By not coming out fully against the controversial Stop Online Piracy Act, GoDaddy is still facing a massive Internet backed protest that could see it lose thousands of customers on the 29th of December
GoDaddy is still coming under attack for not clarifying their position on SOPA, as it has been reported that the domain registration company has lost over 70,000 domains in the last week alone.
GoDaddy invited themselves into the controversy by actively supporting SOPA and its US Senate cousin, Protect IP Act (PIPA). Earlier in the year, GoDaddy even testified in Congress to support any legislation that would use the Internet's DNS system to block "parasite" websites.
With the Internet calling for a boycott of GoDaddy, and asking website owners to move their domain names out of the company, GoDaddy softened their pro-SOPA stance last week, but without re-declaring their position on PIPA, and without completely coming out against SOPA, the boycott apparently is still on. And now GoDaddy's rivals, who have been much more vocal in their opposition to the controversial Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), are taking advantage.
Competitor Namecheap officially announced their anti-SOPA stance last week, likening the legislation to "detonating a nuclear bomb on the internet". The company has joined in as one of the key supporters of "Move Your Domain Day" movement, a movement asking people to move their domain names away from GoDaddy. "Move Your Domain Day" is scheduled to take place on the 29th of December.
For their part, Namecheap will be offering below-cost domain transfers on the day (if people use the coupon SOPASucks), and $1 from every domain transfer will be donated to the Electronic Frontier Foundation, "to help them continue the legal fight against SOPA, PROTECT-IP, and other overbroad and ill-considered legislation."
More controversially, Namecheap also initially accused GoDaddy of interfering with the normal domain transfer process, against the rules set by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), the body in charge of managing the global domain name system. The issue has since been resolved, as GoDaddy denies any wrongdoing.
GoDaddy has had a turbulent 2011. Earlier in the year, the company was caught in a publicity storm after videos of its owners hunting and killing an elephant on an African safari, was posted online.
Full Disclosure: Digital Digest employs the service of both Namecheap and GoDaddy.
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