
GoDaddy supports SOPA, redditor proposes "Move your Domain Day" - duiker101
http://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/nmnie/godaddy_supports_sopa_im_transferring_51_domains/
======
pg
Even if domains are just a loss leader for GoDaddy, they surely look at their
numbers, so this is a way to send them a message they'll hear.

Maybe it will work, maybe it won't, but no one who still has a domain at
GoDaddy will be entitled to complain about SOPA if it passes.

~~~
solipsist
While I understand your sentiments towards SOPA, are you really going to
distance yourself from all of these companies?

[http://judiciary.house.gov/issues/Rouge%20Websites/SOPA%20Su...](http://judiciary.house.gov/issues/Rouge%20Websites/SOPA%20Supporters.pdf)

~~~
pg
Actually that's exactly what I thought when I saw the list yesterday. Several
of those companies send people to Demo Day, and when I saw the list I thought:
we should stop inviting them. So yes, we'll remove anyone from those companies
from the Demo Day invite list.

~~~
antr
lets not forget that GoDaddy's owner is US private equity group KKR. All of
KKR's tech portfolio companies should also be banned (if applicable).

<http://kkr.com/partners/portfolio-partners.php>

~~~
stephenson
Why? The KKR portfolio is independent companies with independent political
standpoints...

~~~
antr
YC is an investor and has a standpoint. YC is promoting anti-SOPA support
outwards and towards its (independent) portfolio companies. KKR is also an
investor and also _has_ a standpoint.

~~~
stephenson
But its not KKR listet on the pro SOPA list its one, and only one of there
portefolie companies. KKR are not (in the same way as YC isent) responsible
for its portefolies standpoints.

~~~
dataangel
They are not legally liable, which is different from being responsible.
Imagine if one of their portfolio companies was a child porn distributor. You
wouldn't defend KKR, because clearly they have some choice in who they put in
their portfolio, and a child porn distributor is an immoral choice. Holding a
SOPA supporting company is also a (albeit less egregious) poor choice. Taking
away invites of their portfolio companies provides motivation for them to look
into this sort of thing when choosing companies in the future.

------
freejack
This blog post from their lead lobbyist defending their support is absolutely
grating.

[http://rudysyndrome.com/2011/10/28/online-copyright-laws-
won...](http://rudysyndrome.com/2011/10/28/online-copyright-laws-wont-prevent-
a-flourishing-internet.aspx)

"Most of what we are seeing is either 1) rhetoric, 2) regurgitated lobbying
spin, 3) criticism of language we have already fixed, or 4) retweets by people
who like to steal music and buy fake, but cheap, goods."

Ugh.

(oBDisclaimer: I work for a registrar that unequivocally supports the Open
Internet."

~~~
maximusprime
What does "Open Internet" mean though?

You can't reasonably support free speech in all instances, just like you can't
reasonably support an "open internet" in all instances. There have to be some
exceptions.

It's the listing of those exceptions and how you deal with them that's the
tricky bit. So saying "I support an open internet" is just ignoring the issue.

~~~
revscat
My list of what should be legally restricted in its availability is as
follows:

1) Child pornography

End list.

National security is not enough of a reason for restrictions. Copyright is not
enough of a reason. Further, the assumption that corporations or governments
have exclusive moral authority to determine what constitutes impermissible
material is, frankly, ridiculous. Giving them the authority to make such
decisions is destructive, to both freedom and economy.

~~~
grecy
> 1) Child pornography

Obviously this is an extremely touchy subject, but I think the fact you have
even one exception shows you are not grasping the problem here.

So in _your_ country, "Child" may mean <18, while on the other side of the
world, it's <21, or maybe even <16\. Even more troubling, the clothes that
many teenagers choose to wear in many western countries are clearly considered
pornographic in nature in other more conservative countries.

It just makes no sense to say "There are no exceptions. Except this one, that
can be interpreted in hundreds of different ways". Once you leave it for
interpretation, the scope will expand and expand until children are being
listed as sex offenders for taking photos of themselves.

~~~
revscat
> Obviously this is an extremely touchy subject, but I think the fact you have
> even one exception shows you are not grasping the problem here.

Or we are discussing two different things, which is completely my doing.

I was thinking of speech in the constitutional sense; I was not speaking of
domain seizures. I completely agree that the government/corporations should
not have the power to seize domains under any circumstances.

(Although eminent domain might be an interesting angle to consider, although
that is another beast entirely.)

~~~
marchdown
_grecy wrote in response to our common parent comment:_

> > I was thinking of speech in the constitutional sense

> Remember, many countries don't have a constitution and don't care for yours.

