Go Daddy Loses Over 21,000 Domains In One Day

First time accepted submitter expo53d writes "CNET reports that yesterday 21,054 domains were pulled off Domaincontrol.com, a subsidiary of GoDaddy. While this maybe a coincidence, it is likely to be caused by GoDaddy's controversial support for SOPA. It seems that GoDaddy's attempts at remedying the problem were of no use."

Comments

so uh why they'd support it?

[gl4ss]

a banned domain = customer has to buy another?

Re:so uh why they'd support it?

[Stradenko]

Government regulation of an industry increases the cost of entry for new competition. Established business will support something that gives them that kind of edge.

Re:so uh why they'd support it?

[Anonymous Coward]

That's my guess. That, and having somebody on board to write the legislation meant maybe they could work to exempt themselves from it. Too bad for all their customers though.

Re:so uh why they'd support it?

[Baloroth]

GoDaddy got the seized domains from the last round of ICE seizures. I'll let you connect the dots.

Re:so uh why they'd support it?

[0100010001010011]

GoDaddy helped write the legislation such that they are exempt from it.

Rep. Jared Polis (D-CO), the only member of Congress present at the hearing with any tech experience, having founded several web companies, introduced two amendments: one to exclude universities and non-profits from being subject do having to shut down their own domain servers if accused of piracy under SOPA, and the other to exempt dynamic IP addresses, such as those found on web-enabled printers. Both were voted down.

Polis pointed out that SOPA and Smith’s amendment already excluded certain operators of sub-domains, such as GoDaddy.com, from being subject to shutdowns under SOPA.

“If companies like GoDaddy.com are exempt, why aren’t non-commercial domain servers exempt?” Polis asked.

Re:so uh why they'd support it?

[TheGratefulNet]

follow the money.

isn't it always the way to understanding things, today?

I also suspect that they stand to make money from government, in some undisclosed ways. just a hunch, but anyone who cozies up to a gov deal is on the take.

things that look like ducks *are* ducks.

now that they've shown their colors, hopefully people will stay away from their business. ...almost like, well, an invisible hand (lol)

Re:so uh why they'd support it?

[Skidborg]

Someone needs to go and burn down the Capital building already.

Re:so uh why they'd support it?

[mcgrew]

I think it probably has more to do with the fact that most folks writing HTML come to slashdot.

Re:so uh why they'd support it?

[MacGyver2210]

It takes a lot to light marble and granite on fire.

Re:so uh why they'd support it?

[Anonymous Coward]

bin laden bombed the wrong buildings

Re:so uh why they'd support it?

[BlueStrat]

Someone needs to go and burn down the Capital building already.

I've been puzzled from the beginning as to why the OWS protesters aren't in front of the Capitol and the White House. They're the ones ultimately responsible for Wall Street corruption, because it necessarily requires a corrupt government in order to exist and grow.

For corruption to flourish in the private sector requires a corrupt government, for only with a corrupt government can the corrupt businesses and individuals be protected from the People and Justice.

Strat

Re:so uh why they'd support it?

[Anonymous Coward]

They got themselves exempted from the legislation. Of course they're going to benefit from a law that restricts their competitors.

Re:so uh why they'd support it?

[517714]

follow the money. isn't it always the way to understanding things, today?

For corporations, yes. For politicians, Yes. For religions, YES! Not necessarily for all individuals.

Re:so uh why they'd support it?

[517714]

Bin Laden was trying to hurt the US.

Re:so uh why they'd support it?

[Anonymous Coward]

Most of the exteriors are actually limestone.

Re:so uh why they'd support it?

[Anonymous Coward]

... introduced two amendments: one to exclude universities and non-profits from being subject do having to shut down their own domain servers if accused of piracy under SOPA... why aren't non-commercial domain servers exempt?

Remember that universities are almost always accused of being breeding grounds for socialism (by the Right Wing), since they often teach subjects like history, biology and the social sciences. Since these subjects often implicitly contradict the religious right wing ideology of intelligent design, the importance of human suffering through original sin, the "white man's burden" to civilize the world, etc., it is natural for these corporations and politicians to want to have the ability to shut down the communication systems of universities. Universities are a place of education afterall. If people are educated about things like SOPA, then they pose a great threat. Censorship and the threat of censorship helps to mitigate that threat.

It is in the fundamentalist conservative tradition that universities be places to train MBAs and football stars, than to be places that breed controversy and critical thinking.

Of course these people would not want universities to be exempt from shutdown. Go Daddy is no threat to the 1-percenters (and their followers and sycophants), but an educated population is.

Re:so uh why they'd support it?

[PopeRatzo]

They're the ones ultimately responsible for Wall Street corruption, because it necessarily requires a corrupt government in order to exist and grow.

That's kind of dumb. Do you think government is corrupting Wall Street, or is Wall Street's money corrupting government?

The whole thing is solved by a simple set of campaign finance rules. Publicly-funded campaigns. Take the money out of politics, and you'd be surprised how quickly things turn around. But as long as a very few people have all the power and money, they will be the ones in charge of government. When it takes $50 million to become a senator, and only corporations can donate really big money, guess what? corporations are going to have the power. The structure of our government is not corrupt. With sufficient will, every single elected office can change hands within 7 short years.

If there's a problem, look to your neighbors. Look to yourself. Somebody is electing these turds. As far as I can tell, there is only one US senator that doesn't take corporate money and he's a socialist. Maybe there are some congressmen who don't take corporate money, I don't know, but if there are, it's only a very few.

If OWS is going to focus on any government building, it should be the United States Supreme Court, that sold off the last shreds of good government with one decision. Maybe go directly to the homes of Scalia, Thomas, Alito, Kennedy, Roberts.

Re:so uh why they'd support it?

[Anonymous Coward]

Someone needs to go and burn down the Capital building already.

Wouldn't do any good.. What it NEEDS is a 50MT Thermonuclear device detonated directly over it, of course with ALL 535 inhabitants there at the time..
A device of that size would turn DC into a glass-lined smoking crater, taking care of this out-of-control government...

Re:so uh why they'd support it?

[Hatta]

Because the seat of power in the US is not in fact in Washington DC, but in corporate boardrooms.

Re:so uh why they'd support it?

[hedwards]

The GOP would never go for it though, and unless the Democrats get enough votes for cloture they couldn't get it through the Senate. Not that the Democrats are necessarily any better, but the GOP is primarily in charge of looking out for the rich regardless of what it does to the country.

Re:so uh why they'd support it?

[imahawki]

Someone needs to go and burn down the Capital building already.

I've been puzzled from the beginning as to why the OWS protesters aren't in front of the Capitol and the White House. They're the ones ultimately responsible for Wall Street corruption, because it necessarily requires a corrupt government in order to exist and grow.

For corruption to flourish in the private sector requires a corrupt government, for only with a corrupt government can the corrupt businesses and individuals be protected from the People and Justice.

Strat

I've been saying this too. One of many reasons OWS was misguided but IMO the biggest reason is they were in the wrong city!

Re:so uh why they'd support it?

