
List of YC companies that use GoDaddy - jf
https://raw.github.com/jpf/domain-profiler/master/ycombinator-companies-using-godaddy
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plasma
I hope moving away from GoDaddy, rather than stopping SOPA/etc, does not
become the focus.

~~~
redguava
Agreed. Whilst I agree with making a stand against GoDaddy, all of the effort
going into the Anti-GoDaddy campaign could probably be better spent directly
at SOPA.

~~~
danssig
I _strongly_ disagree. Anyone and everyone is already spending lots of effort
opposing SOPA. If a company that supports SOPA would suddenly go out of
business (one can dream) that would send a _vastly_ bigger message than a
bunch of useless online polls and blog posts.

~~~
shoeless
I believe the goal is not to see GoDaddy go out of business, but instead
reverse it's stance on SOPA. And quickly.

~~~
drivingmenuts
Probably won't happen. The head guy at GoDaddy is right-wing and is outspoken
enough not to work against what he sees as his own interests.

At best, it will probably turn out like the issue at Whole Foods, formerly as
seen as a very left-wing-friendly food store. The CEO gave a right-wing
statement on some social policy legislation and got excoriated for his view.
Eventually, after enough flaming, he backed down on the statement, but his
views didn't change, just the official company line.

Call it cynicism or whatever, but I don't think Bob Parsons is capable of a
real change of heart on this matter unless it seriously affects his
pocketbook, and even then, he would be a wolf in sheep's clothing.

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yurisagalov
We started our migration process for AeroFS yesterday (I actually looked
through email chats with Weihan, my co-founder, and every few months we've
been talking about moving away from GoDaddy; yesterday was the final straw)

Still, I'm wary of moving the domains until we're all back at the office (many
of us are taking time off for holidays for the next few days).

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nodesocket
Why any startup would use GoDaddy for DNS is baffling. Route 53 is amazing.
However, must confess we currently use GoDaddy for domains (switching) and SSL
certificates. Can anybody recommend some good alternatives for SSL certs that
are about the same cost as GoDaddy?

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moonlighter
SSL Certs: I got all my SSL certs from <http://www.startssl.com/> They offer
FREE SSL certs (just requires a simple email verification). Name-verified SSL
certs cost $59 for 2 years, EV certs go for $199 for 2 years. I'm very happy
with their service.

DNS: Like you, I switched to Amazon Route 53. Now that it's available in the
Web Management Console, it's a no-brainer, especially if you use other AWS
services.

Registrar: I finally got my ass in motion and just bulk-moved all my domains
to Namecheap. I wanted to do that for quite a while, and their SOPA support
was the final nail in the coffin.

~~~
dangrossman
My only problem with Route 53 is the cost. Just about any web host offers
their own DNS servers as a free service. I can fully manage zone records at
SoftLayer or Linode with unlimited queries at no extra cost.

10 million monthly queries on 20 domains would cost me $15/month at Amazon.

It'd only be $5 per month at DNSMadeEasy, a company with a far longer record
of reliable DNS service than Amazon.

~~~
burgerbrain
The advantage with Route 53 is really when you are already using AWS stuff. At
that point sure it costs a bit more (but still less than the amount of change
that I lose in my sofa in the same period of time), but it's the same place as
everything else. Same bill and stuff.

~~~
moonlighter
Exactly. Using just AWS Route 53 'standalone' probably doesn't make much
sense, but when used in combination with EC2 and their Elastic Load Balancer
it starts to make a lot of sense. And the fact that you can use their APIs to
make programmatic changes (say quickly change a A or CNAME record to point
elsewhere) is fantastic.

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PStamatiou
As soon as I arrive home for the holidays tomorrow, I will have two tabs open.
GoDaddy and Namecheap...

~~~
jf
Looking forward to getting a pull request from you!

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dedicated
Wow, nice work. I wonder how difficult it would be for Dropbox to switch out
their SSL certs and reinstall on their servers.

One problem I ran into was having Go Daddy when I registered my domain via
Google Apps. Even though I unlocked the domain and got the auth code, because
the way Google uses privacy, the transfer was rejected. Any advice there would
be much appreciated.

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presidentx
I moved my GoDaddy domains to namespro.ca who have excellent support. The
transfer went smooth as butter.