For some reason I can't see a reply link under hir answer, so I'll just leave
this here:

Constitution is neither the only one, nor the most effective assertion of
unalienable freedoms. Since the aftermath of WW2 there have been many
Charters, Conventions and Declarations of all sorts, many of them accepted
("ratified") by many countries alongside their local laws.

Perhaps the most widely known and accepted one is a
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Declaration_of_Human_...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Declaration_of_Human_Rights)

~~~
Timothee
Just for future reference about "For some reason I can't see a reply link
under hir answer".

I believe that the deeper a thread is, the longer it takes for a reply link to
appear on a comment. This is to prevent endless flamewars, which immediate
replies facilitate.

------
citricsquid
To put it frankly, godaddy don't give a shit. Their domain business exists as
a way to get people into their other products, hosting, whois privacy etc. the
ones that actually make money (nobody makes money on domains nowadays, savvy
customers use coupons which godaddy provides a lot of). This won't do anything
to Godaddy as a business, they'll be losing customers they don't care about --
unless people shutting off their other services too -- but if it makes people
feel good then yay! This would be like walmart losing customers who do extreme
couponing and only buy the products that serve as loss leaders.

You could go as far as suggesting these people are helping godaddy. If you
take away 120 domains (as one redditor is doing) that godaddy are losing money
on and you're only using them because they're cheap... that's a win for
godaddy surely, unless the scale at which people do this makes a dent in
godaddy's total customer/domain figures, which are a marketing point, but that
would require millions to leave.

~~~
ohashi
Even with their extreme coupon usage, from what I can tell they are still not
using them as loss leaders (if we ignore all costs besides registry/icann).

You also neglect to see the effect of thousands or tens of thousands of savvy
people actively changing their mind about a company and NOT recommending it to
people or bad mouthing the company. My suspicion is, the kind of people
reading HN/Reddit are also the type of people that get asked 'computery' stuff
quite a bit. I know from personal experience I've probably influenced ~30-50
people's registrar choice this year. Even if it were 1-2 as the average
number, the knock on effects could potentially put a nice dent in them.

~~~
redthrowaway
>You also neglect to see the effect of thousands or tens of thousands of savvy
people actively changing their mind about a company and NOT recommending it to
people or bad mouthing the company

Savvy people have been badmouthing GoDaddy for _years_. Being recommended by
the technorati simply isn't a part of GoDaddy's business model.

Here in Vancouver, there's a plumbing company called Milani. They hire bad
plumbers, don't train them, and pay them poorly. They do shoddy work. Every
other plumbing firm knows not to hire plumbers who used to work for Milani,
and gets a significant amount of business going back to Milani sites to fix
their mistakes. But, Milani takes out a full page ad on the front cover of the
Yellow Pages. They advertise on bus stops and billboards. Milani spends more
on advertising than the next 5 companies combined. When the average,
uninformed person needs a plumber, they think of Milani. That's their business
model.

GoDaddy is the Milani of registrars. They quite simply don't give a fuck
whether they have a service worth recommending; they spend enough on
advertising that they'll always have customers regardless.

~~~
ohashi
I think it's silly to say everyone knows who fit a certain category. For
example, look at Cheezburger moving away. I would have suspected he is fairly
web savvy, you know, owning 1000 domains and running a giant blog network. But
this apparently was the thing that called him into action. Plenty of room to
spread the message and actually have people act.

------
seles
I have been using GoDaddy for years. I'm just using it for a simple
webpage+domain hosting and email. It works but I'm probably being overcharged
since I don't bother with coupons. I have always been annoyed about the
privacy complaints I've seen about them, but never cared enough to switch. Now
I do care enough to switch, thanks.

~~~
jberryman
Lots of people probably have recommendations, but I've been using
nearlyfreespeech.net for a couple of years for hosting my personal site.
They're great.

~~~
hobbes
They will be great when they finally allow their users to run cron jobs.

[https://www.nearlyfreespeech.net/about/faq?&keywords=cro...](https://www.nearlyfreespeech.net/about/faq?&keywords=cron&form=1#WontGo)

------
bad_user
On one cheap Linode VPS instance I already have 5 websites hosted, plus a
personal email server, plus several private git repositories, all for ~ $20
per month. I get my domains from other services, like namecheap.com; and
good/cheap hosting for PHP stuff (and even Rails) can be found on
DreamHost.com.