[Anonymous Coward]

The GOP would never go for it though, and unless the Democrats get enough votes for cloture they couldn't get it through the Senate. Not that the Democrats are necessarily any better, but the GOP is primarily in charge of looking out for the rich regardless of what it does to the country.

You are an ignorant fool, regurgitating the propaganda the Democrats have fed you. It's the DEMOCRATS who are the party of the rich. Who got more BP money than any other politician? Barack Obama! What party gets more than 2-1 share of contributions from Wall Street? Democrats! What party does Jon Corzine, former Chairman of Goldman-Sachs, former Senator and Governor of New Jersey (having spent over $100 million of his personal Wall Street fortune to purchase those offices), and now in trouble for "losing" $1.2 BILLION in investor funds? That's right. Not to mention all the Wall Street power players and tax cheats that Obama staffs his regime with.

These are the inconvenient truths, hedwards. The Democrats are the party of the rich, not the GOP. Look at all the rent-seeking by unions and bogus green energy scams like Solyndra that converted their campaign contributions to Obama into billions of grift from the taxpayers fisc. Meanwhile, proven safe energy like the Keystone XL pipeline is being blocked as a sop to the environmental crazies at the cost of tens of thousands of jobs.

The reason there's so much money pouring into our government is because the government is a parliament of whores, dispensing advantage to the highest bidders. It's a bipartisan scandal, but for idiots to pretend that only the Republicans are out for the rich is a flat out lie. If you want the money out of politics, then you must reduce the amount of power government has to sell and the hell are politicians going to go for that. As a friend of mine said, "You will never hear a politician says, "Oh, no, that is far too much power for me to have."

Re:so uh why they'd support it?

[Marillion]

It's not always about money. It could also be blind party loyalty. GoDaddy has an strong track record of donating to republican candidates including Ted Stevens who was a long time friend of Big Media. It would not surprise me to find that leadership of GoDaddy doesn't understand the technical flaws of SOPA.

Re:so uh why they'd support it?

[Thexare Blademoon]

And a couple hundred criminals not affiliated with the government. You're just killing the competition for the next batch!

Re:so uh why they'd support it?

[Phanatic1a]

Do you think government is corrupting Wall Street, or is Wall Street's money corrupting government?

That's a false dichotomy; the interest swings both ways.

But the fundamental problem is that the government has the power to do this sort of thing. So long as it has that power, it will be attractive for corporations to influence it in order to seek rents. Doesn't matter whether you make the money train more opaque, doesn't matter what limits you set: if buying and selling are controlled by legislation, the first thing that's going to be bought and sold are the legislators.

Re:so uh why they'd support it?

[Carewolf]

GoDaddy helped write the legislation such that they are exempt from it.

Well, not really. GoDaddy wouldn't be shut down when their customers are shut down, but the legislation would still hurt their business by putting their customers out of business.

Re:so uh why they'd support it?

[galaad2]

It takes a lot to light marble and granite on fire.

not that much, just a big spaceship with a really big particle cannon.

also, must not forget the flying sharks... lots of flying sharks to chase down any of the escaping congressional critters.

Re:so uh why they'd support it?

[CrimsonAvenger]

Take the money out of politics, and you'd be surprised how quickly things turn around.

There are ~3.6 trillion reasons why this will not work.

Hint: as long as there are 532 people divvying up $3.6 trillion, there are going to be people willing to spend millions (or billions) to "influence" those 532 people for a piece of that $3.6 trillion pie.

Face it, spending a BILLION dollars to buy a couple percent of the Federal Budget is a bargain. And realistically, it doesn't cost anywhere near that much to buy Congresscritters.

Re:so uh why they'd support it?

[desdinova 216]

is that anything like a work of Fiction?

Re:so uh why they'd support it?

[Hognoxious]

things that look like ducks *are* ducks.

Bollocks. Don't they have geese where you come from?

Re:so uh why they'd support it?

[desdinova 216]

but Didn't GoDaddy help in writing SOPA?

Re:so uh why they'd support it?

[desdinova 216]

which sadly is never going to happen as long as the people who write the rules have a vested interest in the result of those rules.

Re:so uh why they'd support it?

[Anonymous Coward]

They're arguing that the politicians are corrupt so they're going to the people that bought them, makes perfect sense. It's not like dc protests do anything anymore anyway, I live by there we get so many random ass protests that you stop paying attention.

Re:so uh why they'd support it?

[Anonymous Coward]

> Government regulation of an industry increases the cost of entry for new competition. Established business will support something that gives them that kind of edge.

I disagree. Government regulation is essential for Capitalism to work. This is not Anarchy.

Besides, that kind of regulation would increase costs not only for new entrants but also for the small fish; that is precisely what the big guys want. Everybody is noticing that the future will be less bright.

Someone recently said elsewhere the increased tax on tea helped to start the American Revolution and thus the root of the problem would be monetary. I don't think so, in my view people are tolerant up to a point and when a threshold is surpassed, people say "Enough!".

SOPA is like that IMHO and GoDaddy unwisely stepped on that threshold (again IMHO). Should SOPA be abandoned, I don't think people could stomach other similar initiatives.

Can greed beat anger? I'd say not -- or at least not forever.

Re:so uh why they'd support it?

[hairyfeet]

Ya know, that is what i never understood. What was with the hard on for the towers? Wasn't that like the third hit on them? you'd think if they'd have wanted to hurt the USA they'd have hit the statue of liberty or at least rammed it down Wall Street (of course they could be forgiven for not knowing Goldman Sachs is the devil) instead of hitting the towers. did their pilots simply not have the ability to hit anything that wasn't the biggest thing in the area?

The only explanation I heard that kinda makes sense is that in ME countries there is usually a single building like "ministry of finance" to hit and with it called the world trade center maybe they thought you could do real damage to the economy by taking it out. but you'd think they would have hit the symbols first.

As for TFA allow me to personally thank all those that yanked their domains off GoDaddy, its nice to see some standing up for what you believe in. Its like how I switched to an AMD only shop when i found out Intel was (and still is) rigging the market. while i know that ultimately a single shop won't even make a dent at least my money isn't being used by them to rig the markets and stifle competition. Ultimately the vote with your wallet is pretty much the only vote we have now, what with congress critters bought before they are even sworn in nowadays.

so for all those that switched thanks, for all those that haven't please do. They are still supporting SOPA and are merely blowing smoke, and if i had domains they sure as hell wouldn't be with GoDaddy.

Re:so uh why they'd support it?

[Burz]

Government regulation of an industry increases the cost of entry for new competition.

Except when the cost of entry goes down to zero because no one dares to compete with UNregulated monopolies and cartels.

BTW, if you have a recipe for getting corporate influence out of government without regulation (in a sense restricting the corporations' FREEEEEDOM), please do the world a favor and let us know. Otherwise, most of us are beyond tired of hearing simplistic aphorisms from the planet Rand.

Re:so uh why they'd support it?

[PopeRatzo]

You are an ignorant fool, regurgitating the propaganda the Democrats have fed you. It's the DEMOCRATS who are the party of the rich.

