Go Daddy Backtracks On SOPA Support Following Boycott Threats
Posted in: Domain Names at 25/12/2011 16:42
Go Daddy has backtracked on its support for the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA that is aimed at stopping illegal file sharing. The legislation is currently working its way through the US Congress.
"Fighting online piracy is of the utmost importance, which is why Go Daddy has been working to help craft revisions to this legislation - but we can clearly do better," Warren Adelman, Go Daddy's newly appointed CEO, said. "It's very important that all Internet stakeholders work together on this. Getting it right is worth the wait. Go Daddy will support it when and if the Internet community supports it."
The world's largest registrar has joined companies such as Google in opposing the legislation. However it was initially among a list of 142 companies supporting the legislation. But its support was quickly reversed when there were calls for a boycott of the registrar by, among others, Reddit users on Thursday.
One of the first to call for the boycott was Cheezburger CEO Ben Huh who said the company would be moving their array of over 1000 domains away from Go Daddy unless the registrar recants their support of the act, reported TechCrunch.
Wikipedia's Jimmy Wales also called for a boycott and said announced via Twitter that he was "proud to announce that the Wikipedia domain names will move away from GoDaddy. Their position on SOPA is unacceptable to us."
Go Daddy and its General Counsel, Christine Jones, say they have worked with federal lawmakers for months to help craft revisions to legislation first introduced some three years ago. Jones has fought to express the concerns of the entire Internet community and to improve the bill by proposing changes to key defined terms, limitations on DNS filtering to ensure the integrity of the Internet, more significant consequences for frivolous claims, and specific provisions to protect free speech.
"As a company that is all about innovation, with our own technology and in support of our customers, Go Daddy is rooted in the idea of First Amendment Rights and believes 100 percent that the Internet is a key engine for our new economy," said Adelman.
In changing its position, Go Daddy remains steadfast in its promise to support security and stability of the Internet. In an effort to eliminate any confusion about its reversal on SOPA though, Jones has removed blog postings that had outlined areas of the bill Go Daddy did support.
"Go Daddy has always fought to preserve the intellectual property rights of third parties, and will continue to do so in the future," Jones said.
