SOPA has enraged thousands upon thousands of internet users since its original proposal by the Texas Rep. Unfortunately SOPA is still being considered despite the continued opposition from people everywhere and it’s gained the support of over a hundred businesses and corporations.
Amongst the list of SOPA supporters (which can be found here) GoDaddy, the popular internet registrar, was amongst them. GoDaddy actually allowed the United States to illegally seize numerous domains in their “quest to stop internet piracy”. Now GoDaddy is reeling from the aftermath of their stance.
Many web businesses depend solely upon their website to function, their livelihoods depend on their site, and for GoDaddy and SOPA to compromise their livelihoods in such a way then they are rightfully concerned. Many of these concerned website owners have begun flocking in the thousands to other registrars in fear of having their site seized.
GoDaddy, due to their supportiveness of SOPA, lost over 37,000 members and the count is still rising. Since then GoDaddy has, conveniently, reversed their stance on SOPA to a neutral one and they are even calling website owners in a desperate attempt to regain some of their lost members however this attempt is being met with little success.
The fact that GoDaddy so quickly switched its support just goes to show that they only do what is more convenient for their company at the current time. They didn’t think about the consequences of their actions and how it would affect their customers, instead they only changed their “opinion” after they realized just how strongly many users felt about SOPA.
It is widely known how dangerous SOPA is and how devastating it would be to website owners because merely linking to a site that distributes pirated materials could result in extreme fines. Additionally SOPA would allow the United States to seize websites without due process and retain them from website owners – the owners basically have no way of fighting back and their entire lives could be destroyed due to an unfair act passed by greedy companies.
GoDaddy will likely think twice about risky stances in the future, especially after losing so many members after their recent fiasco. Unfortunately the damage is done and we can only hope that SOPA is voted down sometime in the near future.
The above domain i bought from Godaddy.. just one day late of payment instead of paying $10. they asked me to pay more than $200.. i was shocked…we exchanged many emails they were so merciless ..and i had to drop paying and lost my domain..
I regretted a lot… i will never encourage anybody to buy domian or do any business with Godaddy.. they are number of selfish people…