Which party is acting as human shields to protect tax cuts for the rich at any cost and fighting a measly short-term payroll tax cut that will only benefit the non-rich?

Re:so uh why they'd support it?

[darthdavid]

Typical libertarian anti-logic. "If we attempt to control corporations with regulations the regulators will be bought off, thereby letting corporations do whatever they want. So we should just eliminate all legislation which somehow prevents corporations from doing whatever they want...".

Re:so uh why they'd support it?

[PopeRatzo]

But the fundamental problem is that the government has the power to do this sort of thing.

Or, it's a fundamental problem that Wall Street has the opportunity (Citizens United) to do this sort of thing.

When you have a government where every single elected official nationwide can be changed via election every 6 years, saying "the government is too powerful" is ridiculous. It's a government by the people, and the people cannot be too strong.

And if it doesn't seem like a government by the people to you, then it's because you disagree with most of the people. We have a fucked up situation because the media (private corporations all) has misinformed most people, who vote against their best interests, and because the big money (private corporations) are bribing the elected officials through campaign finance.

Either make all campaigns publicly financed or limit campaign spending to $25k for local races and $50k for national races. Then make the media start doing their job.

The US has so much more corruption in government than Northern European countries or countries like Germany because those other countries put stringent limits on campaign finance. Also, they seem to have found the right mix of regulated capitalism and socialism.

Re:so uh why they'd support it?

[Zibodiz]

The Canadians/British tried this. It didn't turn out so well for them.

Re:so uh why they'd support it?

[Anonymous Coward]

Dont be puzzled. Their actions are consistent with their agenda: more, bigger government. More control and moee handouts. Thats wwhy theyre attacking the systems of production and not govt. The federal government tacitly supports ows, even.

Re:so uh why they'd support it?

[Anonymous Coward]

The Republicans were supporting a year long payroll cut but thanks for sweeping that fact under the rug. Goes to show how "truthie" you are.

Re:so uh why they'd support it?

[Anonymous Coward]

Third time's the charm.

Re:so uh why they'd support it?

[ogdenk]

Both materials however seem to be vulnerable to high velocity lead, stone, steel or gas expansion due to explosive force.

We've had this problem throughout history. Technology solved it a long time ago.

Re:so uh why they'd support it?

[Anonymous Coward]

Hmmm, fighting for a 12 month tax cut is not the same thing as opposing a short-term tax cut.

Re:so uh why they'd support it?

[jackbird]

I think the symbolism of the WTC being the world's tallest building (current tallest is now in Dubai, after all), and having "world trade" (ie economic colonialism) in the name had a lot to do with it. Given that they also flew a plane into the pentagon on 9/11, and there was speculation they did so as a fallback when they couldn't find the White House from the air, it was clearly part of a larger message.

That and proving they really could take out the WTC, having failed twice before.

Re:so uh why they'd support it?

[jackbird]

There are ALWAYS protestors in front of the capitol and white house. Occupy Pennsylvania Avenue wouldn't have made even a single news cycle.

Re:so uh why they'd support it?

[ogdenk]

Governments no longer care about the will of the people. Hell, the Russians are bordering on rushing the Kremlin and their leader simply calls them lawless monkeys and likens their ribbons they wear in support to condoms.

Obama has made it a point to dismiss the OWS movement, the tea parties and every other threat of uprising as a non-threat from immature, rash savages that can't do anything about the situation anyway.

Nobody is taking thousands of people standing outside their windows with signs like "Next time we won't be waving signs" or "We're unarmed....this time" seriously at all. And anybody participating in these rallies is treated like they're a bunch of kids that need to go back to school/work instead of "holding everyone up and getting in the way". The general public is mad because while they're out "protesting which ain't gonna do a damn bit of good anyway" they have "responsibilities and bills to pay".

They don't realize the corporate elite and politicians have been outright screwing them CRIMINALLY and then legitimizing their abuses with legislation that only benefits them. It's going to get worse before it gets better. A lot worse.

Re:so uh why they'd support it?

[thoughtlover]

Wouldn't do any good.. What it NEEDS is a 50MT Thermonuclear device detonated directly over it, of course with ALL 535 inhabitants there at the time.. A device of that size would turn DC into a glass-lined smoking crater, taking care of this out-of-control government...

Sounds like the fast road to Martial Law to me.

Re:so uh why they'd support it?

[DragonTHC]

simple. Follow the money.

Re:so uh why they'd support it?

[TheGratefulNet]

even to the most novice wildlife photographer (me, for example), ducks don't look like geese.

there are even ducks that don't look like ducks (wood ducks). but we've had enough learning for today, yes?

Re:so uh why they'd support it?

[Anonymous Coward]

Perhaps that should be changed to "bedrooms".

Re:so uh why they'd support it?

[Phanatic1a]

Or, it's a fundamental problem that Wall Street has the opportunity (Citizens United) to do this sort of thing.

You didn't actually read Citizens United, because you don't know what the decision says.

Citizens United was a non-profit corporation that was attempting to publish a documentary critical of Hillary Clinton. It was advocating against the election of a political candidate. The decision had nothing to do with giving money to politicians, and the CU decision did not overturn limits on either corporate donations to particular federal candidates or on how much money individuals can give to federal candidates.

The government argued in support of its case that it has the power to ban books. If you're on that side of that argument, I don't think you have much cause to object to SOPA.

Re:so uh why they'd support it?

[artor3]

Someone needs to go and burn down the Capital building already.

Most descriptive typo in history.

Re:so uh why they'd support it?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why disagree with the general point? Both can be true - regulation is necessary, and it does increase the cost of entry. It costs money, for example, to make sure that the beef that you're sending out isn't contaminated, but history shows that it's absolutely necessary - the invisible hand is also often blind, stupid, and arbitrary.

It's only idealogues who argue about either point. This is a false dichotomy.

Re:so uh why they'd support it?

[Bill, Shooter of Bul]

Yeah, the WTC was not the worlds tallest building in 2001. Hadn't been since they built the sears tower in 1973.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sears_tower

Re:so uh why they'd support it?

[Stradenko]

The recipe for getting corporate influence out of government is to reduce governmental power in corporate behavior. I'm sorry you hate Rand, but that's the gist of it. If the business isn't controlled by government, then business has no interest in government and we can all go about our lives. If you don't like what company does, please found company and change the industry, or at least your small part of it. The problem with regulation and subsidy is that it obfuscates the costs of delivery, so nobody can tell what makes sense and what does not.

Re:so uh why they'd support it?

[cavebison]

Established business will support something that gives them that kind of edge.

Good point. And because the law says shareholders come first, they would practically be required to support it (the same way you're forced to defend patents or lose them), even if the CEO didn't like it.

Try convincing shareholders that you don't want to do something which protects their investment merely because it's unethical. Your choice is do it, or lose the confidence of the board and possibly lose your company.

This is the root problem with *everything*, and I mean everything, that goes wrong in business - from pollution to safety to employment - it affects every part of our lives. The law which says shareholders come first.

