

GoDaddy: A glimpse of the Internet under SOPA - drusenko
http://david.weebly.com/1/post/2011/12/godaddy-a-glimpse-of-the-internet-under-sopa.html

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JeremyBanks
A similar story is when GoDaddy shut down seclists.org at the request of
MySpace because of a single post out of hundreds of thousands:
<http://seclists.org/nmap-hackers/2007/0>

~~~
JS_startup
Wow, what a disturbing story, and a perfect glimpse into a post-SOPA internet.
Why GoDaddy is even policing the content of its registrants is beyond me.

~~~
electromagnetic
I'd get it if there were complaints about possible hosting of illegal
materials (AKA kiddie porn), but policing content that falls under freedom of
speech, and potentially means your corporation could face multiple charges of
violations of constitutional rights is beyond me.

I'd get it if registering your domain with GoDaddy was a big visible thing
that you might want to keep your name away from controversial content, but
honestly I have no fucking clue who's hosting the domain of what or who's
registered where.

I mean I don't exactly hunt down the DNS information of everything.. heck
anything I look at.

Honestly who cares.

~~~
dangrossman
> your corporation could face multiple charges of violations of constitutional
> rights

I don't think that can actually happen. The first amendment is a prohibition
against Congress passing certain types of laws, not a cause of action for
citizens to sue people. You have no right to freedom of speech or expression
on Hacker News, for example. You are also free to contract away that right
with GoDaddy or anyone else; see NDAs.

The only liability GoDaddy could have are breach of contract, if the contract
does not allow this (which it likely does), and a dispute with ICANN over
registration rights.

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suhail
Out of curiosity, what made many of you even use GoDaddy? I've always felt it
was a bit sketch due to its:

\- Commercials

\- And it's shady ability to add $60 worth of crap to your cart when you want
to buy a $9 domain.

I found Namecheap and never found anything simpler and less sketch. Even
looking for domains on Namecheap 3-4 years ago was much simpler.

Was it just the registrar you had heard of first?

~~~
drusenko
I think there was a certain comfort in their size. You assumed that, because
they were so prominent, nothing bad would happen because they were small.

Also, there is definitely a momentum effect -- it was the first registrar many
people heard about and just kept using them, because that was the path of
least resistance.

~~~
eurleif
It wasn't the first registrar I heard about, but it was the first register I
heard about besides Network Solutions, which used to be a monopoly, and
charged (IIRC) $70 per domain. GoDaddy was pretty damn customer-friendly by
comparison.

~~~
cookiecaper
Yeah, GoDaddy made its name as one of the first registrars to offer domains
around the $10 price point right after NS's monopoly was removed. They've
basically just ridden that wave since then and have tried to capitalize on the
brand recognition when the only thing a small business owner knows is that you
have to use GoDaddy to get a website.

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charlieok
It's ironic that Go Daddy started off their super bowl ad campaign a few years
ago by thumbing their nose at mock “censorship hearings”

[http://www.visit4ads.com/advert/Go-Daddycom-Hearings-
Godaddy...](http://www.visit4ads.com/advert/Go-Daddycom-Hearings-
Godaddycom/21657)

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ohashi
Sadly, I know this story isn't an isolated incident. It's also why I don't
believe their 'change of heart' in the slightest. This type of behavior and
belief is ingrained into the company's culture. On top of that, the whois
issues, GoDaddy is also known for messing with their whois (forcing you to go
to their site and fill out a captcha instead of giving full info from the
whois server directly).

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forgotAgain
Gives a glimmer of why GoDaddy would want to support SOPA. It would instantly
create a market for premium DNS services where you are protected from this
sort of thing.

~~~
astrodust
Ah, yes. "Premium Domain Protection (5 years) $89.95" will magically appear in
your shopping cart when you purchase a domain.

~~~
jbrechtel
.........and the sad thing is now everyone will buy it.

------
ericgearhart
SOPA is but a battle in a war. The "war" is the corruption in the US Congress.
Go check out what Larry Lessig is doing nowadays... he's trying to fight the
war, not the battle.

His comments on why he's "MIA" in the SOPA battle (despite being an open
source software and copyleft activist) shed light on this. I'm with Larry...
SOPA, the USA PATRIOT Act, DMCA, all that BS are just symptoms of a disease.
I'm not saying we "netizens" shouldn't fight SOPA tooth and nail, but some
effort should be put into the 'war' as well, to avoid only seeing one or two
trees and not the forest.

[https://paidcontent.org/article/419-why-is-lawrence-
lessig-m...](https://paidcontent.org/article/419-why-is-lawrence-lessig-mia-
in-the-great-sopa-piracy-debate/)

------
Gigablah
I had a similar experience when Dyn.com suspended my DNS hosting after a
complaint from Amazon about a "phishing" link on my site (it was actually a
legitimate Amazon affiliate link). My site was inaccessible while I scrambled
to move my DNS entries elsewhere. Even though I have a premium account with
Dyn, I was never given any sort of notification beforehand, and it took 5 days
of pestering for them to finally reinstate it. Meanwhile, all I got from
Amazon was a half-hearted apology from their affiliate customer service rep.

Really, who needs SOPA when companies can shut down websites just like that?

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gregable
FWIW, this was the post that made me move my domains out from godaddy. Seems
like it shows clearly that Godaddy's product is not high quality rather than
just their company's stand on SOPA.

I don't generally feel that I can sanely make all of my product decisions
based on the political/moral/etc positions of the companies involved. Not that
I wouldn't love to, but it just doesn't seem manageable.

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GigabyteCoin
I was perhaps a bit too liberal with my SEO ventures once... I received one
single complaint to GoDaddy about a domain name that I owned with them (and
admittedly was doing a bit of backlinking with)... One email and a ~$75 "fine"
later I was back in business. But this is absurd.

The complaint was along the lines of "Somebody posted a link to this website X
and I think it's spam."

GoDaddy immediately placed my domain on hold (same abuse department call that
weebly received) and was told I would have to pay the fine to proceed or I
could just forfeit the domain to them.

It seemed incredibly heavy handed for a stray blog comment.

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altrego99
Doesn't look good. I have decided to move prior to any mishap like this. What
alternatives are you guys moving to?

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maeon3
If sopa passes maybe there is a way we can get all .gov sites blacklisted with
everyone scrambling and wondering why nobody in the world can reach these
sites. we need to start programming some weapons into the internet so the
people can fight censorship after it becomes law. In the land of spear and
sword, the rifleman makes policy.

~~~
city41
I'm pretty convinced that SOPA will become law. So I'm wondering if the next
best way to fight it is to go with it? Get as many sites shut down as possible
to get people to wake up and start noticing?

~~~
maeon3
Replace every site on the internet with a page that says this site is
unauthorized by the authority of a few people, nevermind who or you will be
tazed.

~~~
zecho
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=F915VoOVCCA#t=41s)