There really isn't any reason for anybody to use GoDaddy anymore, unless
you're hunting for their coupons, but in this instance you really get what you
pay for.

~~~
evandena
And more often than not the coupons are good for the first year only, and
transferring after that year (for me anyways) is a bigger PITA than the coupon
savings offered.

------
pardner
If you decide to move your domains from Godaddy, and if your DNS is hosted
there too, and if you have enough DNS records to not want to recreate them,
there's an undocumented way to export the nameserver records from Godaddy to
another DNS provider such as Zerigo. In a nutshell (1) upgrade to Godaddy
Premium DNS ($35 but refundable within 5 days) (2) Export each domain's DNS
settings (3) Cancel Godaddy Premium DNS. Now you can quickly import your DNS
settings at your new registrar or DNS host if they handle importing of bind
files. Not everyone imports nicely, but Zerigo worked for me. Details here
[http://pardner.com/2011/11/how-to-switch-dns-painlessly-
from...](http://pardner.com/2011/11/how-to-switch-dns-painlessly-from-godaddy-
to-zerigo/)

------
RexRollman
Godaddy has to be one of the least trustworthy domain registrars I have heard
of and I am surprised that people still use them. I guess their crass
commercials must be drawing in the customers.

~~~
atourgates
When was the last time you saw a commercial during a football game for any
other registrar?

Unless I've missed something, the answer's never. So, when Joe Public wants to
register a domain, he only knows about one way to do it.

Seems like a pretty effective marketing strategy to me.

------
X-Istence
I moved my personal 25+ domains away from GoDaddy to name.com and gandi.net.
Best move I have ever done. I don't get shitty advertisements emailed to me
anymore, I don't have to jump through hundreds of hoops to purchase renewals
where I get bombarded with advertisements for various other services.

And name.com is a small company here in Colorado, so I am supporting local
while I am at it.

~~~
unreal37
I still find this funny. I used to work for a web incubator called NAME (and
had the name.com domain) in 1999-2000 before they went out of business in the
.com bust. I always thought they had a great domain name. Not surprised it was
snapped up by a registrar.

------
nextparadigms
I think going after the supporters of SOPA one by one is a pretty effective
method, if enough time. First let's go after the representatives who support
it, and then after all the companies, and either terminate your account with
them if applicable or at least e-mail them to express your feelings about them
supporting SOPA.

~~~
sp332
Going after a few and making public examples of them might be effective faster
than trying to take them down one-by-one.

------
lincolnwebs
I already moved all my domains after their CEO's elephant hunting earlier this
year. That company is a pit of depravity.

------
dmerfield
Serious question: Has anyone in the HN community actually bought anything from
GoDaddy?

I find it difficult to imagine that any HN reader would. Was there ever an era
when GoDaddy's reputation and service were respectable?

~~~
bodyfour
I have a domain that's (shamefully) hosted on GoDaddy. Worse, I had the domain
on a better registrar and I transferred it to godaddy.

I needed a registrar that was able to handle IPv6 glue records, which was rare
at the time. (The TUCOWS-backed services only got this capability last month!
Before that you had to email TUCOWS and have them manually add the AAAA
records to your glue, which I didn't consider a solution.) For all their many
flaws, GoDaddy was surprisingly ahead of the curve on IPv6 support.

I suppose by now some of the other registrars probably have gotten their act
together. Anybody with experience running IPv6-hosted nameservers have
recommendations?

~~~
keidian
I believe name.com does ipv6 glue

------
moocow01
I would expect that SOPA on the whole would discourage domain registration and
the general development of web properties amongst the masses so I'm a bit
surprised GoDaddy supports it just from a business perspective.

