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Comment by plasma | Hacker News Reader

I hope moving away from GoDaddy, rather than stopping SOPA/etc, does not become the focus.

News people love new stories. You can't report "Tech companies oppose SOPA" every day, because once you reported it, it's no longer news. Companies abandoning GoDaddy because of their support of SOPA is just another interesting piece of news to report.

I keep seeing this sentiment around HN this morning, and I find it slightly irritating.

The point is that legislation like SOPA exists because corporate lobbyists introduced it. By punishing the companies that support the bill, we undermine the bill, and discourage others to adopt our side of the issue. Laws like SOPA are driven by money. When representative democracy fails to represent your view, voting with your wallet is a perfectly valid means of challenging policy.

Exactly: and further, that kind of apathy is precisely why laws like SOPA get passed. If you sit back and refuse to take "indirect" action to further your own interests, you are just granting the field to the parties that do take that kind of indirect action (in this case: lobbying).

Well, don't stop with GoDaddy. Keep looking -- and acting.

Thing is, money talks. If/when supporters realize it's going to cost them -- both in money and in publicity -- things will start to change.

I also favor "striking while the iron is hot". If the tech community can take the current attention and focus and use it set off the metaphorical small nuclear device, supporters may be sufficiently burned to at least hesitate for a useful period of time before trying this again.

If they don't listen to your vote in the booth, make them listen to the vote of your wallet. And your blog (woof!).

It's not that big of a deal to move away from GoDaddy. Just do it, and continue with the SOPA protests at the same time.

While GoDaddy should not become the sole focus, moving your domains away from them is very easy and produces tangible results. Even better, it gives those of us who don't live in the United States a meaningful way to contribute to fighting SOPA.

Agreed. Whilst I agree with making a stand against GoDaddy, all of the effort going into the Anti-GoDaddy campaign could probably be better spent directly at SOPA.

I strongly disagree. Anyone and everyone is already spending lots of effort opposing SOPA. If a company that supports SOPA would suddenly go out of business (one can dream) that would send a vastly bigger message than a bunch of useless online polls and blog posts.

I hope you are right. It just seems like the focus is too far shifted to GoDaddy currently.

I believe the goal is not to see GoDaddy go out of business, but instead reverse it's stance on SOPA. And quickly.

Probably won't happen. The head guy at GoDaddy is right-wing and is outspoken enough not to work against what he sees as his own interests.

At best, it will probably turn out like the issue at Whole Foods, formerly as seen as a very left-wing-friendly food store. The CEO gave a right-wing statement on some social policy legislation and got excoriated for his view. Eventually, after enough flaming, he backed down on the statement, but his views didn't change, just the official company line.

Call it cynicism or whatever, but I don't think Bob Parsons is capable of a real change of heart on this matter unless it seriously affects his pocketbook, and even then, he would be a wolf in sheep's clothing.

I expressed the same sentiment elsewhere [1] and the results have been interesting. Some responses were ideological, but no one really addressees the core point: there's an awful lot of effort going in to targeting GoDaddy, which is a proxy for the issue. It seems that the latent distaste for GoDaddy is driving people to conflate the two issues: 1) GoDaddy is a pretty scabby company in general, 2) we shouldn't support companies that support SOPA. Then all of the sudden GoDaddy stands alone as the fall guy.

1 - http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3382911

This is all part of the protest of SOPA, everyone has to do their part, if its moving away from GoDaddy until they rescind their support let it ride.

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