Don't support objectifying women? Boycott GoDaddy. | Hacker News Reader

Don't support objectifying women? Boycott GoDaddy.

20 pointsjpadvo15 comments

You've seen their commercials. They just ran another one, as disgusting as they always are.

Don't give them your money.

Oh please... spare us the righteous indignation over the "war of the sexes." The various diamond retailers - who run commercials insinuating that a man's value to his (wife|fiancee|girlfriend) is based on the kind of diamond he buys her - are just as "disgusting" as Godaddy... but where's the outrage over that?

Godaddy is a fair domain registrar with relatively cheap prices... they get my business because they do what I need them to do, for a reasonable price, no more, no less.

Our peers in the web industry who just happen to be women regularly face difficulties and indignities for no other reason than that they happen to be women. In terms of treating men and women as equals, we're decades behind most of the rest of the professional world.

It makes no sense, it is obnoxious, and GoDaddy spends millions every year to make it worse.

Edit: You are right, of course, that men are often degraded in advertisements. And it does irk me. But the vast majority of the time women get hit a lot harder than we do. This is especially true in computer-related lines of work.

Maybe it's just blind-luck, or some other bias, but I just don't see it. I've worked in IT, and more specifically in the software industry, for 15 years or so now, and I haven't seen this gender based discrimination (in the workplace anyway). Having worked for little small companies that nobody has ever heard of, to IBM and Red Hat, I've worked with a large number of really talented female software developers, and I don't see them routinely complaining that they're being discriminated against.

I'm not saying it never happens, mind you, but I do question the veracity of this assertion: "In terms of treating men and women as equals, we're decades behind most of the rest of the professional world."

In any case, I'm all for equality, but I'm also all for acknowledging human nature. Men like hot women, women like men with money and power. So be it...

"In any case, I'm all for equality, but I'm also all for acknowledging human nature. Men like hot women, women like men with money and power."

I'm also for recognizing human nature. Like the fact that women like hot men, some men like women with money and power, and some women don't like men with money and power.

"So be it..."

The fact that men like hot women does not excuse objectifying them.

Or, maybe it's happening and you're just not seeing it.

Agree. GoDaddy is horrible, especially when they try to up-sell you. No one should have to pay extra for "domain privacy". It shouldn't be too much to ask to just buy a domain without having to say no to a hundred different offers.

I didn't see their commercial, but you missed the opportunity to point out that they have lots of loudly unhappy customers (http://nodaddy.com/), shut down sites for no good reason (http://seclists.org/nmap-hackers/2007/0 and the recent spate of 'seized for infringing copyright'), etc.

GoDaddy is not the only company doing this kind of advertising. It doesn't make me upset rather it puzzles me how technology companies ignore the 50 percent of the market that buys their products (the female market) Imagine what kind of revenues they would make if they targeted women and tapped into that revenue stream instead of insisting on staying focused on the male market with their ads, a market that is very saturated.

Already boycotting, and recommending other alternatives to my friends. Nice of them to remind me that it's the the right thing to do.

Blatent plug - http://www.dyndns.org. No affiliation other than being a happy customer for over 10 years.

Edit - fixed the link ... Sorry for the IPad typing.

That link doesn't seem to work...

Edit - great. :)

Never have - never will ... The second commercial was equally bad.

GoDaddy seems to draw more than their share of negative attention because they make really crappy commercials that objectify women.

Add a few more zeros to the budget and you end up with high quality commercial that objectifies women but gets far less complaints.

Bottom line: People hate GoDaddy commercials because they suck.

Probably true in part, but they also go a lot further than most. For example, the way they post "unrated" content on their website, and push it during the Super Bowl.

It seems you will trade objectification for paternalism. Your idea is that we should not respect Ms. Patrick's decisions. However, GoDaddy is the primary sponsor of Danca Patrick on both the IRL and NASCAR Nationwide circuits. It's very simple, she is a spokesperson because of they are a sponsor

Should we boycott Pepsi because Jeff Gordon appears in their commercials, too?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com