GoDaddy Pulls SOPA Support Following Customer Backlash

After an outcry from customers, Internet domain name registrar GoDaddy.com has withdrawn its support for controversial legislation aimed at strict enforcement of copyrights online.

"Fighting online piracy is of the utmost importance, which is why Go Daddy has been working to help craft revisions to this legislation - but we can clearly do better," Warren Adelman, Go Daddy's newly appointed CEO, said in a press release published on Friday. "It's very important that all Internet stakeholders work together on this. Getting it right is worth the wait. Go Daddy will support it when and if the Internet community supports it."

This reversal is apparently the result of a backlash from customers.

On Thursday, the House Judiciary Committee released a list of 142 companies supporting SOPA ("Stop Online Privacy Act"). Go Daddy, which says it manages 50 million domains for over nine million customers around the world, was listed among the supporters. Outraged Reddit users then called for a boycott of Go Daddy. Ben Huh, CEO of the popular Cheezburger blog network, announced that he would pull his 1,000 domains from Go Daddy if the company continued its support of the bill.

Go Daddy initially dismissed the outcry. "Go Daddy has received some emails that appear to stem from the boycott prompt, but we have not seen any impact to our business," the company told Ars Technica on Thursday.

In a November interview with HuffPost, Go Daddy General Counsel Christine Jones endorsed the legislation, saying everyone in the Internet ecosystem needs to do their part to fight illegal downloading. At the time however, Jones did express some reservations about the use of Domain Name System (DNS) blocking -- the tool the government would use to shut down websites -- as a technique that could create significant technical problems for the functioning of the Internet.

"We don't love DNS filtering and we think there are better ways to do it," Jones said. "It's not a clean or elegant solution."

She also expressed reservations about the bill's "private right of action," which allows movie studios and other companies to seek site takedowns outside of court, holding third-party companies like payment processors and web hosting services legally liable for copyright infringement committed by others.

"The private right of action on the Senate side is somewhat broad. I do think the house is trying to strike a better balance, but I also have said a lot of times in the past that its important for us to have a hybrid approach where companies in this industry take voluntary action when they're made aware of something that's wrong."

DNS blocking by the government and a private right of action for companies that believe their content is being infringed are the main features of the bill. Nevertheless, Jones wrote several blog posts for the Go Daddy website explaining and defending the bill. The company says those blog posts have now been removed.

TechCrunch's Alexia Tsotsis has compiled a list of Internet companies that have officially come out against SOPA. The list includes Aol, eBay, Google, Facebook, The Huffington Post, Twitter, Wikipedia and more. Visit her post to see the full list.

Comments

[Richie MuadDib]

06:40 PM on 01/01/2012

Our liberties are weighed against money.

In this case, there is over $100 Billion that says the internet needs to more friendly to the corporations that own the creative rights to the audio and visual art they purchased...

[old broken record]

07:43 PM on 12/27/2011

Take America back!

December 29th is leave GoDaddy.com day!

http://gizmodo.com/5870779/december-29th-is-leave-godaddy-day

[Jacob Stallings]

02:53 PM on 12/27/2011

Since when did America become a POLICE STATE?

[old broken record]

07:45 PM on 12/27/2011

we've been going down that past since the Republic turned into the Empire

and now that it's game over for the 99% the 1% will try to hold on to money/power just like any other state.

[Lex Anton]

10:12 AM on 12/27/2011

GoDaddy still supports it. Don't let their word trickery deceive you.

[Dahveed1]

02:11 AM on 12/27/2011

If GoDaddy supports it (and they still do, but they're just trying to be quite about their support) then its bad for the customer. GoDaddy is one of those companies that actively think about ways to screw their customer out of more money by overcharging for some key service.

[Steven Sigal]

10:28 AM on 12/26/2011

Maybe the owner is too busy killing Elephants to bother reading the Bill....

[urfree2speak]

09:18 AM on 12/26/2011

Daddy Go!

[edgecity]

10:00 PM on 12/25/2011

Be clear. Go Daddy SAYS they have pulled support, but their actions do not follow their words. They have not requested that Congress remove their company name from the list of supporting companies, nor have they recanted their testimony of congressional hearings. They are doing damage control to avoid further capital losses due to the boycott. They have lost tens of thousands of domains transferred to other registrars, they are trying to stop the bleeding.

