In an almost comical flip flop, Godaddy just released the following announcement:
Go Daddy is no longer supporting SOPA, the “Stop Online Piracy Act” currently working its way through U.S. Congress.
“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. “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.”
Go Daddy and its General Counsel, Christine Jones, have worked with federal lawmakers for months to help craft revisions to legislation first introduced some three years ago. Jones has fought to express the concerns of the entire Internet community and to improve the bill by proposing changes to key defined terms, limitations on DNS filtering to ensure the integrity of the Internet, more significant consequences for frivolous claims, and specific provisions to protect free speech.
“As a company that is all about innovation, with our own technology and in support of our customers, Go Daddy is rooted in the idea of First Amendment Rights and believes 100 percent that the Internet is a key engine for our new economy,” said Adelman.
In changing its position, Go Daddy remains steadfast in its promise to support security and stability of the Internet. In an effort to eliminate any confusion about its reversal on SOPA though, Jones has removed blog postings that had outlined areas of the bill Go Daddy did support.
“Go Daddy has always fought to preserve the intellectual property rights of third parties, and will continue to do so in the future,” Jones said
In other words, the people of Reddit and other backlash have made enough impact on their business that if they didn’t put out this type of statement that they stood to lose millions of business. I have to admit, it even caught me off guard the animosity that people have for Godaddy. The SOPA thing was the fuel they needed to lead an attack against them. And it worked. The thread on Reddit is one of the higher vote counts this month and obviously touched a nerve. The community also started calling out big names like wikipedia and imgur to move their names from godaddy. Forcing the owners to at least show sympathy to the movement to avoid being on the wrong side of the attacks. We’ll see if this qwells the masses.
hmm no. This isn’t about losing money. Bob Parsons would have stuck to his guns. That’s what happens when new management comes in, you lose power and identity.
@ DomainShane, you, Elliot, and Andrew get the “breaking news” award today – you’re on it!
Jones was crafting a way to avoid liability for taking down sites, which is something GD practices anyway. It would have been a coup de grâce to get that liability protection for the domains Godaddy takes away to sell when they’re valuable, from legitimate businesses.
Jeeez everyone, take it easy on Godaddy. They did the right thing now. I don’t know much about SOPA, but stopping online piracy is a good thing, just depends how they go about it. The ability to blacklist sites for this could lead to abuse.
This new year, I want urge all “domainers”, again, especially, the blogging class, to use their heads. We can restructure this industry, by making it fair, transparent, level, and relevant. This can only be achieved by stripping the unfair, and unwarranted hegemonic dictatorial powers granted to Francois of Domaining.com. Why should he be allowed to operate an exorbitant exclusive industry trade platform, that gauges money from domainers with simple RSS feeds of blogs? Why shouldn’t we organize a non-profit place where all these blogs are centralized? If domain bloggers are really as smart as they claim to be, why are they being charged $1500 for 10 ads? Whereas, their blogging is rendered free, daily to this cat? On top of that, forced to display his logos, and businesses? Why? In this economy where most domain bloggers are starving, why should this guy be the fat cat feeding on this industry? Yet, he competes head to head with any ideas presented herein? When will you guys learn that this industry will never be strong as far as it is so centralized? The newbies have no chance in hell of making it with structure. All he is concerned with is charging money to domainers. Flooding the market with useless names?
I, again, urge a new beginning this year. We need an arbitrage where all of us can have an input. There’s simply no excuse for giving all your hard work, and money to this private outfit, where an industry organization is required. Coming here and reading same RSS news feeds from 200 people, on the same news that can easily be extracted from RSS subscription to Sedo or Aftrenic, or Godaddy makes no sense. Besides, what do we care what those guys sold this week? Bloggers, use your heads and let’s get the year right, and do some business. It’s insanity to keep doing the same thing, and expect different result.
Thank you.
Uzoma/Roverwhelming,
Us Bloggers are intelligent people and have free choice. We are also business people. If someone felt that they could make more money doing things another way we would. Domaining.com is a valuable platform. Francois can charge whatever he wants. The free market will dictate if it is fair or not. If the prices for ads are too high they simply will not advertise and he will be forced to lower his prices. It is HIS site and he is free to do what he chooses. I am on his team because it is in my best interest to be on his team. I am not forced to be on his team. It is public knowledge that I too was going to start an aggregation site but realized it made no financial sense. So I urge YOU to do this. Find your happy place. Go to sites that you want to go to. If you don’t want to go to to a site that has 4 sites listing Sedo sales then DON’T GO TO THAT SITE. You are a free man with free choices. You are not paying for any of these nice sites. If you are a blogger then Francois or any aggregator owes you nothing. You don’t want to be scraped, turn off your RSS. If you want to be on their site and they have cost, rules, or simply won’t list you. That’s their choice and part of business is having a closed sales outlet that you wish you had. All you can do is decide if you want to still sell that product and if you do, find another way to get it out there. I built a blog from scratch and did it my way not anyone elses. If I have a problem with someone I let them know. We may fight, argue, but eventually we agree on the answer and move on with no hard feelings. This is business, a hobby for me, but business. Francois, Abdu, Namebee don’t run this site. If anyone does, it’s Google. THEM I can’t live without. Just like millions of other online sites. The others are part of Team Shane and I am on their team as well. If someone won’t let you on their team, then either practice and make it so they have to let you on, form your own new team, or take your ball, wipe your team and go home. Merry Christmas
If their elephant-shooting fiasco is any indication, Go Daddy will eventually recover from this. I once blogged how their stats essentially dropped for roughly two weeks before they grew again after.
Hey Shane,
Happy Holidays to you too.
I thank you for your reply.
I can only ask you to stand back, while I take care of this.
We will have real industry. All those cornering it will soon find out that it’s over.
You can either wash your hands and join the dinner party, or stay out of the way, Shane.
No more idol worshiping. This has nothing to do with free market and all that mantra.
You are right, this is business.
Rover,
Looking forward to it. Idol worshiping has been around for thousands of years and will continue forever. Popular will rule the correct. I have heard the constant words of those that seek change and swear to make it happen yet it’s the silent that seem to make it happen through their actions instead. I wait to see your plans with baited breath.
Merry Christmas to you and your readers.
We all want the same thing, silent, laconic, loquacious, alike. A prosperous New Year!
Take care Shane, see you next year!