Nothing will change if that law isn't changed. I feel this is what the Occupy movement should have concentrated on. You can't ask corporations to "play fair" when the law itself says otherwise.

Re:so uh why they'd support it?

[Anonymous Coward]

Seriously, why people continue to spout the Democrats = rich people line is beyond me. Republicans = Fox News = telling you they are the party looking out for you the "little guy" while behind closed doors helping shape policy that benefits the wealthiest and shape public opinion so that those who would be best served by taxing the rich believe it is a "bad idea" because it will somehow lose them *their* job if rich people have to pay 1% more taxes. Democrats are just as corrupt, but they aren't the ones always talking money money money money money. At least they have social issues on their mind every once in a blue moon.

Re:so uh why they'd support it?

[Stradenko]

I'm sorry, but "Regulation is necessary" seems false to me.

In a slightly longer view, it costs money to assume that you'll continue to have paying customers if you kill/ill them with faulty beef. I think the GoDaddy situation illustrates that.

Re:so uh why they'd support it?

[bill_mcgonigle]

BTW, if you have a recipe for getting corporate influence out of government without regulation (in a sense restricting the corporations' FREEEEEDOM), please do the world a favor and let us know.

When there is nothing for influence peddlers to sell, there will be no influence sold.

More simply: take the power away from government and people won't go looking for government to do things for them.

Ironically, TFA is about the market regulating bad actors, exactly what big-government supporters say the market can't/won't do.

Re:so uh why they'd support it?

[Anonymous Coward]

"As a discussion involving regulation of anything by anyone grows longer on /., the probability of anyone not acting like a total corporate shill being called a Randroid approaches 1."

I, for one, welcome my new differently-regulated overlords.

PS - Mod me down for forgetting the password to my five digit UID and posting as AC.

Re:so uh why they'd support it?

[Xeno man]

There are many gods. Mohamed, Zeus, Raiden, Ganesha just to name a few. How can you say there is only one God when there are clearly many. That's like saying there is only one fruit and bananas are that fruit.

What you should say is that you believe in only one God and the stories you enjoy mostly come from the King James Bible. Me, I like Star Wars books but they need to be cannon. Your wasting your time with anything that is not cannon.

But really, what does our reading preference have to do with any of this?

Re:so uh why they'd support it?

[vought]

I'm sorry, but "Regulation is necessary" seems false to me.
In a slightly longer view, it costs money to assume that you'll continue to have paying customers if you kill/ill them with faulty beef. I think the GoDaddy situation illustrates that.

Yes, and well, too bad for all the tainted-beef-eating dead people's families. They can, however, rest easy knowing that the ShitBeefCo will go out of business and its employees will be destitute as soon as ShitBeefCo's CEO's golden parachute inflates over the Caymans, where his bonuses for improving profitbility at SBC are protected from lawsuits.

See? The market corrected itself; it killed the stupid little people, and rewarded the superior Randian Overlords who worked so hard to get through an MBA program while playing rugby and fucking Muffy in the BMW convertible!

Thank god for the invisible hand pimp-slapping us all...again. Because the market will automagically correct itself...SUCKERS.

I have friends who tell me Randroids like you seem to be are sociopaths. I'm starting to think they're right.

Oh - and I just moved my domains off of GoDaddy AND I wrote to my congresscritters. Have you?

Re:so uh why they'd support it?

[Anonymous Coward]

Except when the cost of entry goes down to zero

I think you mean to say "Except when the cost of entry goes to (practically) infinity" instead, which of course would still be an exaggeration, but representative of your assumed meaning. Zero cost of entry isn't even possible, nor is infinite cost of entry unless you're dealing in thought experiments that are impossible to implement within finite economic bounds, hence the "practically" modifier.

Re:so uh why they'd support it?

[Anonymous Coward]

Let me rephrase that for you

If anyone has a method of preventing corporations from manipulating regulations in their favor, I'd like to know. Most of us are tired of aphorisms from the planet bureaucrat.

Re:so uh why they'd support it?

[Anonymous Coward]

.... and fucking Muffy in the BMW convertible!

Muffy preferred it in the BUM rather than the BMW.

Other than that you're pretty much right on :)

Re:so uh why they'd support it?

[Xeno man]

Are you kidding? Do you know the amount of business and money went through the WTC? Banks, insurance and many world players had offices there that shut down on the day of the attacks. Only good off site backups and worst case scenario planing kept everything running afterwords. Where else could you do that kind of economic damage with a single target.

The Stature of liberty? Really? How would that hurt the US? You kill maybe 100 people on a busy day and just piss off America. The cost to rebuild or repair would be a small small fraction of what is just being spend to rebuild the WTC.
Wall Street? Sure if you hit the right area you might cause similar damage but where do you hit? You have 1 plane traveling at hundreds of miles per hour and your trying to pick out 1 grey building out of hundreds of grey buildings all from a view of the city you have never seen before. Odds are you would hit the fish market instead of anything truly important..

Targeting a symbol is stupid unless you have nothing to loose like when the Taliban blew up the Buddhas of Bamiyan in 2001. That took little to no planning, little resources and certainly no suicide bombers. And what did that get them? Their side went "Yay", Those on the other side went "You bastards!" and the rest of us went, "that sucks, oh well." and we went on with out lives like nothing happened.

If the Taliban want to attack America, they want to hit the life lines. They want to hit the financial market, they want to hit the utilities like power and water. Anything that would give the most bang for their bucks because they only have so much money and you only get so many volunteers for suicide missions.

Re:so uh why they'd support it?

[Anonymous Coward]

Canada already tried this. It didnt work so well :(.

Re:so uh why they'd support it?

[slimjim8094]

To be fair, that's not merely Randian nonsense. It's a well-established fact that the biggest proponents of the FDA were the (big) meatpackers since they knew that if they could and did meet the cost of complying with the regulation, they'd be one of the only players left. Couple that with a little regulatory capture, (which is distinct from corruption) and you've got a chance at some real money.

That's not a reason to avoid regulation, but it's definitely something to realize. If you don't, you can fall subject to it.

Re:so uh why they'd support it?

[Grishnakh]

Oh, not this crap again. There's no law that says CEOs must do every little thing the way shareholders (theoretically) would want it done. They only have to work for the company's best interest; that can either be long-term or short-term. If the CEO doesn't like something and can say "I think supporting this would be harmful for the company's financial position several years in the future", that's all there is to it. He doesn't even have to be right; it's not like CEOs are gods.

Re:so uh why they'd support it?

[Grishnakh]

The cost to rebuild or repair would be a small small fraction of what is just being spend to rebuild the WTC.

What's really rather pathetic is that the amount of time and money spent to build the WTC the first time was a tiny fraction of what it's taking to rebuild it now.

Re:so uh why they'd support it?

[Grishnakh]

This would be very sad, because it'd also destroy the Smithsonian museums. Those are some of the best museums in the world.

They should relocate the Capitol somewhere else, far from any other cities or anything important. Then if someone bombs it, we won't lose anything of value.

Re:so uh why they'd support it?

