Go Daddy Reverses Course On SOPA 330
An anonymous reader writes "Go Daddy has relented in the face of public pressure and will no longer support SOPA. '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."
Go Daddy was put under a tremendous amount of pressure from around the internet; a boycott had been organized for Dec. 29th, and several major sites threatened to pull their domains from Go Daddy, including Stack Overflow and I Can Has Cheezburger. The U.S. House Judiciary committee posted a list of companies who support SOPA (PDF).
Believe it when I see it. (Score:5, Insightful)
"Not supporting SOPA" isn't the same as "taking a stand against SOPA."
Too little, too late. (Score:5, Insightful)
I want to see them actively lobbying against it now, instead of just taking back what they said. Then maybe I'll have some respect for them. I still plan on transferring away from them as soon as I can.
Re:Obligatory (Score:5, Insightful)
I've already transferred all of my domains and their mea culpa is meaningless. The damage was already done when they supported it. They didn't change their mind. You and I both know they still support SOPA and will continue to do so. The only difference between today and yesterday is that, today, they don't have a page on their website saying they support it. This is lie your cheating wife saying that her affair with some dude behind your back is over - now that she's been caught - while the truth is she's just telling you it's over and she's actually continuing to cheat behind your back.
I should have left GoDaddy ages ago. I just couldn't find an affordable alternative that wasn't sketchy and didn't really want to deal with the trouble of the process. This just finally put me over the edge.
Re:"List of companies who support SOPA" (Score:3, Insightful)
First of all, it should say "a list of companies that support SOPA," because companies are not people
Actually they basically are under US law. Immortal people who have no wants or desires beside profit and no obligations to society at large. The modern corporation is the true American Psycho.
Of which, 24% are law firms... (Score:5, Insightful)
... who stand to profit from the implementation of SOPA.
(Referring to the list of supporters)
Fuck GoDaddy - switch anyway. (Score:5, Insightful)
Don't let laziness prevent you from doing the right thing. In the long run, most of the anti-SOPA registrars offer even cheaper services, so it makes sense even financially, if your ethical sense is underdeveloped.
Not good enough... (Score:5, Insightful)
I am not interested in doing business with a company sufficiently clueless about the Internet that they would ever have supported that bill.
If they are that unclear on what the Internet is or why it matters, they can go be clueless without me.
I think we've reached the point where it's time to remember that the purpose of copyright is not to ensure absolute and perfect control, it's to give good enough control that people can figure out a way to make money doing creative work. You know what? People are making money doing creative work. We're done. The "problem" of piracy isn't a problem, any more than the expiration of copyright was a problem.
Re:Too Late. You've shown us your heart. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Too Late. You've shown us your heart. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Obligatory (Score:5, Insightful)
Correction: In an effort to sow confusion about its stance on SOPA, Jones has removed blog postings that had outlined areas of the bill Go Daddy did support.
Re:Just Goes To Show ... (Score:4, Insightful)
Sometimes.
Re:Just Goes To Show ... (Score:5, Insightful)
If only voting these assholes out of Congress were as easy.
These assholes... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Too late? (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, turns out that the vast majority of people that maintain websites are against SOPA. Which is totally obvious considering the demographic. One really wonders what the fuck GoDaddy thought was gonna happen here. This stupid SOPA shit is so totally stacked against anyone that isn't a Huge Media Conglomerate or MAFIAA fuck that they should have expected this response.
Besides, everyone knows they're not sincere with this reversal. They just don't want to lose their customer base. Probably should have thought before they backed legislation that directly harms their customer base, though...
The media companies heavily bribe congress (Score:4, Insightful)
That's why they have such undue pull. If you look at the American economy, tech companies are WAY bigger than media companies. Intel alone could practically buy and sell Hollywood. However they don't spend a whole lot on bribes. They give money, of course, all companies do, but not on the level media companies do. The media companies give tons and have lots of lobbyists. They are real big on trying to buy the laws they want.
Re:Of which, 24% are law firms... (Score:4, Insightful)
If it's anything like the european attempts backed by police unions and the like it's because they could also use these controls for their own means and let their inner Gestapo deams roam free.
Re:Believe it when I see it. (Score:5, Insightful)
You are in for some lifetime disappointment as you meet more and more casual observers, and discover what is not intuitively obvious to them.
Re:Website owners vs. GoDaddy vs. SOPA (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, I know, but there are far more personal websites out there than Cocacola.com's, if you get my meaning.
Like you said, the odds of someone using their service being in support of SOPA are slim to none. The Cocacola.com's aren't using GoDaddy. They basically gave 99% of their customer base the finger by supporting this stupid shit. What a bunch of idiots...
Re:Just Goes To Show ... (Score:4, Insightful)
If protestors had invaded GoDaddy's private property and thrown a tantrum under the pretense of moving their domains, there may have been arrests there too.
Not of Utmost Importance (Score:5, Insightful)
'Fighting online piracy is of the utmost importance
No, it isn't. Fighting online piracy is a nice-to-have, not a mission-critical.
The ability to transmit information quickly and reliably around the world -- that is of utmost importance. Promoting the progress of science and the useful arts is of utmost importance. Protecting this one particular, possibly outmoded, approach to funding science and the arts is something that we should do if there is a cost effective way to make it happen.
We have not found a cost effective way to do so. The past 15 years of copyright law have cost us far more than they have paid, even in the short run, and their long-run impact in denying or delaying new forms of art, let alone new means of information distribution, is impossible to measure. It is time for us to stop defending and losing ground. This little industry that represents less than 5% of the U.S. GDP is taking far too much away from the other 95% that is absolutely dependent on information distribution. It is time to roll back these hasty and flawed laws that hinder information distribution to protect one small sector of our economy. We need to find ways to enable creators to profit that do not damage the entire rest of the economy. We need to challenge the unsubstantiated belief that this one archaic mode of funding is "of utmost importance."
Re:The media companies heavily bribe congress (Score:4, Insightful)
That's what happens when your product can't exist absent a government-granted monopoly.
Re:New Record? (Score:5, Insightful)
I'd never heard of either of the previous issues. Their commercials were scummy, but they started them after I'd already started registering domains with them, and it was convenient to keep all my domains in one place, and bad commercials aren't enough to make me leave a product that's working for me.
However, this news put transferring my domains as part of my to-do list for the weekend. This reversal doesn't change that: It says they can listen, but not that they can think. Otherwise wouldn't have taken the position they did in the first place.
Re:Too late? (Score:5, Insightful)
this 180 turn
This is not a 180 degree turn. It is a grudging submission to their customers on one issue. A 180 degree turn would be for them to oppose SOPA and to challenge the notion that imposing traditional copyright onto this new and incompatible medium is the only possible way to promote the progress of science and the useful arts.
This is maybe a 60 degree turn, and I'm being generous.
Re:Too Late. You've shown us your heart. (Score:5, Insightful)
And barring that, I'd like to see them do the right thing now... which, given the visibility they have with congress, is NOT to quietly sit in the back row and remove their blatant pro-SOPA propaganda... it's to go in and tell congress "We're losing all our business just on the THREAT of SOPA passing. I think we may want to kill this thing and come up with something that doesn't negatively affect everyone who uses web sites." Then to start lobbying in that direction, and start speaking out against the ways SOPA is harmful.
This isn't how I expect GoDaddy to respond, but this is the only way they'd gain my respect.
GoDaddy has NOT withdrawn support for SOPA (Score:4, Insightful)
GoDaddy has NOT withdrawn its official congressional support for SOPA [reddit.com]