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tlrobinson
I think his point was that the Dropbox software installed on users' machines
contains SSL certs, which may make it hard for them to switch.

~~~
marquis
Yes, that would a huge pain to require all Dropbox users to force-update to
get new root certs. It will probably take a while until they are due to
expire.

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arthurgibson
Ha this is great, over at Embedly we plan to move away from Godaddy, our
domains are not on godaddy, just the ssl cert (for the short term). I started
moving some one-off domains we own last night to namecheap,
<http://twitter.com/#!/artgibby/status/149995036677910528>

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sim0n
Our DNS is in the process of being moved to Route53 (as it has been for a
short while) and we're planning to move our domains to Namecheap or another
reputable registrar shortly (which we have actually also been thinking of
doing for a short while as well).

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rglover
This is a borderline witch hunt.

~~~
martingordon
My neighbor uses GoDaddy for his domain registrations. Should I move?

It's one thing when Ben Huh moves 1000 domains off of GoDaddy in protest. It's
another thing if you're going to avoid doing business with a company that does
$10-$100/year worth of business with a company that supports SOPA.

Here are a two things that should be higher on the list:

* Call your congressperson. It's a lot easier for a lot of us to push a few buttons on a web page than it is to pick up the phone and talk with someone.

* Avoid dealing directly with companies that support SOPA. How many of us are reading this list from a Comcast IP? Those of us that do are giving Comcast 10-100x more money than these YC companies. I'm going to be looking into switching to FiOS after the holidays (unfortunately, I know many don't have that option, but you should at least take a look).

For what it's worth, I moved all my domains to Namecheap after the elephant
incident earlier this year.

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aestetix_
To be fair, there are a bunch of people who have been considering migrating
from Godaddy for any number of reasons anyways. The SOPA stuff is just the
icing on the cake that's pushed them over the edge. This migration has been
coming for a long time.

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paul9290
Has one of it's competitors whipped up and a SOPA easy/quick transfer service?
Seems like a great opportunity for one of it's competitors to jump on!

On a different note I have everything on GoDaddy; all my domains and hosting.
In the past 4 months my sites have been hacked and I've been thinking about
moving away from them. Yet I have so much there, SO PLEASE TO ANY of it's
competitors whip up a SOPA easy/painless transfer your Web businesses to us
page.

~~~
tnorthcutt
What do you mean by "a SOPA easy/painless transfer your Web business to us
page"? There isn't something a competitor could do to make the transfer
process any different than it normally is - you just have to do it.

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antimatter15
They could make a browser extension that did it.

~~~
_pius
Hover has a valet transfer service.

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ivankirigin
I'm honestly not interested in spending hundreds on moving domains. I stopped
using godaddy for registration after that big game hunter bs a while back.

Comcast supports SOPA right? Is there a place to find alternative phone
landline and Internet providers?

~~~
gasull
<https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3383891>

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robterrell
I don't have any domains at GoDaddy, but this has been a reminder that US-
based registrars can be forced to pull domains by the DOJ
(<http://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/2011/November/11-ag-1540.html>) -- and the
potential for that only gets worse under SOPA.

So I was thinking of switching all of my domains to a non-US registrar. I see
lots of recommendations for NameCheap, but they appear to be US-based. Any
recommendations for registrar (+ DNS) that aren't under the jurisdiction of
the US DOJ?

~~~
molo_
Gandi.net. Some people say their support is mediocre, but I haven't had to use
it. Good luck.

-molo

~~~
warp
I have contacted gandi.net support several times. I usually receive a response
within a day, and always had my issue resolved.

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nhangen
I honestly cannot understand why, in this day and age, smart people still buy
domains via GoDaddy. There are so many options, all of which are more
simplistic and just as inexpensive.

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preinheimer
I'm not sure that people just with SSL certificates should be the easiest to
move.

Depending on what type of SSL you've got, it could be a huge pain, or just a
lot of money.

We've got an EV SSL Certificate, moving that would take some money, a big
chunk of time, and more money to pay our lawyer to write the fancy letters
they require. The process is several days long (likely longer now, our lawyer
is on a beach somewhere I'm sure), and will require us to restart all our
webservers.

~~~
hack_edu
Now imagine how much time and grief you'd lose down the road if you were hit
with a massive SOPA compliance problem that you can't even contest...