That is all.

[thinkb4uleapII]

06:08 AM on 12/26/2011

After reading your post, Go Daddy just lost another multi-domain customer.

[KadejaLatefah]

08:48 AM on 12/26/2011

they suc for so many other reasons

[SkreetGil1]

08:55 PM on 12/25/2011

GoDaddy is the WORST!!! They actually took money out of my account without permission! And the debit card I had was canceled! And they, some how, got it through to my new debt card!

Chase, when I was with them, had to repay me because I didn't authorize it but GoDaddy wouldn't refund anything!

And their customer service sucks!

Support or no support...

DON'T USE GODADDY THEY ARE THE WORST!!!

[gypsynomad]

07:05 PM on 12/26/2011

I use Go Gaddy, it works fine for me. What do you suggest ?

[zewtastic]

02:58 AM on 12/27/2011

I switched about 20 domains to namecheap.com, was not that hard. Also use promo code SOPAsucks, and save a couple bucks.

[ItsJustCommonSense]

08:48 PM on 12/25/2011

Too bad their owner didn't think it was important what his customers thought when he was hunting standing elephants just to put a part of it in his game room. All so he could feel like a real he man.

[MauricioC]

08:07 PM on 12/25/2011

I buy my music from I-Tunes and Amazon. But I do not feel sorry for the record companies. they have been screwing us for years, selling us CD's with ONE good song and 14 bad ones. The record companies have been ripping off artists and customers for years, and they haven't adapted too well to new technology. It would be nice if artists created their own music and sold it online on their own web sites. Some artists are already there, but if the majority of artists did, maybe they could cut out the companies once and for all.

[KadejaLatefah]

08:50 AM on 12/26/2011

well still artists need protection of their work...nothing worse than seeing your work copied - I don't care how you spin it! just walk down the aisles of target - their buyers are stealing designs and ideas and manufacturing them to cut out the "middleman" but when you cut out the middle man you cut out the original artist too.

[Dahveed1]

02:24 AM on 12/27/2011

Artists already have methods of protecting their work. Actually, record companies routinely steal from their artists.

SOPA is the Patriot act of the internet. Record companies and movie companies are whining to their congressman about lost revenues to support a dramatic increase their ability to screw people who may have a legal use to that work. Rather than use the existing tools they have here in the US, they want a brand new set that gives them more power against parties that were never involved in the alleged theft.

Record companies are pretty much collections of lawyers that look to screw their customers (artists and music consumers) legally.

[Americanwoman55]

07:03 PM on 12/25/2011

Go Daddy, I dumped Bob Parson's Company after he killed elephants in Africa.
Hunting and killing large helpless animals is a real act of cowardice for me.
All this Company Go Daddy will do now is support this censorship behind the scene. Time for America and the consumers to show who is actually in control. If everyone dumps this company, Go Daddy, and sends SOPA supporters a clear message then it will not pass.
Consumers are in control.

[EvoMan]

05:37 PM on 12/25/2011

Not a fan of SOPA however, I don't know why some folks think if it's online it's free. If you find a nice image, video or musical piece and want to use it on your blog or website, ask the owner. They'll either give you permission, ask you to pay for it or say no.

http://www.templetons.com/brad/copymyths.html

The problem with SOPA is there is no due process. Once that gets fixed, I'll have less of an issue with it.

[xmaskarol]

10:50 AM on 12/31/2011

sopa is nothing more than lobbyists, and lawyers writing laws to protect the few, the very rich..believe me its not done to help and protect the consumer.

[ducebiggs]

05:29 PM on 12/25/2011

How to stop online piracy, just make content more accessible and cheap, stop trying to jack people for crappy DVD or CD, I use Itunes because I can just buy one song or as many songs that I want,no need to steal it. As far as movies, if I can pay 99 cents to watch it on youtube, why download it.

[Lonnie DeVorak]

04:26 PM on 12/25/2011

1and1 Hosting has great prices, should have gone there before. OH, and they don't support SOPA!

[SkreetGil1]

08:58 PM on 12/25/2011

Thanks for the tip! I will never use godaddy again!

[emr3671]

07:23 PM on 12/26/2011

1 and 1 has excellent support, and good prices. Also look at hostgator, we have been using them for years. An alternative for domain registration that has been very good is enom.com.