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).
Obligatory (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Busted!
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Anyway, check out http://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/no6b1/go_daddy_no_longer_supports_sopa_latest_blog_post/ [reddit.com] for more laughs!
GoDaddy has NOT withdrawn support for SOPA (Score:4, Insightful)
GoDaddy has NOT withdrawn its official congressional support for SOPA [reddit.com]
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.
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Re:Obligatory (Score:5, Funny)
Sorry about the cheating wife. Maybe it could have worked if you paid more attention to her and less time shopping around for hosting :)
Re:Obligatory (Score:4, Informative)
Hostgator has great support and stands against SOPA: http://blog.hostgator.com/2011/12/22/sopa-must-die/ [hostgator.com]
http://hostgator.com/ [hostgator.com] [hostgator.com]
They offer great hosting and domain management with support for everything you'd ever need, even with shared hosting. Technical support is also great and instantaneous.
Use coupon code nosopa25percent for 25% off your entire order as well.
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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.
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Yes - does anyone have a screencap of the "support" post?
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'Fighting online piracy is of the utmost importance,'
If one starts with that premise, then it's impossible to arrive at any rational conclusion. Allow me to rephrase, so that one and all might start over, and possibly arrive at some meaningful conclusion.
'Fighting online piracy is futile." Notice the full stop, no need for a comma, or any gibberish phrases to be tacked on.
New Record? (Score:2, Funny)
The story of GoDaddy supporting SOPA is still on /.'s front page, and now this....
Re:New Record? (Score:5, Funny)
The story of GoDaddy supporting SOPA is still on /.'s front page, and now this....
Funniest thing I've seen in ages. :-)
From the looks of things, this's just multiplied the Drop GoDaddy boycott by the Steisand Effect.
Funny as hell. And I thought they'd lost any thinking customers once the elephant shoot hit the headlines.
Yuk, yuk, yuk, ...
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.
Too late? (Score:3)
I've already transferred my domain and cancelled the auto renewal on another. Ha.
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Ditto. Too late.
Re:Too late? (Score:4, Informative)
Ditto ditto. My 3 domains are transferred off already. Honestly I've been planning on doing so anyway as GoDaddy sucks in so many other ways, so their change in course on SOPA is too-little too-late.
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Re:Too late? (Score:5, Interesting)
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Re:Too late? (Score:4, Interesting)
I have been transferring all my domains, it just takes forever with some of them. Since I had been intending to move them from godaddy anyway, this is the perfect excuse to do it.
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I've already transferred my domain and cancelled the auto renewal on another. Ha.
Why only cancel the auto-renew on one? It's worth pointing out (in case this is your reason) that you won't lose your current registration time by transferring to a new registrar. Usually transferring to the new registrar involves paying for a 1 year renewal but this 1 year will be added on to your existing registration, not replacing it. For instance I had domains with Godaddy that expired in 2012 and 2013, now I've transferred to internet.bs they expire in 2013 and 2014 respectively.
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...
Website owners vs. GoDaddy vs. SOPA (Score:2, Redundant)
There are website owners who are for SOPA. Most of them are big corporations, and they're not in the market segment that's using GoDaddy for their DNS service.
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:Too late? (Score:5, Interesting)
from https://twitter.com/#!/jimmy_wales/status/150287579642740736 [twitter.com]
I am proud to announce that the Wikipedia domain names will move away from GoDaddy. Their position on #sopa is unacceptable to us.
Let's see if wikipedia continues the move or not after this 180 turn
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.
Believe it when I see it. (Score:5, Insightful)
"Not supporting SOPA" isn't the same as "taking a stand against SOPA."
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.
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.
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"As soon as I can" is - quite frankly - bullshit. If you're like most people, you can do it now. You may not feel like it, but you can.*
I just auto-renewed my domains with them last month, but I took the hit and transferred away.
If you have the money to do it, do it. If you wait until it's convenient, it'll fade like yesterday's news always does, and you won't be as motivated to actually do something about it.
* the only exception I can think of - other than those who legitimately can't afford it or have
Just Goes To Show ... (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Re:Just Goes To Show ... (Score:5, Interesting)
Voting with your dollars works!