Anyone care to enlighten me about what I'm missing here?

~~~
notahacker
As I understand it SOPA results in a shift of the burden for policing content
from registrars and hosts towards government bodies and the administrators of
the DNS system. Alternatively-framed bills introduced in the name of combating
piracy could have much more damaging implications for Godaddy.

------
danso
I try to avoid helping anyone who needs help with their GoDaddy-hosted
website. Not only is the interface atrocious (at least compared to DreamHost),
I hate logging in and seeing Dana Patrick splayed out...if I want people
around me thinking that I'm browsing Maxim magazine, I'll buy a Maxim
magazine.

------
lambda
Why is anyone who pays any attention still on GoDaddy anyhow?

They're a scummy company that have no respect for their customers, obnoxious
advertising, and a clunky, annoying web interface. Why would you use them when
you could use any of hundreds of other name registrars and web hosts?

------
richtaur
Here's a helpful article I used to move my domains off of GoDaddy:

[http://www.namecheap.com/support/knowledgebase/article.aspx/...](http://www.namecheap.com/support/knowledgebase/article.aspx/876/83/how-
to-transfer-a-domain-from-godaddy)

------
sixQuarks
I've been preaching about the evils of GoDaddy for many years now. The founder
is a war-mongering, ultra right-wing POS.

------
mrcalzone
I've been thinking of moving away from GoDaddy for a long time, and this was
the last drop. It is crazy how they design the webpages to make it as hard as
possible to cancel anything. In the email I got, there were two (identical)
links telling me how I could cancel the transfer-request, but no link to
accept it. It took me a couple of minutes of poking around in my account
before I figured it out.

------
l0c0b0x
Yet another reason to move away from GoDaddy. They're making it way too easy
now!

------
MattBearman
I thought it would be interesting to see how many domains are moved away
because of this, so I just knocked together this quick site -
<http://stopsopa.mattbearman.co.uk/>

It would be awesome if anyone who is transferring domains away from go daddy
could add their to the list

------
wes-exp
Any recommendations on alternative services?

------
tuananh
Hover offers promo code for transferring too. 10% off
<http://twitter.com/#!/hover/status/149887742778683392>

------
emehrkay
I have a few go daddy domains. Where should I move my .it domains to?

~~~
sunchild
Namecheap, if you can.

~~~
emehrkay
Doesn't look like they have .it registration

------
stanmancan
So... I know spams bad and all. But what about writing a crawler that sends a
single email to the owner of every domain it finds hosted on GoDaddy? Just
something that says "Incase you haven't heard, this is SOPA, this is what it
means, GoDaddy supports it, this is how to switch if you decide to" type of
thing. Sure, it's certainly in a grey area, but even if you could send out 10
million emails and 0.2% actually took action as a result, thats another 20,000
customers.

------
krogsgard
I don't like GoDaddy any more than most others here, I'm sure. And I certainly
hate the idea of SOPA. But don't a lot of big companies support it?

In a quick Google search, I found this post referencing support by the
Business Software Alliance, which includes Microsoft, Apple, and many others:
[http://thenextweb.com/insider/2011/11/17/which-tech-
companie...](http://thenextweb.com/insider/2011/11/17/which-tech-companies-
back-sopa-microsoft-apple-and-27-others/)

~~~
cdr
The BSA backed off SOPA support several weeks ago - the linked piece is from
more than a month ago.

Its initial support did lead to a couple of firms quitting the BSA though,
notably Kaspersky.

[http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2011/11/even-the-
bus...](http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2011/11/even-the-business-
software-alliance-now-backpedaling-on-sopa-support.ars)

------
noomerikal
I wish I could participate but I moved my domains to namecheap and pledged not
to use gd when Parsons went on that elephant hunt.

------
tyrelb
Transferring my domains to <https://dnsimple.com/> :) A little more expensive
than the cheap registrars... but Anthony who runs the company is amazing!
Shameless plug: he did some development work from the back in the day, and is
one of the _best_ RoR programmers in the world!

------
clark-kent
GoDaddy always rubbed me the wrong way. Their support of SOPA is about the
50th reason to stay away of GoDaddy.

------
iamdave
Move your Domain Day?

Something tells me the affiliates are about to have a very wonderful
christmas.

------
kenamarit
Embarrassed to still be on Godaddy when I vowed to move away a few years ago.
And timing is unfortunate. I just paid them lots of $$ to renew everything.

Still, biting the bullet and (finally) transferring everything over now.

------
bronson
There's no need to move all your domains today (that can be a HUGE job). Just
pledge to not give GoDaddy another cent and move your domains as they expire.
In five years, problem solved.

~~~
libraryatnight
This what I'll likely end up doing, I only have, maybe, 60-70 names but that's
a lot of money (for me) to move them all at once.

~~~
bronson
It works great. And it's a nice feeling every time you receive a GoDaddy email
complaining that they were unable to charge your credit card.

