haven't moved everything off but I am gradually doing it. And all my
new domains are with Hover.

------
sgaither
Wow...this is like hearing that Github plans to quit Dreamweaver because it
was feuding with Adobe.

~~~
holman
I just want to make it clear that _none_ of us at GitHub have any plans of
dropping our usage of Dreamweaver.

~~~
zdgman
This comment wins the internet for today. I wish it was at the top of the
thread.

------
moonlighter
I recently started to point all name servers to Amazon Route 53. Clean and
super easy to use now that it's available in the AWS Management Console.
GoDaddy has been reduced to a registrar only, all DNS is managed from AWS now.
And good riddance of GoDaddy's crappy Domain Manager UI.

------
kuahyeow
GoDaddy just upped the publicity of SOPA a whole lot. I wonder will this shine
a light on SOPA within the mainstream.

------
zdgman
Did StackOverflow actually comment on when the switch would occur? I am sure
they will post about it but I see a bunch of large companies saying "we will
switch". I don't see a lot of companies saying "we have switched".

Proof or it didn't happen.

~~~
ghurlman
Ping whois over and over if you _need_ proof... seems like an odd thing to
assume they'd lie about.

~~~
zdgman
WHOIS on stackoverflow right now shows its still with GoDaddy. I am not
calling them liars but I do want to actually see them make the switch.

~~~
jebblue
I want to see them apply logic and reason otherwise it might be difficult for
me to continue to view them as a credible source of technical information. It
will be interesting to see what choice they make.

------
sidcool
GoDaddy changes their stance on SOPA.

------
vertr
I am not a fan of Godaddy.

However, it is clear that Godaddy thrives on being controversial. We are
giving them their greatest wish.

------
maeon3
Stackoverflow for president... Woah there is an idea.

------
wangjing16899
wewe

------
wangjing16899
ewfwef

------
ajays
Wow... SO is still with GoDaddy? GoDaddy's position on SOPA has been clear
since October; what took them so long?

~~~
mythz
Where has this been made clear? They may have written their statements in
October, but waited till today to publish it:

[http://support.godaddy.com/godaddy/go-daddys-position-on-
sop...](http://support.godaddy.com/godaddy/go-daddys-position-on-sopa/)

It's another sleazy move by GoDaddy (that wreaks of corruption) to wait till
nearly the eve of the SOPA vote before making their stance and rationale
public.

~~~
ajays
Here's a link to an article mentioning that they announced support in October:
[http://blog.copyrightalliance.org/2011/10/in-case-you-
missed...](http://blog.copyrightalliance.org/2011/10/in-case-you-missed-it-
godaddy-applauds-sopa/)

------
wangjing16899
Weed Wed Wed

w