Unless of course it gets [redgreenandblue.org] you [gather.com] arrested [dailykos.com] instead. GoDaddy would probably be thrilled if they could have people arrested for transferring domains to another registrar if too many people try to do so at once -- and don't be surprised if some future version of DMCA/SOPA/FUBAR actually includes such a provision, or at least language which can be twisted that way. Face it, folks, they're not going to quit pushing.
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.
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Yup - you still can. We'll see if non-geeks care, or even remember, this issue come November. The thing about democracy: is the concerns of the average guy are all that voting will affect. I think SOPA might be defeated on the basis that congresscritters realize that the average guy is starting to notice this one - after all, they're messing with funny cat pictures, and I don't think that will fly.
Too little too late (Score:5, Interesting)
Already transferred my domains away today. Reversing their position doesn't really change anything at this point. They supported it and would've continued to if it hadn't been for the backlash.
And even besides that, their advertising schemes have been creepy from the start and Bob Parsons is now and always will be a cunt. SOPA support was just the straw that broke the camel's back for me.
Re:Too little too late (Score:4, Interesting)
The previous GoDaddy news item on /. was the straw for me. The SOPA support was just a motivator to put some more effort in moving all my domains.
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Same here. I've always disliked GoDaddy and their awful advertising and upsells. I switched to gandi.net today. Their removal of public support for SOPA is encouraging, and I'd like to think my emails to them contributed to the decision, but I'm still not going back.
So, GoDaddy is LoLdaddy now ? (Score:2)
Too Late. You've shown us your heart. (Score:2)
Re:Too Late. You've shown us your heart. (Score:5, Interesting)
How else would you expect a company to respond? How many times have people used the phrase "Vote With Your Dollars!"? This is exactly an example of that.
Go Daddy supported something. Its customers voted (or threatened to vote) with their dollars. Go Daddy re-evaluated what that meant and changed its stance.
Isn't that what you would want to see a corporate entity do?
Re:Too Late. You've shown us your heart. (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Too Late. You've shown us your heart. (Score:4, Insightful)
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Go Daddy re-evaluated what that meant and changed its stance.
Isn't that what you would want to see a corporate entity do?
It didn't change its stance. It dropped support for the bill, but still claimed that 'fighting online piracy is of the utmost importance'. So it's still not a company anyone should be dealing with.
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Isn't that what you would want to see a corporate entity do?
What most smart, knowledgeable people want to see this corporate entity do is crash and burn, and for its executives to be out begging on the street. The former probably won't happen, of course, and the latter definitely won't happen, but we can dream.
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Indeed it is.
Maybe their competitors will think BEFORE they act.
Let GoDaddy be a lesson to their competitors.
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This is really a case of character revelation. There's no reversing course when it is revealed you have bad character. Any claim of reversal is now tainted by the knowledge of your bad character, and will be for many years, until contrary actions convince the public of your change. So if GoDaddy wants this business back, they need not only state a reversal of course, they need to be seen actively lobbying and spending significant money fighting SOPA and similar laws. For years.
I think the bigger news here is... (Score:5, Interesting)
Stack Overflow used GoDaddy?? WTF?
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Re:I think the bigger news here is... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:I think the bigger news here is... (Score:5, Informative)
Not anymore. They're already in the process of moving away from GD.
https://twitter.com/#!/jimmy_wales/status/150287579642740736 [twitter.com]
lolwut? (Score:2)
several major sites threatened to pull their domains from Go Daddy, including Stack Overflow and I Can Has Cheezburger
ICHC is a major site? By what measure?
Re:lolwut? (Score:5, Informative)
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several major sites threatened to pull their domains from Go Daddy, including Stack Overflow and I Can Has Cheezburger
ICHC is a major site? By what measure?
Maybe not major in and of itself, but apparently the person who owns that domain also has over 1000 other domains registered with GoDaddy, so they'll be losing a fair chunk of renewal money there.
Re:lolwut? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:lolwut? (Score:5, Funny)
"I can has renewal money" should be GoDaddy's new motto. Never nom the hand that pets you.