ONLY 60-70??? Can you just abandon 2/3 of them...?

~~~
libraryatnight
haha, I think you're right, I could probably prune a bit. Domains can get
addicting, but probably 15 to 20 are not related to anything but late night
ideas. :)

------
frabcus
This doesn't feel aggressive enough.

How about blocking any domain registered with GoDaddy from a certain date? Do
it on DNS servers Hacker News techies control.

Extreme I know, but less extreme than what SOPA will do!

------
intenex
And let's not forget: GoDaddy is evil to begin with. You're not just fighting
SOPA, you're fighting the very forces of evil themselves.

------
kevinburke
Just trasferred all of my domains out of Godaddy a few days ago into
Namecheap. The timing couldn't have been better.

------
mindprince
Doesn't Google have a partnership with GoDaddy for registering Google Apps
domains? Conflict of interests?

------
plasma
I've transferred about 10 domains from GoDaddy now, thanks for the step-by-
step guide.

------
gravitronic
alternate: use godaddy, but only their loss-leading coupons when they appear.

For example, I registered a domain last week using a code that got me $1.00
domain registration.

The code expired last week unfortunately so posting it would be irrelevant.

~~~
jonursenbach
Why even support them at all?

~~~
thebigshane
The purpose of loss-leading products/services is to get consumers to purchase
other things and that is where they make a profit. If a large enough group
only purchases loss-leading products/services and don't purchase anything
else, GoDaddy should be at a loss.... until they change their pricing models,
and then you can just boycott them all together.

~~~
pyre
Eniugh people dropping the service altogether + recommending against it when
asked for advice would probably deal a larger blow. Especially if Godaddy can
no longer claim the top spot and ride that popularity to get people to sign up
that *don'tV only buy loss leaders

~~~
gravitronic
I bet most of the people smart enough to know about SOPA and fight it are not
the people godaddy makes the majority of its profits on (ie, their "privacy"
features, email and web hosting with all the unnecessary bells and whistles)

------
zbuc
I sent an email:

Hello,

I am writing to you to inform you that because of GoDaddy's continued support
of SOPA I am transferring my domains to a different registrar as soon as I
can(they were renewed recently so I have to wait).

I read your press release today and I felt that you didn't actually respond to
a bulk of the criticism of SOPA, that is that takedown requests can be filed
by private parties and the respondent is legally required to remove the
content before even considering challenging the takedown request. This
obviously presents a large challenge to sites based on user-created content.

A world with SOPA is one in which businesses can't run websites with user-
generated content without having a legal team on hand.

SOPA is bad for the open internet and if GoDaddy refuses to look into the
issue and actually give a reasoned, intelligent response(as opposed to the
"well, we have to stop piracy!" argument your press release made -- yes,
something should be done about piracy but SOPA is NOT the answer) then
GoDaddy, too, must be considered bad for the open internet and I will stop
hosting my domains with you and stop recommending my clients host domains with
you.

Thanks,

<me>

------
maeon3
Ive been using bluehost.com for 3 years to host 3 websites. I could list them
but I dont want to spam. They have everything I need and I have seen no
significant outages or price increases.

Anyone here use Godaddy? How are their prices and service?

~~~
libraryatnight
I don't use any of their services except domain registration, I keep my WHOIS
up to date, and keep my names regularly renewed, to avoid any mishaps, I have
never had an issue.

I have used their hosting in the past, and I wouldn't recommend it to a
professional, but would to someone who wants to post pictures of their cats,
or run a low traffic personal wordpress blog.

------
maximusprime
Please can we at least try to ensure HN doesn't go the way of Reddit?

I'm against SOPA as much as the next guy, but it's a moot issue. Browsers will
just release new versions that use alternate DNS systems or get past any
'blocks'.

There's nothing uglier than an internet hate/protest mob.

~~~
jbrechtel
It sounds like you're suggesting apathy instead?

To say it's a moot issue because there are technical work arounds is pretty
naive. I seriously doubt any major browser would ship with a work around to
this...I don't know why you assume they would.

~~~
maximusprime
I just think the sky isn't falling that's all. I think the endless posting of
articles, protesting, etc etc is a big waste of man hours.

~~~
InclinedPlane
This sentiment is exactly the root of the problem. If "the sky started
falling" at exactly the moment when governments erected police states or
attained excessive powers then they would be blocked from having those powers.

Instead, these things tend to be two stage processes. In stage 1 the
government attains new powers in order to further some generally positive
goal. However, in stage 2 the lack of safeguards on that power leads to abuse
and excess but by then it's already too late to easily roll back or block that
power.

If we wait until the sky is falling then we will have waited too long. We need
to ensure that personal liberties have strong protections, both offline and
on. Failing to do so won't lead to immediate disaster but it will lead to
making it nearly impossible to stop a disaster as it's happening.

------
spenvo
For those interested in switching, Dreamhost offers an affiliate program, and
I have created a discount code with the maximum discount of 5 free domain
registrations (a 75$ value). Simply use the discount code REDDIT5FREE when
joining!

"SCREW GODADDY" is on a loop in my head right now.

