
Namecheap Makes $44,000 Donation to the Electronic Frontier Foundation - tnd123
http://www.elliotsblog.com/namecheap-announces-44000-donation-to-eff-0181
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blhack
Namecheap also bans the word 'hacker' from URLs. If you want to register a
domain with the word hacker (and a bunch of other words which they won't
release), they give you a giant warning basically equating hackers with
criminals, and make you submit a request to them before them that they have to
okay before you're allowed to register.

Oh, and you can't use a credit card (hackers steal those, you know!), you have
to have funds already in your account.

I'm sorry, name cheap, I want to love you, and stuff like donating to the EFF
makes me want to love you even more, but please stop this absurdity of hackers
== criminals.

(I found this out when registering raspihacker.com -- which is clearly a front
for me evil criminal enterprise!)

Here, I just tired to register "potatohacker.com" and got this:
<http://i.imgur.com/uz4yrBt.png>

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rsobers
> "...basically equating hackers with criminals..."

Let's not get carried away.

I have accidentalhacker.com registered with Namecheap. I recall having to have
a quick phone call with support to make sure I was legit. Really, it's not
that big a hurdle.

I was able to pay with my credit card and I've been _extremely_ happy with
their service and support.

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8ig8
What is their criteria for determining if a registration is legitimate?

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z92
Apparently, that you aren't reluctant to call them.

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smokeyj
Glad to see voting with my money is having a real impact. I've been using
namecheap since the godaddy fiasco and love the service.

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benhebert
Same here now if only transferring from GD to NC was cheaper!

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FreeKill
It's pretty cheap, I thought. It sucks if you have a ton of domains, but
transferring over also renews the domain for an additional year, so the
transfer itself really costs basically nothing. I just transfer whenever it's
coming close to time to renew my registration anyway...

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dsl
It's worth pointing out the while NameCheap is a accredited registrar, they
register all customer domains via eNom. You'll be subject to Demand Media's
(eNom's parent company) whims and policies.

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wpietri
What a shame. I like NameCheap's style, but Demand Media and their shitty
search-engine-spamming content farms can kiss my entire ass.

Not that I feel strongly on this topic or anything.

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nullrouted
I think your thinking of Name Media, I always confused the two as well.

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wpietri
I am definitely thinking of Demand Media:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demand_Media>

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rdl
I wish someone like givewell would do domain-specific comparisons. I'd like to
find out the best: 1) Drug policy organizations (e.g. MAPS) 2) Violence/gun
violence organizations (which are both pro-2A/RKBA and anti violence) 3)
Digital freedom organizations (like EFF). 4) Immigration reform for tech
entrepreneurs 5) Encouraging tech entrepreneurship, particularly for
underrepresented groups (veterans, women, racial minorities, geographic areas
outside SFBA)

I respect that you can probably save a lot more lives by giving out malaria
nets in Africa than by donating to MAPS or the EFF, but I personally care a
lot more about drug policy and computer freedom, so when I'm making a
voluntary charitable donation, I'd prefer to address those issues
(particularly if I'm in the tech industry and making a corporate donation).

I'm a fan of EFF, but not convinced they're the most efficient way to donate a
marginal $1, since they already seem to have a huge amount of funding. In
general I prefer donating to very small organizations doing very targeted work
with low overhead, and with an "end date" where once they accomplish their
mission, they disappear.

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coldpie
Let us know if you find some organizations that you like! I'm sure many here
would love to read such a post and help contribute.

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nym
Namecheap is so awesome, sopa, eff, great customer service- I wouldn't be
surprised if their next move was to start accepting bitcoin as a payment
method.

Talk about a tech-savvy business!

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JoshTriplett
Also see <https://www.gandi.net/supports/> , though I'd love to know some
amounts or at least orders of magnitude there.

~~~
icelancer
Gandi also has a moral code in their TOS. No thanks.

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slig
I was a customer couple of years ago. To this day I still get their newsletter
and there's no link to cancel it. They say you have to log in and change your
"newsletter settings".

Also their stupid auto-generated username "XY<account_number>-GANDI".

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dbpatterson
Why don't you contact them? I can't imagine it'd be hard for them to
unsubscribe you from that (I did easily, but I'm still a customer so I could
log in and do it).

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sethbannon
Brilliant marketing.

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_delirium
That was going to be my comment as well: nice idea and well executed. I think
it manages to balance the marketing and charity/cause angles well, which is a
balance that's pretty easy to flub.

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javajosh
One more reason I use Namecheap, and have moved almost all of my clients to
namecheap. (They really do need an affiliate program though!)

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pgr0ss
They have one: <https://www.namecheap.com/other/affiliates.aspx>

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javajosh
Thanks, didn't know about that. 15% of first purchase, eh? Since most people
transferring will only buy a year for ~$10, a $1.50 one-time payment doesn't
really do the trick! An ongoing 15% would be more like it.

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zopticity
These guys are not only smart but knows how to take down the GoDaddy giant.

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compilercreator
May I also recommend Nearlyfreespeech.net, an excellent registrar and host
with a good record of upholding free speech?

One example of upholding free speech:
[http://blog.nearlyfreespeech.net/2012/10/06/official-uk-
gove...](http://blog.nearlyfreespeech.net/2012/10/06/official-uk-government-
attempt-at-censorship/)

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purephase
Very cool. Just picked-up a few certs from them and I need to register a few
domains soon. They'll be my first choice.

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syassami
I'm going to have to transfer from godaddy->namecheap, this is the kind of
thing I love to see ISP's do.

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jrochkind1
any hackernews users review of namecheap as registrar, DNS, and/or email
hosting?

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kennywinker
I've been using them since the GoDaddy elephant hunting thing. I'm about
80-90% satisfied. The control panel is a bit messy, and the one time I
contacted support they were generally helpful but not amazing. No plans to
change registrars, and I would recommend to friends.

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tamar
We're working on a UI overhaul. Your feedback is noted. :)

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hamax
Because support is already awesome, right? :)

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arenaninja
Just registered a .me domain to use along with github pages.

Honestly I'm glad somebody else got the .com domain, having "myname.me" is
pretty cool

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b0o
I was regretting registering my domain with them recently, but not anymore,
I'll be renewing it just because of this. nb

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Hilyin
Awesome.