[Anonymous Coward]

follow the money.
isn't it always the way to understanding things, today?

Holy Shit folks, it's Albert Fucking Einstein!
Hint- It's been that way since money was invented. Prior to that it was gold, salt, cows, etc. depending on what was valuable to you.

things that look like ducks *are* ducks.

If you're a duck hunter, everything hidden in the bushes looks like a duck.

now that they've shown their colors

What do you mean by "now"? They're a shit company and they've always been a shit company, and if it took you this long to figure that out then I really do feel sorry for you.

Re:so uh why they'd support it?

[Empiric]

No, there are many proposed god-like figures, intentionally or unintentionally fictional. This is unrelated entirely to the number of actually-existing entities.

Most of these fail on a mere internal-consistency basis within an hour of reading their primary-source documents. Yes, you really can do this, with a reasonable willingness to apply some time and intellectual rigor to the question, and failing to know enough historical mythos to make a relative evaluation of plausibility between them is just your personal failure, nothing else.

Re:so uh why they'd support it?

[Anonymous Coward]

But methane burns pretty well and I hear the Capitol is full of assholes.

Re:so uh why they'd support it?

[Empiric]

"You cannot serve both God and Money."
--Matthew 6:24

Okay, followed it.

Note: Regardless of how argumentatively useful or popular a claim it is, direct contradiction of a religion is not that religion.

Re:so uh why they'd support it?

[kdemetter]

Actually, no : Government regulation is not essential for capitalism to work.
The question is : is it really capitalism that you want ?

The problem is that regulation always exists : if the governments don't impose them, someone else will.
Anarchy automatically default to the worst kind of government system.

Re:so uh why they'd support it?

[repvik]

Godaddy would be excempt: http://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/nocbt/under_the_current_draft_godaddy_would_be_exempt/

Re:so uh why they'd support it?

[cavebison]

Oh, not this crap again.

Link to crap on Wikipedia. See also section below, "Criticism".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shareholder_value#Maximizing_shareholder_value

Re:so uh why they'd support it?

[Anonymous Coward]

The recipe for getting corporate influence out of government is to reduce governmental power in corporate behavior.

I'm sorry, that does not compute. What you're saying is "maybe if we don't get in their way, they'll ignore us". But you are forgetting that corporations are not just buying the laws that benefit them: they are also buying laws that inconvenience competition and/or the plebs. Are you suggesting that we should abandon all laws that govern business-consumer relationships, like warranty, return policies, price-fixing and other practices like bait-and-switch and asymmetric contracts?

I'm sorry you hate Rand, but that's the gist of it.

You don't have to hate something to acknowledge the huge gaping holes in the logic. And that's not even touching on the desirability of the distopy that is Rand's legacy.

If the business isn't controlled by government, then business has no interest in government and we can all go about our lives.

That's a non-sequitur. Why should business not care about the government's effect on their competitors or consumers?

If you don't like what company does, please found company and change the industry

And that works because companies require no starting capital? Do you really thinks banks will give out loans to people that say "I'm starting a 2-man business to change the industry where X currently holds a monopoly? Or do you believe that "changing an industry" is a prerogative only available to old money (who, by definition, have no interest in changing their industry)?

Re:so uh why they'd support it?

[TuringTest]

I'm sorry, but "Regulation is necessary" seems false to me.

Just about the same than "Regulation is harmful".

Re:so uh why they'd support it?

[WOOFYGOOFY]

Government regulation of industry gives industry the opportunity to use government to increase the cost of entry to new competition. They achieve this through the devices of campaign contributions and a revolving door of government to industry employment.

There. Fixed that for you.

The "All government regulation is has unforseen consequences worse than the original problem "meme is all done now.

Why should /. readers restrict themselves to thinking in bumpersticker size chunks of information when the fully formed thought bears more actionable information and is more interesting to boot.

The perfect instantiation of no government regulation has a name; it's called "Somolia".

At a time when the world is facing it's greatest collective threat ever, global warming, and we are unable to act collectively against it because of the "anti-regulation" meme, it's hard to understand why that meme gets any play here on /. , home of some of the most sophisticated thinkers and do-ers online.

Re:so uh why they'd support it?

[Hognoxious]

A male mallard clearly doesn't resemble the white domestic goose. But there are plenty of members of both groups that are basically dull brown with speckles.

Re:so uh why they'd support it?

[KingSkippus]

No, the Republicans were opposing Senate Democrats and Obama simply for the sake of being an obstacle, period, end of story. I assure you that had the Senate passed a year-long version, Republicans in the House would have been having conniptions that it wasn't only a shorter-term stopgap.

You have to understand that Obama pitched himself during the election as a moderate compromiser that would set aside ideology to get things done. And he's delivered on the compromiser part--he's made a lot of concessions over the years, which is why we don't have any significant legislation on things like the environment, tax reform, campaign finance reform, banking regulation etc. Even his crown jewel--health care reform--has been significantly watered down by compromises. (Public Option, anyone?)

The Republicans have been exploiting this by stonewalling everything--EVERYTHING--that they can. Not just hot-button things, but even piddly little things that have broad bipartisan support. From appointments to simple procedural votes to things that always passed without incident before (for example, raising the debt ceiling) because not passing it would have major negative ramifications on our economy. Hell, they've even refused to pass legislation that they proposed once Democrats said, "That sounds reasonable, we'll go along with it."

So don't be fooled. The only reason this thing passed had nothing to do with whether the thing was for two months or a year. It was because it was one of the rare times the White House was finally able to successfully frame the issue for what it really was: Republicans sacrificing the good of their constituents for the sake of trying to make Obama look like he can't get things done for the sake of the 2012 election. Fortunately, it backfired on them this time.

To paraphrase something particularly insightful I heard Jon Stewart sat once, it's not the entre they're objecting to; its the waiter.

Re:so uh why they'd support it?

[PopeRatzo]

CU decision did not overturn limits on either corporate donations to particular federal candidates or on how much money individuals can give to federal candidates.

You don't understand the meaning of Citizens United. Corporations can now spend unlimited, anonymous amounts in elections. No, they can't directly contribute to candidates, but when you can spend on a candidate's behalf, what is the difference? It's even more corrupting, because you give the candidate deniability for anything you say.

Citizens United is a decision opposed by nearly 80% of Americans. It's one of the few issues that you see nearly unanimous agreement by such a large portion of Americans. Naturally, it is supported by Republicans and "conservatives", but seldom out loud.

Re:so uh why they'd support it?

[Anonymous Coward]

See? The market corrected itself; it killed the stupid little people, and rewarded the superior Randian Overlords who worked so hard to get through an MBA program while playing rugby and fucking Muffy in the BMW convertible!

I haven't seen a Libertarian system at work, so I do not know if the Randian overloads will do that sort of things under such a system. However, I have seen the Obama-Wallstreet system at work and I have seen exactly that happening.

Explain that, before everybody go voting for Ron Paul.

Re:so uh why they'd support it?

