Godaddy's official position on SOPA - Just Posted | Hacker News Reader

Godaddy's official position on SOPA - Just Posted

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116 pointsdamonpace32 comments

This was just posted today.

Most of this is not a new posting -- just the material at the top.

She is using dangerous language -- talking about children, and about counterfeit goods which harm lives.

She makes it seem as if one must be for SOPA if they want to be against harming children or counterfeit goods. But that's not a logical conclusion. You can be for helping children and against SOPA. In fact, I'd imagine that would describe just about everyone who opposes SOPA.

SOPA is far reaching. SOPA is terrible and needs to be stopped. I'm all for something that stops the harm of children and the spread of counterfeit goods, but that's not what the SOPA debate is actually about. So let's focus on SOPA and not get misdirected by Ms. Jones.

both issues are red-herrings covered by previous laws passed..I think you will find a money MPAA/RIAA connection through enough digging

> talking about children

And this is the key. Right in the first paragraph. I love children. I'm about to have my first in March.

But if you can't make a cohesive argument for something without trotting out "but think of the children!" in the very first paragraph, for an issue that is only tangentially related to kids ... well ... that pretty much says everything.

Hard to even count the ways in which this statement is wrong.

Also, GoDaddy needs to hire an editor who can spell "complementary".

Maybe their editors are all too busy staring blankly at breasts, like in their ads.

Their content management system probably has four screens of upselling before the spell checker kicks in, causing their eyes to glaze over.

I love it when entities take a controversial position and, despite having the option to actually hear directly from the people its affecting, go ahead and just lock down the comment section.

Obviously, they locked the comment section in order to keep the Internet a better and safer place, especially for children.

And counterfeit goods!

  Go Daddy has a full time presence in Washington D.C. and
  takes an active role in policy development that impacts 
  the Internet, particularly issues having to do with children.

OMG won't you think of the children?!

So... what does Go Daddy have to gain from SOPA? Is there really that much money to be made in facilitating this ham fisted ban hammer?

They could always expect SOPA to increase domain sales. After all, many of these "rogue" sites use what could be considered disposable domain names, so odds when a domain is seized, it will soon be replaced by a newly purchased domain.

I can almost imagine a couple of new add-ons that are selected by default at checkout:

"We'll forward all copyright complaints to you within 24 hours so that you can take action before your domain gets blocked forever! This is absolutely necessary if you want to host user-created content! Only $12.95 per month!"

"We can expedite the appeals process if your domain ever gets blocked! We have backroom deals with the RIAA/MPAA! Only $249.95 per domain per incident!"

This is what a lot of people are ignoring. If the CEO really believed that one infringing site could bring down an entire business, like people are claiming, then surely he wouldn't support the act. This is a very big show of faith in the act as it is written by someone with a lot to lose.

Or, I dunno, conspiracy theory about selling more domains. Occam's razor?

I remember that some seized domains were transferred to GoDaddy by the law enforcement agency. Maybe they have (or intend to have) a deal with them? For example, when the domain is taken down, it's transferred to GoDaddy, they setup nameservers and show something like this: http://torrentfreak.com/images/seizedservers.gif

One theory: Regulatory capture? They can afford to shut down thousands of pharmaceutical sites, but can their competitors?

This is coming from a company that has no problem pulling your website without any legal reason (see seclists.org).

> The question should be how, not whether, we develop a > notice and takedown regime in a responsible and responsive way.

I agree. But SOPA is not the answer. Apparently this author cannot conceive of a better alternative.

GoDaddy's position doesn't strike me as malicious, but rather hopelessly naive. "We can't imagine the powers in this bill being abused" seems to be their position.

Well, then, a few examples of malice and overreach (e.g., Universal's recent takedown of a video in which they admitted knowing they had no copyright, and then a daily newscast which excerpted that video) would be enough to make the point.

Assuming they're not just being disingenuous.

Takedowns described here:

http://boingboing.net/2011/12/15/universal-music-uses-false-...

Naive to say the least. Mell Watt, one of congressmen present at the first hearing admitted to not knowing what a dividend was, and voted to allow banks to gamble on chaotic markets causing the 2008 crash. Now he's admitting to "not knowing anything about this technology" and saying "im no nerd, but..." and then continues to say that Issa was just wrong, and his experts are wrong, experts which include google. If you don't understand what you're voting on you're supposed to abstain.

Can I just point out, there is no way google and any of their experts are going to be neutral in this. Google has everything to lose and nothing to gain from stricter copyright policing. Just because someone is an expert doesn't mean they are neutral. I'm sure there would have been very many financial 'experts' from the banks arguing why the banks needed the freedom to do what they did...

I will agree to an extent with your point. An expert's neutrality can often be questioned. However, I bet you that the experts some in congress are relying on, write their opinions down on green pieces of paper with numbers on them.

> Go Daddy is the world’s largest domain name registrar with more than 50 million domain names under management.

Every time when i read some company's "we are f.ing big you s.ckers" shit, i hate them a lot... Yes you are a big company because of us, the individuals. If you forget it, you have to lose.

GoDaddy supports the bill because they love taking a contrary positions on an given issue. They see most of the industry taking X position on SOPA and so they take Y position. Corporate wise, they just seem to get off on it.

tl;dr. Somebody please think of the children!

I guess a company /can/ survive with the amount of bad PR that GoDaddy gets.

Let's say are rid of foreign porn. Are our Children safe now?! What about American porn sites? *Oh right, we are gonna make another bill fixing that! I swear US is more and more like China these days.

If the singularity happens and I become immortal, I will boycott Godaddy until the heat death of the universe.

Complimentary => complementary

It's a FUD piece. Says nothing.

There was way too much self promotion ("look how I work to stop bad pharmaceutical resellers and protect children in some vague manner) and not enough getting-to-the-point.

If balancing the free flow of information means restricting it, no thanks.

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