Here is Godaddy’s statement in support of SOPA
thedomains.com
thedomains.com
At that time Parsons Technology was known primarily as the publisher of a personal finance program called MoneyCounts, but they also released a formidable catalog of Bible-related software.
Much to my dismay, the interview process was heavily skewed toward determining how much of a believer I was and ran into all manner of private territory.
I did briefly meet Bob -- just a handshake and he was gone.
Very little of my computer experience was discussed and by the end of the rushed interview I was given complimentary copies of Parsons Technology Bible-related software.
I drove away from that interview disappointed and tricked.
Obviously you can't jump to conclusions from anecdotal data, but I wanted to share this experience and my personal opinion that Bob Parsons is an intensely self-righteous and dogmatic fellow.
Anyway, from my early experience with his first company, to his bizarre and narcissistic elephant hunt, GoDaddy's obnoxious objectification of women, and now SOPA... I've always felt the guy is just sort of twisted and unsavory.
One man's view only.
The official page of the House Judiciary Committee shows that the committee has completely made up its mind already. In addition to this list of supporters, they are full of links to supportive letters, pro-SOPA press releases, etc.
There is not one single item on that page to reveal that anyone is opposing this.
It seems to me that before a bill is approved, and especially at this point, still in committee, the legislature ought to try to maintain some balance. They ought to at least acknowledge that there are alternate points of view, and show those alongside the supporters.
[1] http://judiciary.house.gov/issues/issues_RogueWebsites.html
UPDATE: I just called Rep. Lamar Smith to complain about this, since he heads the committee. The person taking the calls said that's a committee issue, and forwarded me to them. As soon as I started explaining my concern to the committee phone-answerer, they stopped me and forwarded me to another line, that allows me to record comments "for the full committee", and which is "checked periodically". In other words, there doesn't seem to be any real way to complain to the committee about this.
UPDATE 2: I talked to my own Representative (or rather, his assistant). There doesn't seem to be any process where he can feed comments about this to the committee.
The moves are blatant and any opposing voices are simply ignored.
http://judiciary.house.gov/issues/Rouge%20Websites/Stop%20On...
More like "opinion" sheet, there isn't a single fact on there.
If this is the case then as a business they pretty much have to support it -- it would be their obligation to shareholders to do so.
Seriously? I dont need someone to protect me online. It's. It the Wild West. Who will protect me from the crap they sell on late night TV? Maybe we should put a stop to infomercials next.
I thought the supporters of this were supposed to be anti "big government". Seems like this bill is just imposing more government regulations.
Note: they're not the cheapest though if that's something important to you.
e.g. ryandvm.com (CNAME) -> ryandvm.dnsdynamic.org (A) -> 123.123.123.123
This is what I use for my home server, and it seems to work well.
[0]: http://www.dd-wrt.com/wiki/index.php/Dynamic_DNS (list of providers)
Two separate times, I've had them recommended to me and both times I gave up on the transfer. Last time my payment (to my Amex card that I've had no other issues with) was rejected and this is what they said:
So that your order can pass this time, we require : A valid Government-issued Drivers License or Valid Government-issued passport with recognizable photo AND A document from your telephone service provider that clearly states the telephone number and the address as presented in the whois as belonging to the registrant.
So I gave up instead. They never told me exactly why.
The thing is, you can find lot of companies that will register your domain, take some money, and not make another sound until your domain needs renewal. I've always been surprised at the loyalty gandi.net has engendered for a service that's so thoroughly commoditized.
They aren't the cheapest, but they aren't exactly pricey either, and I feel safe in the knowledge that my domains are well looked after, within Europe, and I have full control over the DNS records and so on.
My only complaint is that DNS changes through the webapp take 10-15 min to propagate to their authoritative zone files, making DNS cut-overs a little slower than I'd like.
But all in all, highly recommended..
I also run a server at home and use ddclient on Ubuntu to update the IP address of a host on my own domain. Works great! Highly recommended.
SOPA will increase cost and complexity for all providers. GoDaddy figures they're better at coping with SOPA's implementation than potential competitors. Thus, SOPA will be a useful barrier to the entry of disruptive competition, which will have to develop their own SOPA compliance systems.
And Sen. Feinstein's constituency is the entire state of California. She has received a lot of money from the entertainment industry, including the MPAA, Disney, Sony, and others.
But you are correct: this is not a partisan issue. I was simply trying to guess at the motives of GoDaddy's CEO. Since it was a guess, it will obviously be imperfect.
The left is just as authoritarian. Mostly revolving around taxes (IE: forcing one group of people to pay more taxes than another because they don't need or deserve it).
Shutting down freedom of speech, indefinite detention, arbitrary expropriation are authoritarian. A non-flat tax is not.
Not that the "left," insofar as it exists in the federal government, is consistently much better on those issues.
Only because it goes against your personal views.
"Shutting down freedom of speech, indefinite detention, arbitrary expropriation are authoritarian. A non-flat tax is not."
I'm not talking about taxes now. I'm talking about what taxes would be if the left had it their way (much higher), which in my mind, is authoritarian. Take a look at every single hard-left country in Europe: taxes are astonishingly high and the government has much more control over citizens' daily lives.
