

GoDaddy loses 72,354 domains this week alone - justinmares
http://www.dailychanges.com/domaincontrol.com/

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sandieman
Even if this was all the lost accounts (it isn't).. this article is
irrelevant. Last year during the same 7 day span, 88,401 left.
12/17/2010-12/23/2010

<http://www.dailychanges.com/domaincontrol.com/2010-12-17/>

Also a month ago, between 11/10-11/16 110,278 domains left.

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wx77
Relevant comment on reddit as to why this isn't exactly accurate:

[http://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/npj2q/godaddy_lost...](http://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/npj2q/godaddy_lost_21000_domains_yesterday/c3ay6yu)

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rawrly
It seems everyone is just too trigger happy to try to report success with the
GoDaddy boycott.

The reality is that everyone need to be patient to get any real numbers. The
domain registration transfer process is not immediate, it typically takes 3-5
days to complete, so it's improbable to actually know that exact number
(unless you work at goDaddy and are pulling raw transfer request data). The
real numbers on the success or failure of the boycott campaign will be seen in
the upcoming weeks.

~~~
freejack
Most transfers complete within hours. Some take as long as 3-5 days, but a
good registrar can make it happen very quickly nowadays.

To your point, I can say that our retail transfer rate for the 22nd was up 10x
from the prior day, the 23rd, was 4x from the 22nd and the 24 looked pretty
much like the 22nd. That's a ton of domains (I run Hover, the retail arm of
Tucows - the second or third largest registrar depending on how you count
market share...)

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Terretta
And registered more than that.

New Domains (32,437)

Transferred In (20,034)

Transferred Out (21,054)

Deleted Domains (31,047)

~~~
ricardobeat
Noticed that too. Why are they growing that wildly?

~~~
tristanperry
1) They're the biggest domain company, with a very large marketing budget.

2) 99.9% of their customers wouldn't know what "SOPA" is, nor would they care
all that much.

(Both of which are unfortunate but, in my experiences, facts)

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blantonl
Listen, no matter how large or small a domain is - it is still a _single_
entity. Wikipedia moving off of GoDaddy is the same as
thisisthebestdomaineverwtf.com moving off of GoDaddy.

Unfortunately, it is going to take a lot more to make an impact on GoDaddy.
For GoDaddy, this is a fart in the wind.

~~~
lionhearted
It's hundreds of thousands of dollars of gross revenues.

Their brand took a hit too.

It's a real thing, they really didn't like that this happened.

~~~
freejack
Not really hundreds of thousands of dollars. They already have the money and
none of it gets transferred to the new registrar.

If you move a domain name from Godaddy to Hover that has five years left
before expiry, I have to support you for the next six years (the original
five, plus the extra year that gets added when you transfer) for the $10
transfer fee I charge you when you initiate the transaction.

Its kind of screwed, but that's the way this industry works.

You can make the argument that transferring out affects Godaddy's future
revenues, but to what extent isn't exactly clear.

Regardless, you make a great point - the brand took a hit, its a real thing
and they really didn't like that this happened. I'm just not sure how
financially material the action actually was.

~~~
ericd
The domains that I'm not sure about using all get registered on a yearly auto-
renewing basis. That's most of my domains. I'd assume that most domains are
registered that way, which means that it's probably at least half a million in
yearly gross revenue that just went away for each of the coming years, not
counting any services that went with those domains.

Edit: Assuming that that headline is accurate and that's a net loss
attributable to this whole fiasco. Also, I'm sure their profit margins on
domains are razor thin, so the profit lost might be pretty low.

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jiggy2011
Note: This is a repost from a previous thread.

This is great and all but I don't really see a boycott as being such an
effective solution.

The problem with boycotts is they are based on the following things:

1) The spending power of the boycotter. 2) The potential spend of the
boycotter on the relevant service/product. 3) The amount of influence you have
over others to boycott.