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jqueryin
In the case of SSL, I had believed it also implied GoDaddy was their registrar
as GoDaddy forcibly required me to use a purchased SSL cert against a domain
already in my account. Boy was that a bad experience when I found out post-
purchase.

How are the top few companies getting around this?

~~~
bradleyland
Therein lies a great example of GoDaddy's shady sales tactics. Purchasing a
domain from them is an exercise in dodging their high-pressure checkout sales
tactics. It's page after page of "Would you like to add _thiiiiiis_ lovely
service to your domain purchase _wink, wink_ <HUGE GRIN>?"

None of the additional services are required. You do not have to buy your SSL
through GoDaddy if you are registered with them. You don't have to buy
_anything_ other than the domain through them, but they go out of their way to
make it feel otherwise.

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pingswept
The change history for this list will appear here:
[https://github.com/jpf/domain-
profiler/commits/master/ycombi...](https://github.com/jpf/domain-
profiler/commits/master/ycombinator-companies-using-godaddy)

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AdamN
These companies should NOT switch from GoDaddy. Let's just make sure that
everybody starts using Namecheap or Gandi (or something else) and if they have
the resources available do the move only then.

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andrewhillman
Seems like the focus is shifting in the wrong direction. Hackers, put your
energy into SOPA not Godaddy.

This kind of "link bait" or "HN point bait" is not helping the situation.

~~~
maeon3
Fox news just did a piece outlining Godaddy's support of sopa in glowing terms
through all this boycott uproar. Today I am enjoying the delicious proof that
fox news is a state run brainwashing machine. We need link bait to get the
word out on internet censorship and net nutrality.

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meterplech
Not to personally attack at all. Honestly. But, JF- your profile says you are
a developer evangelist for Microsoft. Which is one of the biggest supporters
of SOPA.

Do you think it's a little unfair to provide an opportunity to pressure YC
companies that use GoDaddy for their domains because of their SOPA stance
while evangelizing for a company that has the same stance?

~~~
icey
You sure about that? [http://news.cnet.com/8301-31921_3-57330078-281/surprise-
micr...](http://news.cnet.com/8301-31921_3-57330078-281/surprise-microsoft-
quietly-opposes-sopa-copyright-bill/)

~~~
meterplech
I was basing my comment on this earlier comment from HN:
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3245520>

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grigy
What are some similar services to move to from GoDaddy?

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vertr
This post is really starting to make anti-SOPA look like a witch hunt. Why
point the finger at startups who use Godaddy's services?

Godaddy itself is just one company on a long list. This attack against Godaddy
is nothing but a big distraction from the real issue: fighting SOPA.

~~~
superchink
I don't claim to speak for the OP, but I don't think the point of this list
isn't to point the finger at the GoDaddy customers. Instead, it's a helpful
reminder to those companies on the list that they still have some services
being provided by GoDaddy, so that they can participate in the boycott of a
company supporting SOPA.

Agreed on your second point. Raising awareness is a great step toward the
ultimate goal of fighting SOPA. A mass exodus from a hugely successful
supporter of SOPA seems like a good start to me.

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billpatrianakos
Let's not get hung up on who uses GoDaddy now. These companies have actual
work to do rather than play around with making smooth transitions between
registrars. If some of them don't move let's not piss our pants over it.

I think this list being on the front page says we all just lost our focus. So
what happens if they don't switch registrars and how long is our arbitrary
deadline for it? This seems like some attempt to make these companies look bad
rather than do something helpful.

~~~
richardburton
Exactly. Their use of GoDaddy is not tacit support for SOPA. It is just a bad
coincidence. My good friend Josh at MinoMonsters has a lot on his plate.

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throwaway88
This is getting ridiculous. What next? List of users of companies that use
GoDaddy? Shall we hassle those people as well?

If only people put a little more thought into their internet mob protests.

~~~
aroberge
Do you have millions to spend lobbying Congress? If not, you can do the next
best thing: protest in any way that can hurt financially (even in a tiny way -
it all adds up) companies that CAN and DO lobby Congress.

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eriongaetus
I want to particularly draw attention to hellochair.com, just sitting there
soaking up the fat of the godaddy land, while the world burns in SOPA's
furnace. Hope these guys get the message.

