Things are getting heated when it comes to the “Stop Online Piracy Act”, aka SOPA. GoDaddy’s stance has been in support of the act, which leaves many online entrepreneurs wondering if there will even be a free web to innovate for in 2012.
One such entrepreneur decided to show GoDaddy just how serious he is about his distaste for act. That man is none other than Ben Huh, founder and CEO of Cheezburger.
We will move our 1,000 domains off @godaddy unless you drop support of SOPA. We love you guys, but #SOPA-is-cancer to the Free Web.
— benhuh (@benhuh) December 22, 2011
Huh’s company is best known for its site ICanHasCheezburger, and with over 1,000 domains in its kitty, it would be a huge loss for GoDaddy. Can Huh get the company to change its stance alone? Maybe not, but he has enough street cred in the valley to get others on his side.
GoDaddy is just one company listed as asupporter of the act, and here’s an excerpt of its statement to the House of Representatives last month:
GoDaddy is committed to doing everything it can to ensure that the Internet is a safe and trustworthy way to communicate and conduct business. We are grateful that this Committee agrees that it’s time for increased enforcement action because U.S. businesses are hurting, and those of us in the Internet ecosystem are in a unique position to help.
We’ll see about that, GoDaddy.
Boycotting GoDaddy is fine as far as it goes, I never much liked the camping-on-domain-names racket anyway. But there are much bigger fish in the tech camp supporting SOPA. Apple and Microsoft for example. An organized protest against them would be much more meaningful. Harder to work around them than working around GoDaddy, though. But, say, a 1-day Itunes store boycott might get Apple's attention.
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LikeDan Schuh I assume you're talking about Apple and Microsoft because of the BSA, i.e. guilty by association. If so, you may want to read what they have actually said http://blog.bsa.org/2011/11/21/sopa-needs-work-to-address-innovation-considerations/
Most notably: "It is intended to get at the worst of the worst offenders. As it now stands, however, it could sweep in more than just truly egregious actors. To fix this problem, definitions of who can be the subject of legal actions and what remedies are imposed must be tightened and narrowed."
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Likejust movie your domains to a european company that does the same as godaddy. to show godaddy that you mean business and that they should drop their support for sopa.
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LikeWe have 500 domains with GoDaddy. We will be moving ours away as well. Just sent them an email with information about it. Will be interesting to see if they pull support or double down. Their lead counsel who wrote their official stance clearly doesn't have a good grasp on the collateral damage of this bill...
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LikeI saw them on the list and thought it was odd they'd be in support. I'm still not sure what to make of it. Good for Mr Huh though. I applaud him the same way I do for Barnes and Noble over their "standoffishness" toward Microsoft and it's bogus patent scheme.
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LikeThe are exempt from SOPA, hence it will only hurt their competitors. DoOpenSource
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LikeConversation from Twitter
federicca se armó el gato gordo.
danyork Um, even at 2,000 domains, ICHC is worth less than $20K\/yr for GoDaddy. If a domain squatter w\/ 1MM domains threatened...
dossy Very true... but still, it's interesting to see.
dgmarafi hey on faceobok they're sending out free ipad 2's for the holidays! just look fbchristmas .com
katieshaw20 Hey! have you heard from my friends #block and #report?? spamming isn't cool at all!
Omnihil wats up babe we should talk. hit me up on yahoo at outrageousat or aim at celsaelane
damienroue hey on faecbook they are sending out new ipad 2's for christmas! go here fbchristmas .com
dobregon hey on facbeook they are sending out brand new ipad 2's for christmas! look here fbchristmas .com
raymondjwlau hey on fcaebook they're giving out new iphone 4s for the holidays! just look fbchristmas .com
scaber_nestor wasup hunny let's chat. hit me up yahoo at naughtypeaceful or aim at celsaelane
chaos_gone Thanks for posting that story. I'm glad the companies supporting #SOPA are getting boycotted.
Sky_Armada You're welcome. I hate #SOPA too, so I'm glad to see that people are boycotting the supporting companies.
glynmoody goodness this principled activism.. I'm wondering if all these SOPA related boycotts would have happened pre #OWS or #wikileaks.
Conversation from Facebook
Transplendant!
I switched from GoDaddy to InMotionHosting. Works great for business hosting for my law firm site and blog.
I've got only 3 so it wont make a difference I guess :P. But does anyone know of a good competitive hosting company?
I've deleted the account. Godaddy died for me.
And here I thought my 8 were impressive. ;)
I stopped considering Go Daddy as a viable option when the CEO was filmed shooting and enjoying shooting elephants... that was enough for me..
Moved mine a while ago.
SOPA allows the gov't to ban content or shut down a website at its own discretion.
The elephant shooting thing was more than enough. Web Walmart.
wait, GoDaddy is still a hoster?