By THN News
December 29 2011
Despite pulling its support of the controversial anti-piracy legislation known as SOPA (the Stop Online Piracy Act) last week, top world web host and domain registrar Go Daddy continues to feel heat concerning the company’s stance on the matter. Earlier this month, a user of the social networking site Reddit.com suggested that users transfer their web sites away from Go Daddy on Thursday, December 29th. The day has been coined “Dump Go Daddy Day” by online activists and media outlets.
SOPA has long been unpopular among the Internet community since its introduction in Congress.
Critics of the bill have argued that SOPA would hurt innovation on the internet by adding unwarranted oversight requirements, overall hurting freedom of speech on the web.
Go Daddy initially supported the legislation. However, when the company backed off its support last week, Go Daddy CEO Warren Adelman stated, “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.”
“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,” Adelman continued.
While the backlash against the web host may increase today, the company may have already felt a loss of support among some customers. Last week, tech site CNET reported on 21 thousand domains being transferred away from the web host in the matter of a day. The statistics were tracked by domain record keeper dailychanges.com.
Meanwhile, other web hosts have tried to take advantage of what many see as a lack of a firm stance by the top web host. Web hosts opposed to SOPA, including Domain.com and Namecheap have urged users to transfer away from Go Daddy due to the company’s previous lack of opposition to the bill. Earlier this week, Namecheap announced that it would donate one dollar to the Electronic Frontier Foundation for each domain transferred to its services today.
The Stop Online Piracy Act was initially introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives in October. The act would give the U.S. Department of Justice the authority via court orders to force internet providers to pull access to websites accused of containing infringing content. Those opposed to the bill argue that it wouldn’t allow a suitable process for the accused to defend their actions.
A similar bill called the Protect IP Act is currently being considered in the U.S. Senate. The Protect IP Act passed committee but has yet to be approved by the entire Senate. When the U.S. House of Representatives returns from its current recess, consideration of SOPA is expected to continue. To view Go Daddy’s explanation of their current stance on the Stop Online Piracy Act, view a press release by the company here (GoDaddy.com).
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