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ICANN has Cheeseburger indeed... ICANN will disintegrate if SOPA goes through. It'll be replaced by something with minimal US presence, which pretty much all ISPs and ICPs will use, unless legislated not to.
When Congress goes as far as telling Google they can't use their own DNS root, things will begin to get REALLY interesting.
Re:lolwut? (Score:5, Funny)
I maded you a reply, but I ated it.
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I'd guess by measure of visitors. Cheezburger is a huge network of sites that gets a pretty incredible number of visitors.
Of which, 24% are law firms... (Score:5, Insightful)
... who stand to profit from the implementation of SOPA.
(Referring to the list of supporters)
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Also, why the fuck do L'Oreal and Revlon support an anti piracy law? Are they losing MILLIONS in downloaded cosmetics?
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They're losing revenue through actual plagiarism (www.overratedchemistrycrap.ru or somesuch). You know, real product piracy. In other words, the topic onto which the MAFIAA scumbags tagged their attempt to control the internet.
Re:Of which, 24% are law firms... (Score:5, Interesting)
And the most of the rest appear to be either unions (police and labor) and the content owners themselves like MPAA, ABC, CBS, NFL, and Disney (i.e. the usual suspects). GoDaddy seemed to be the only Internet based company on that list. I'm not sure I understand the motivation for all of the major drug and cosmetic companies, except to say that they rely heavily on copyright and patent to maintain their business models (no pun intended for the cosmetic companies).
Honestly, I was expecting that PDF to be a huge download, not 3 1/3 pages of companies I pretty much fully expected to see. If that's a mostly comprehensive list, I'm baffled as to why this sees so much support in Congress. The dollars must really be flowing from the usual suspects mentioned above.
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: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: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.
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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.
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I agree. I switched away from GoDaddy a few years ago, back when they started working with Microsoft to artificially inflate IIS's market share. I moved all of my domains to 1 if I still had any domains on GoDaddy, I would be in the process of switching away right now.
This just proves that I made the right choice.
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Stupid Slashdot mangled my message. It should have been, "I moved all of my domains to 1&1".
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.
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What's wrong with softcore porn sites? I mean, might as well do it right and go hardcore, but they're working with what they can get away with in the US TV market... :D
This is a typical GoDaddy scam (Score:5, Interesting)
We notice some spam. We report it to them. They ignore the reports.
We notice some more spam. We report it to them. They tell us it didn't come from their network/their customers/their affiliate/their anything.
We notice some more spam. We report it to them. They forward the reports to the spammers, who either list-wash us or send us more spam or send us nasty notes, sometimes with threats.
We notice some more spam. We report it more widely, and other people start taking notice. Eventually a number of people concur that yes, it's spam, and yes, it's GoDaddy's responsibility, and yes, they ought to do something.
When the chorus gets loud enough, GoDaddy finally does something -- like forcing the spammers to move their domains elsewhere. They announce this as a major blow against spam thanks to their own hard work and diligence. They trumpet their anti-abuse policies, pat themselves on the back, ignore the people who actually did the research, forget all about how long the abuse went on, and claim the whole thing as yet another win for themselves.
Process repeats.
So there is no doubt whatsoever in my mind that this is just the latest variation of that scam. GoDaddy is only allegedly changing its mind because of the money involved. It's not on principle, because they have none. I guarantee you that -- behind the scenes -- they're still doing everything they can to support this bill.
So, please, everyone: don't be naive and stupid enough to fall for this scam. Remember: if GoDaddy was REALLY against this bill, they could have said so yesterday. Or last week. They didn't.
These assholes... (Score:3, Insightful)
Go Daddy is (Score:3, Funny)
Wikipedia will be moving away from GoDaddy (Score:2)
https://twitter.com/#!/jimmy_wales/status/150287579642740736 [twitter.com]
Wikipedia/Wikimedia is out too (Score:2)
https://twitter.com/#!/jimmy_wales/status/150287579642740736 [twitter.com]
It'll take a week or two at least to go into effect (it's holidays!), but there you are.
MasterCard is in the SOPA supporter list... (Score:2)
... time to switch to ... ... wait a minute... ... Visa, Inc is also in :-(
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So is Mastercard but not American Express. Wonder if they just took a neutral position or there's some back story to it?