When lots of people are dependent on the government through large social nets, they will almost never vote against the hand that feeds them.
As you go too far right or left, you meet in the the same place and it's something I really don't want running my life.
Taxes are important, but we need to have a balance.
Consider, for instance, the Kirkpatrick doctrine (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kirkpatrick_Doctrine). It's possible to debate the plausibility and soundness of it as a foreign policy principle, but that's because authoritarian has a real meaning beyond "ANTI FREEDOM!! (TM)". It has to do with how the center of political power interacts with its opposition, particularly in contrast to how totalitarian states do so.
Note that the countries which had the greatest amount of government intervention in the economy and actually did take a bunch of guns from people are very explicitly not authoritarian: they're used in contrast to the authoritarian states of (mostly) Latin America, which were hardly high-tax or anti-gun.
Though really, higher or lower taxes are in practice beside the point. Whether it's the government, or the employer, most people will never be financially independent and will always find themselves beholden to whichever hand --government or boss-- feeds them.
I argue that if our ultimate goal was financial independence for each and every citizen as opposed to partisan quips about "job creation" and "taxation" and "regulation" then we wouldn't have any major concerns about those things to begin with. They'd be non-issues; ancillary concerns rather than concepts at the forefront of everyone's minds. Precisely because every player has the capital necessary to make a sufficient stand for themselves.
For some reason though I don't think most would approve of such a citizenry.
If a given tax regime has democratic support, collecting the tax will be coercive but the institutions that collect it need not be authoritarian.
Interpreting the 2nd Amendment, as many politicians still do, in a way that nullifies it ("I believe in the 2nd Amendment but not that it applies to individuals") is indistinguishable from believing in its abolition, and no different in theory than supporting the abolition of any other part of the Bill of Rights.
I have no issue with people who seek a constitutional amendment to remove the 2nd Amendment. I do have an issue with people who favour gun control measures that have been ruled by the Supreme Court as violations of the 2nd Amendment but still claim to support the Bill of Rights.
Americans have an individual, inalienable and fundamental right to possess firearms. This is not my opinion, it is the opinion of the highest court in the land, and the only body with the constitutional authority to decide this issue. If you disagree, you do not support the Bill of Rights in its entirety.
Your strawman arguments about things that are already illegal and have never been in dispute (did the NRA have a "let convicted felons own guns" campaign I missed?) may not be bumper sticker politics but that is only because they are verbosely misleading rather than concisely so.
The military gets conned into buying counterfeit products, but somehow it is the fault of the inter-tubes that that occurred.
Good buy reason and common sense.
Maybe Godaddy thought they were throwing their weight behind an effort to stop online Privacy, not Piracy? :)
Good men had to die to give me the freedom this man is trying to take away. This man made his fortune in a country founded on what he is actively destroying. Lets take away some of godaddy's freedom. Lets make this an unprofitable year for them.
Good men had to die to firmly establish habeas corpus; yet today our government detains people indefinitely without trial.
Good men had to die to ban unlawful search and seizure; that right lies in ruins amid warrantless phone wiretaps and a farcical law that says email left on a server for more than 60 days is abandoned property.
SOPA is terrible and the right of startups to avoid prosecution for user piracy is important — but for you to invoke the death of American soldiers across countless wars in support of this relatively narrow cause, when there is so much other injustice going on, greatly undermines your point. A little perspective goes a long way.
The government could kill, detain and illegally raid citizens who oppose them - and with SOPA, the internet will be censored such that people will be in the dark on these issues.
SOPA is dangerous because it gives the executive wide power to deprive private citizens of their property, without any due process, in direct violation of the Fifth Amendment.
Looks like the owner of GoDaddy fought for your freedom as well.
US military Veteran != Fought for my freedom.
In some cases they did, in some cases they did not.
Article 1, Section 8, Clause 11 (the Wars Power clause) grants congress the right to declare war and Article 2, Section 2, Clause 1 gives the US President the title of commander in chief.
The legitimacy of military power in the US derives solely from the US Constitution. If war is waged in a way that does not support the Constitution, I would imagine it should not only be every soldier's right, but duty to disobey an order.
The Armed Forces Oath even suggests that should be the case:
"I, (NAME), do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. So help me God."
The Oath states that they are to defend the Constitution, not Congress, not the President, not Wall Street, etc.
When soldiers take the Oath, are they also required to learn the Constitution in detail? If not, how are they to know whether or not their actions are in defense of it?
Losing the massacre in Vietnam seems not to have had any negative impact on the freedom of Americans though (it only had on the lives of millions in south east Asia).
I don't want to be protected online. I'll take my chances in exchange for being able to decide for myself what is safe and how I behave even if I decide wrong.
I hope you aren't serious. Remember how Bank of America reversed their decision on the 5$ fee they were planning to impose, when people started moving their money to community banks? the only way to make these big businesses budge on anything is to take your business elsewhere.
Nothing was won against BoA, they just pushed the fee someplace harder to find.