So whilst you can move your handful of personal domains that you were using
for your hobby website or small startup elsewhere, the biggest spenders on
domains I would imagine are going to be medium-large businesses.

These are much more cautious to join a boycott unless there is obvious PR
benefit (e.g fairtrade or animal testing free products spring to mind) because
they are beholden to shareholders and are generally conservative when it comes
to changing suppliers unless there is a clear cost-benefit. The only people in
the organization that are likely to care about this will be the techies who
unless they are the CIO/CTO do not have the influence to affect domain
purchasing decisions.

The conversation probably goes approximately like this:

Boss: Good day underling! Please secure us the following list of 100 domain
names from the great godaddy, lord of the DNS!

Techie: But sir , we shouldn't use godaddy. There is an active boycott because
of SOPA, how about company X instead?

Boss: What is this SOPA of which you speak?

Techie: _explains SOPA_

Boss: Damn hippies! I neither understand nor care for their plight, godaddy is
cheaper and we already have an account with them. I know not of this company
X, do they advertise at the superbowl?

Techie: but...

Boss: Please do as I command and grace godaddy with our pieces of silver.

Techie: _enters company credit card details at godaddy.com_

~~~
mikeash
While I can't find fault with your argument, it doesn't seem to match reality.
GoDaddy very publicly dismissed the boycott and then rapidly turned around and
caved in to it. If it's not an effective solution, surely that wouldn't have
happened.

~~~
darkane
Except they didn't cave. They made a press release that they thought would
appease the general public as a stop-loss measure. GoDaddy still supports SOPA
privately, and likely even monetarily.

[http://techcrunch.com/2011/12/23/godaddy-ceo-there-has-to-
be...](http://techcrunch.com/2011/12/23/godaddy-ceo-there-has-to-be-consensus-
about-the-leadership-of-the-internet-community/)

~~~
mikeash
True enough. But why respond at all? Seems like it has some effect, even if
not as large as one might like.

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guan
That's just a list of domains that left their name service. A lot of domains
that used different name servers probably transferred away too.

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buster
Funny.. the site shows how 72k domains means nothing against 32 million
domains and the new/leaving ratio is nearly 1:1. I am wondering why godaddy
even cares... they could think "ok, some domains will leave, but nobody will
talk about it in 2 weeks". :(

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tzury
Sadly, at the very same time they have registered more than that, and above
all, they are still managing 32,142,859 domains.

In other words, they make at least $350MM a year from domain registration
only, let alone their other _services_ such as php/asp hosting and POP3.

But there is no doubt there was an impact for that move-out-from-godaddy call.

~~~
viscanti
Domain registration is a loss leader for them (especially with how easy it is
to find coupons online). They're hoping that cheap registration will be enough
to entice someone to use their other profitable services.

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TWAndrews
How does that compare to a normal week for them?

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chown
Also, is it possible for GoDaddy to register a bunch of domain names for
themselves so to make it look like the difference (outgoing - incoming) is not
that much? This will certainly cost them a lot but feels like right now they
are more concerned about saving the brand name than the money. Also, in the
long run they can sell those domain back (or even better for them - put the
domains on auction).

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geuis
How exactly is that number being calculated?

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rue
That's…not that many.

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quellhorst
Maybe we'll stop seeing super bowl ads from these guys if people keep pulling
their domains.

I am happy to say I moved my domains away from them 2 years ago.

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colinm
If SOPA passes and you've moved your domain to namecheap, you're still
stuffed. Suddenly all those Libya domains(.ly) doesn't sound to stupid!

~~~
masklinn
> Suddenly all those Libya domains(.ly) doesn't sound to stupid!

I don't see what they change, the problem of SOPA is the DNS block, where your
website is hosted (or registered) does not matter if all US ISPs blacklist
your site in their name servers.

~~~
colinm
Well at least the rest of the world can see your website, while still censored
in the US. Whereas if GoDaddy just takes out your website domain, nobody can
get to it.

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hardworkpaysoff
This is so inspiring.