Looking for a new career Mr. Adelman? (Score:2)
"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."
- Sucking up to the wealthy IP industry?
Check!
- sticking your tongue up two asses at the sam
The Amazing Shrinking List of Supporters (Score:3, Interesting)
There been some shrinking of the "Judiciary Committee’s list of SOPA supporters", perhaps due to cold water? Compare this list [digitaltrends.com] (439 entries, dec 21) with the 'official' list [house.gov] (142 entries, dec 23).
Beyond the law firms that have complained [techdirt.com], I can't help but note that Electronic Arts aren't in the PDF.
Also, every time some actor tweets [twitter.com] anti-SOPA sentiment, make sure to point out to them that the Screen Actors Guild are official SOPA supporters according to the judiciary.
Amazing how many non-affected companies are listed (Score:4, Interesting)
The PDF list is by far the most interesting thing of this article and you'd expect it to be all media/software companies (since it's online piracy that the bill is concerned with). Surprisingly, there's a fair number of non-media/sofware companies who don't seem to have anything to do with online piracy at all - here's some:
Concerned Women for America (is there a Concerned Men for America too?)
Congressional Fire Services Institute
Coty / Estee Lauder Companies / L'Oreal / Revlon (why so many cosmetics companies?!)
International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers
Pharmeceutical Research and Manufacturers of America
Pfizer, Inc.
Tiffany & Co.
Not to mention a slew of slimebag lawyers who might stand to profit from any future legal action taken as a result of SOPA. About a third of the list includes conpanies that don't produce anything online to pirate and therefore, should never have been on the list on the first place (their presence is simply lobbying and not actually justified). I wonder how many boycotts we're going to see other than the frankly awful Go Daddy (who were terrible even before supposedly briefly supporting SOPA).
Being based in the UK, I wonder if a UK version of SOPA would result in a list of companies being released that supported the act - I don't know if companies in the UK publicly admit their support for legislation (or at least admitted in a way that a Freedom of Information Act request could reveal).
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The companies like L'Oreal and Pfizer support SOPA because they want to be able to take down sites advertising counterfeit versions of their product.
Some of the others aren't as readily obvious but I'm sure silver has crossed palms at IBEW.
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."
GoDaddy CEO interview with TechCrunch (Score:5, Informative)
http://techcrunch.com/2011/12/23/godaddy-ceo-there-has-to-be-consensus-about-the-leadership-of-the-internet-community/ [techcrunch.com]
Especially this piece:
Adelman couldn’t commit to changing its position on the record in Congress when asked about that, but said “I’ll take that back to our legislative guys, but I agree that’s an important step.” But when pressed, he said “We’re going to step back and let others take leadership roles.” He felt that the public statement removing their support would be sufficient for now, though further steps would be considered.
It's clear that they just want to hide in the shadow instead of taking "leadership" role in supporting SOPA now. Surprise!
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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.
Some unions support SOPA, not just companies (Score:2)
It's not just corporations supporting SOPA - it's also a number of unions and union-like organizations. Some of them are less surprising (AFTRA and other actors' and musicians' groups), but I wouldn't have expected the IBEW to be one of the bad guys.
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Actual electrical workers probably care about cheap knockoff parts that could electrocute them or their customers, or catch fire.
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In one sense, Sony is easier to boycott than GoDaddy. Those of us who had domains with GoDaddy actually had to take action to move them. But with Sony, all it takes is not buying anything else with their logo on it.
The downside is that unlike with GoDaddy, the company won't notice it the same way unless we actively alert them, so in that sense, yes, it's harder.
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It's actually harder to boycott Sony because at first you can only avoid products wearing any Sony brands. But it's a lot harder to boycott anything which includes components related to Sony (batteries, circuitry, ...).
At least with GoDaddy the enemy was in plain sight.
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We value your opinion and understand that there are both proponents and opponents of the Stop Online Piracy Act. Go Daddy's official stance can be viewed at http://support.godaddy.com/godaddy/go-daddys-position-on-sopa/ [godaddy.com]
that page is now blank and just states the change.
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