[hexagonc]

The recipe for getting corporate influence out of government is to reduce governmental power in corporate behavior. I'm sorry you hate Rand, but that's the gist of it. If the business isn't controlled by government, then business has no interest in government and we can all go about our lives. If you don't like what company does, please found company and change the industry, or at least your small part of it. The problem with regulation and subsidy is that it obfuscates the costs of delivery, so nobody can tell what makes sense and what does not.

Not trying to flame but this is a silly argument. I have to assume that you don't really believe it. This is like saying, "if you want to prevent cops from dying on duty then get rid of cops". That's just a recipe for lawlessness and unchecked corporate abuse. Government isn't involved in business for its own sake (this is all hypothetical) but rather because bad behavior by business demands it. There's noting special about government as far as being a mediator or authority to set rules -- you just need some kind of body that (in theory) is looking out for the best interest of the people and not particular companies. With our institutions and law constructed the way it is there is simply no other entity that can do this or has a demonstrated capability and willingness to do it.

Re:so uh why they'd support it?

[Anonymous Coward]

Canon.

Re:so uh why they'd support it?

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem with removing regulations from corporations is the external costs that said companies will foist on the rest of us. Do we allow companies the unfettered right to dump polutants into our waterways, or do we try to restrict that practice with our environmental protection laws? Do we allow companies to benefit from child labor, or do we keep our labor laws in place? Or are you so naive as to believe that if we remove all government involvement from businesses (IOW remove governmental regulations that restricts companies), that these abuses won't happen? Because they have happened. Check out the tragedy of the commons.

Re:so uh why they'd support it?

[Anonymous Coward]

Try convincing shareholders that you don't want to do something which protects their investment merely because it's unethical. Your choice is do it, or lose the confidence of the board and possibly lose your company

And that sir is why shit is so fucked up. Ethics come second to making money. Maybe even third or fourth. So now it has just become a game of who is willing to sink to the lowest level to make the most money. This is the same shit that brought about phone slamming and other various shady practices.

Re:so uh why they'd support it?

[rhakka]

Without regulation, all the power is already with the corporations. So yes, there is no reason for them to get involved with government, because you just basically made there BE NO GOVERNMENT. Government kind of implies, you know, governing. not letting all the wealth concentrate in the hands of a few who can then trivially easily collude to turn the entire planet into a "company store" situation. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truck_system

As soon as you even begin to define and enforce even direct-victim crimes like bait and switch contracts, what should be considered fraud, etc, then bingo we're right back where we started with corporations trying to buy the point of view they consider most advantageous into leglislation. but with even less checks to their power. Unless of course you happen to be in command of gigantic piles of cash. which you of course EARNED every penny of through your hard, smart work, you pillar of industry you.

Ranked choice, 100% publicly funded elections, with an electoral apparatus of the government by, of, and for the people, not the cash cows. Then call bribery what it is and put people in JAIL for it.

Re:so uh why they'd support it?

[bzipitidoo]

The reputation of "regulation" has been thoroughly smeared. Let's put it another way:

Rules and policing are necessary.

Without rules, it will be chaos. And without relatively corruption free policing, crime will be rampant. Who benefits the most from the lack of rules and policing, and therefore wants "regulation" to have a bad reputation? The strongest. Even better when the strongmen can manipulate or force rules onto everyone else via the government, while exempting themselves. And get the sheep to blame it all on the government. One way to stop it is to cripple the government's power, but then the government won't have the power to restrain these strongmen, or do much anything else necessary or useful. I don't like the alternative of maintaining eternal vigilance against corruption, but I prefer that to having a government so weak and compromised that it cannot police the stock markets or anything else. The US tried that in its beginning, with the Articles of Confederation, and it didn't work well.

Re:so uh why they'd support it?

[bill_mcgonigle]

Corporations are government creations. They've always run amok - they basically ran the British Empire for a couple centuries and mercantalism was rampant.

Learning that lesson, in the early United States, corporations could only be formed for limited times and for public purposes.

JD Rockefeller bribed the Congress after the Civil War to allow permanent corporations, and they have ascended from there to take over the government.

Yet, we still create thousands of new corporations every day and people want to impose all kinds of regulations to try to control the dragon.

Maybe we should just stop creating dragons in the first place?

Re:so uh why they'd support it?

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh, following the money is exactly how you can understand things. Here's how the outrageous SOPA gets passed by our corrupt Senate and promoted in the House. The following 20 major supporters of the bill, and its sponsor (Leahy D-VT), are listed with the campaign contributions they received from the organizations that support the bill (1st dollar amt after name) and the contributions they received from organizations that oppose the bill (the 2nd dollar amt following the name). Do the math. This isn't democracy, it's corporate oligarchy. Src: http://www.opencongress.org/bill/112-s968/money
Sen. Charles Schumer [D, NY] $864,265 $254,975
Sen. Harry Reid [D, NV] $665,420 $295,640
Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand [D, NY] $556,525 $284,849
Sen. Barbara Boxer [D, CA] $544,424 $402,425
Sen. Patrick Leahy [D, VT] $416,250 $insignificant
Sen. Michael Bennet [D, CO] $347,406 $1,346,579
Sen. Roy Blunt [R, MO] $341,700 $insignificant
Sen. Robert Portman [R, OH] $337,525 $insignificant
Sen. Richard Burr [R, NC] $275,950 $insignificant
Sen. Patty Murray [D, WA] $272,750 $insignificant
Rep. Howard Berman [D, CA-28] $376,600 $insignificant
Rep. Eric Cantor [R, VA-7] $269,050 $insignificant
Rep. Steny Hoyer [D, MD-5] $250,250 $insignificant
Rep. Michael Thompson [D, CA-1] $184,932 $insignificant
Rep. John Boehner [R, OH-8] $183,100 $insignificant
Rep. James Clyburn [D, SC-6] $168,000 $insignificant
Rep. Anna Eshoo [D, CA-14] $163,450 $insignificant
Rep. David Camp [R, MI-4] $154,000 $insignificant
Rep. Nancy Pelosi [D, CA-8] $150,550 $insignificant
Rep. Mary Bono Mack [R, CA-45] $150,350 $insignificant

Re:so uh why they'd support it?

[Anonymous Coward]

Really? The way to reduce the amount of influence of corporations in government is to reduce the amount of influence governments can exercise over corporations? You have to be kidding me.

That's very simple thinking, and very wrong. Corporations will always have an interest in influencing government - whether they are regulated by them or not. That's because government can influence the greatest amount of people at one time.

For example, why do you think private prison companies lobby for stricter laws and higher punishments? It's not because the government regulates private prisons, I can assure you...

Re:so uh why they'd support it?

[sigsson]

"Government regulation of an industry increases the cost of entry for new competition."

No, the wrong kind of government regulation - the kind we have now, may do that, but the proper kind - anti-trust (against corporations owning corporations, ala conglomerates), anti-monopoly and anti-oligopoly, will do the opposite. It has been the failure of government to maintain competition - i. e., the best and only effective kind of micro-economic regulation, along with government's failure to maintain fair international trade relations, that has devastated U.S. industry, employment, tax revenues etc. and made "stimulating" this broken system (ala Bush & Obama, Rep & Dem) an exercise in futility that only worsens the situation.

Re:so uh why they'd support it?

[Anonymous Coward]

The recipe for getting corporate influence out of government is to reduce governmental power in corporate behavior

Because that worked out really well for the financial sector huh? Reality comprehension fail.

Re:so uh why they'd support it?

[Anonymous Coward]

> Actually, no : Government regulation is not essential for capitalism to work.

Only in your dreams: everything to be useful got to have control, otherwise parts will one day be flying everywhere.

> The question is : is it really capitalism that you want ?

I don't know... do you know a better alternative? Or at least one that works? I'm still waiting for one. And please, no suggestion about Communism or Socialism, it's clear even for Russia and China that it does not work.

> The problem is that regulation always exists : if the governments don't impose them, someone else will.

On that I can agree -- we'll either have democracy or endure a tyrant.

Anarchy is absence of government -- that's pretty much what big corps want with the deregulation babbling.

Re:so uh why they'd support it?

[Anonymous Coward]

bwwwahahahahahaah!!!!! oh your serious. sorry we'll disagree then.

Re:so uh why they'd support it?

[seanadams.com]

The way to deal with this is with certification. Give manufacturers the option to certify their products, and then let people decide if they want to pay the premium. And do it at a state level, not federal, so people can at least leave if they don't like it.

Re:so uh why they'd support it?

[raehl]

But the long view doesn't matter if, in the short view, taking the necessary precautions to make sure your paying customers won't die when eating your beef will make your company bankrupt.

Plus, your point assumes it costs money if your beef kills paying customers. If your beef kills paying customers, just change the name of your beef company. Problem solved.

Sometimes, regulation IS necessary.

Unfortunately, sometimes regulation is also completely unnecessary, or unnecessarily burdensome.

But while regulation can be bad, no regulation is almost certainly worse.

Re:so uh why they'd support it?

[Anonymous Coward]

BTW, if you have a recipe for getting corporate influence out of government without regulation (in a sense restricting the corporations' FREEEEEDOM), please do the world a favor and let us know.

When we get rid of regulations, get rid of the ones that create corporations to begin with... without government interfering with the market, there are no such things as corporations...

Re:so uh why they'd support it?

[Shienarier]

GoDaddy supports the bill because when they helped write the bill, they added a part exempted themselves from it.

Re:so uh why they'd support it?

[Bill, Shooter of Bul]

But uhm... don't bomb the sears tower. Its mostly empty. Leave it as an example of America's failed economic system. Sears Roebuck built it as a head quarters based on predictions of growth that proved to be unrealistic. Eventually the moved out to the burbs and built a new complex that they are considering abandoning to go back to the city, where they would build a different building for their headquarters.

Re:so uh why they'd support it?

[Grishnakh]

Sorry, but nothing there says there's any law requiring companies to maximize shareholder value. In fact, the article points out how ambiguous this concept is, pointing out that an action which increases short-term profit may hurt long-term profit and thus share holder value (in the long term) by wrecking the company's reputation. Companies do this all the time, but you don't see any CEOs taken to jail because they wrecked the company's reputation in search of short-term profits, nor do you see any big shareholder lawsuits over it.

Yes, many companies seek to increase shareholder value as their primary objective (many others appear to only seek to increase CEO wealth at the expense of the shareholders, and this goes unpunished as well). This doesn't mean there's some law about it, nor anything that's actively enforced, especially since the whole idea of "increasing value" is rather nebulous.

So no, CEOs are NOT forced to do things they don't like in the interest of "shareholder value". The idea is utterly laughable. If a CEO is doing something, it's because he thinks it'll 1) increase shareholder value at some point, either short-term or long-term, or 2) it'll increase his personal bank account and he can take off with his golden parachute before the shareholders get screwed, and if anyone questions his actions, he'll say he thought it would increase shareholder value and apparently was mistaken.

Re:so uh why they'd support it?

[Anonymous Coward]

Blah blah blah empty rhetoric.

Re:so uh why they'd support it?

[nanamin]

There's a reason Upton Sinclair wrote "The Jungle" and a reason we have regulation in the first place. Unregulated business turns into corporate tyranny. Competition would disappear overnight through monopolistic hoarding of resources, price fixing, and other forms of collusion and founding a company to compete and change the industry would go right out the window with it.

20,034 transferred in the same day

[sup2100]

Gotta love statistics

Re:20,034 transferred in the same day

[Anonymous Coward]

Mod parent up.

21,054 transferred out, but 20,034 transferred in. (from TFA)

Re:20,034 transferred in the same day

[Surt]

This is probably the most important thing you miss if you don't read the article. GoDaddy lost only about 1k domains.

Re:20,034 transferred in the same day

[sound vision]

Indeed - losing 21k domains sounds impressive... not so much when viewed in the light that the net loss for that day was only 1k (one twentieth of the number being paraded around in the headline). To make this article even MORE useless, it fails to give any baseline for comparison... How many do they typically lose in a day? How many do they typically gain? This half-assed information for ONE DAY, makes for a, probably deliberately, misleading article.

Re:20,034 transferred in the same day

[someone1234]

Well, statistics are fine. But, what about previous month? Or previous year?
If there is always this high fluctuation, then this was another business as usual day.

Re:20,034 transferred in the same day

[wannabgeek]

Even your stat is incomplete. You have to compare it with a typical day - how many domains get transferred in to GoDaddy on a typical day and how many out. Then you have something to draw conclusion on.

Re:20,034 transferred in the same day

[Surt]

Indeed. But that wasn't in TFA unfortunately.

i'm glad

[Anonymous Coward]

Good.... idiot frat boys running the company... Merry Christmas

Maybe

[chill]

This might have something to do with the fact that Go Daddy sucks as a registrar. The whole SOPA thing was just the last straw.

Re:Maybe

[spintriae]

This is very true. I transferred my domains from GoDaddy almost a year ago just because their control panel is horrible.

Democracy.

[TehNoobTrumpet]

Voting with your wallets is much more effective then the fake choice presented in elections. Hopefully, people will finally realize that in today's world, it's the best way to start making a difference.

Re:Democracy.

[Anonymous Coward]

good thing everyone has the same number of votes in their wallets.

democracy.

Re:Democracy.

[Anonymous Coward]

Voting with your wallets is much more effective then the fake choice presented in elections.

That depends on how fat your wallet is.

Re:Democracy.

[Anonymous Coward]

Voting with your wallets is much more effective then the fake choice presented in elections. Hopefully, people will finally realize that in today's world, it's the best way to start making a difference.

No. You do both. My New Year wish for the world is actually that also Americans would bother to turn up and vote at an election. Instead of giving up before even trying, and by that handing the control over to the people who do bother. And if the result shouldn't be perfect the first time, you turn up even stronger next time. The politicans who want to keep their seat will start to get the message.

In a democracy the poor will have more power than the rich, because there are more of them, and the will of the majority is supreme. ~Aristotle
Bad officials are elected by good citizens who do not vote. ~George Jean Nathan
I'm tired of hearing it said that democracy doesn't work. Of course it doesn't work. We are supposed to work it. ~Alexander Woollcott
People often say that, in a democracy, decisions are made by a majority of the people. Of course, that is not true. Decisions are made by a majority of those who make themselves heard and who vote - a very different thing. ~Walter H. Judd

Re:Democracy.

[erroneus]

That's a great point so long as the contents of your wallet are actually worth something... Get my meaning?

Re:Democracy.

[TehNoobTrumpet]

This is a fair point, not sure how to answer it properly. The middle class is supposed to be the biggest group of consumers, so businesses would want to cater to their interests. Since big business is what basically owns the government, the politicians will become second hand representative of a large part of the populace. Maybe I'm being way too optimistic though, but I like to keep hope.

Re:Democracy.

[TehNoobTrumpet]

Of course voting in elections is important. I'm just saying that voting with your wallet is more effective right now, as it can actually influence the decision of someone with more influence than you a lot more easily. It's a start. Eventually, the politicians should be accountable directly to the people.

Re:Democracy.

[next_ghost]

You obviously don't realize just how small the middle class is right now and it keeps getting smaller.

Re:Democracy.

[phrostie]

+1 if i had it

Re:Democracy.

[Anonymous Coward]

Voting with your wallets is much more effective then the fake choice presented in elections. Hopefully, people will finally realize that in today's world, it's the best way to start making a difference.

No. You do both. My New Year wish for the world is actually that also Americans would bother to turn up and vote at an election. Instead of giving up before even trying, and by that handing the control over to the people who do bother. And if the result shouldn't be perfect the first time, you turn up even stronger next time. The politicans who want to keep their seat will start to get the message.

In a democracy the poor will have more power than the rich, because there are more of them, and the will of the majority is supreme. ~Aristotle Bad officials are elected by good citizens who do not vote. ~George Jean Nathan I'm tired of hearing it said that democracy doesn't work. Of course it doesn't work. We are supposed to work it. ~Alexander Woollcott People often say that, in a democracy, decisions are made by a majority of the people. Of course, that is not true. Decisions are made by a majority of those who make themselves heard and who vote - a very different thing. ~Walter H. Judd

Why would they do that? Voting just legitimizes their position if your choice loses. The less people at the ballot box, the less support they have over their position of power. And considering there's a huge number of people voting for bad politicians, why support a bad system where they'll later start praising about the voter turnout and gloat about how they won. I'd rather vote with my feet and wallet, as it's makes a bigger impact (See Detroit). Now consider if the election was for a Hitler or Stalin, would you really vote against them when doing so means death, considering they're going to know who you are anyways. I didn't think so.

I'll take Plato's stance over Aristotle and all the people you've quoted.

http://www.voluntaryist.com/nonvoting/index.html

Re:Democracy.

[0123456]

You obviously don't realize just how small the middle class is right now and it keeps getting smaller.

Primarily because the tax-consumer class keep voting themselves more of the middle class' money. Democracy can only last until the majority realise they can vote to steal from the minority.

Re:Democracy.

[next_ghost]

I'm tired of hearing it said that democracy doesn't work. Of course it doesn't work. We are supposed to work it. ~Alexander Woollcott

This is the first most important thing to remember about democracy. The second most important thing to remember is that it's not anywhere near enough to just vote once every few years. Votes are not blank cheques for politicians. You have the right to check up on your elected representatives and the right to complain loudly if they misappropriate government money or do evil. Your duty as a citizen is to use both of those rights.

Re:Democracy.

[lightknight]

If you want a larger turnout for the elections, you need to offer better candidates; many people stay at home because they despise the choices offered to them.

There should be a constitutional amendment that states if less than 50% of eligible voters show up to vote, the election cannot be held as valid; elections must be held again, 3 months later, with an entirely new slate of candidates.

Re:Democracy.

[Anonymous Coward]

Democracy can only last until the majority realise they can vote to steal from the minority.

Your statement is close to the truth. What's happening in America today is the people with the majority of the money vote to steal from the people with the minority of the money.

Re:Democracy.

[TheGratefulNet]

sorry, but while you are correct; its not effective anymore.

people (especially in a down econ) are mostly going to be voting for the CHEAPEST short-term solution they can find for the problem they are solving.

no one invests for long-term. no one buys higher quality today when they can buy walmart chinese shit for 'so much less'.

go to a coupon/deals site like slickdeals or fatwallet. see the mentality of 'todays youth'. see how the near total lack of morality in shopping is abundant in their consumer group. point out how evil a company is and you are made fun of. point out how an item will break so shortly after you buy it and they reply 'yeah, but its only a few dollars!'.

they don't get it.

we are so screwed....

Re:Democracy.

[Daniel Dvorkin]

Primarily because the tax-consumer class keep voting themselves more of the middle class' money. Democracy can only last until the majority realise they can vote to steal from the minority.

Investment bankers and defense contractor CEOs are a majority?

Re:Democracy.

[joocemann]

Lol. that didnt happen at all. the democracy of the poor to drive wealth in their direction is not even possible. But you can keep ignoring the reality that corps and banks own this country for decades. fuck you if you dont recognize reality and still vote. fuck your ignorance and shitty guesses fueled by the pseudo facts you received from the very culprits of our demise.

Re:Democracy.

[Daniel Dvorkin]

If you want a larger turnout for the elections, you need to offer better candidates; many people stay at home because they despise the choices offered to them.

Again, the solution to this is to work harder. Don't just wait until the general election; get involved in the primaries. And don't just concentrate on the big-ticket races (President, Governor, US Senator and Representative); pay attention to races for state legislature, city council, board of education, county commissioner, etc. The only way we're going to get better candidates is if more people pay attention to the process by which candidates are made. By the time the Tuesday after the first Monday in November rolls around, it's too late.

Re:Democracy.

[Anonymous Coward]

Voting with your wallets is much more effective then the fake choice presented in elections. Hopefully, people will finally realize that in today's world, it's the best way to start making a difference.

No. You do both. My New Year wish for the world is actually that also Americans would bother to turn up and vote at an election. Instead of giving up before even trying, and by that handing the control over to the people who do bother. And if the result shouldn't be perfect the first time, you turn up even stronger next time. The politicans who want to keep their seat will start to get the message.

In a democracy the poor will have more power than the rich, because there are more of them, and the will of the majority is supreme. ~Aristotle Bad officials are elected by good citizens who do not vote. ~George Jean Nathan I'm tired of hearing it said that democracy doesn't work. Of course it doesn't work. We are supposed to work it. ~Alexander Woollcott People often say that, in a democracy, decisions are made by a majority of the people. Of course, that is not true. Decisions are made by a majority of those who make themselves heard and who vote - a very different thing. ~Walter H. Judd

Why would they do that? Voting just legitimizes their position if your choice loses. The less people at the ballot box, the less support they have over their position of power. And considering there's a huge number of people voting for bad politicians, why support a bad system where they'll later start praising about the voter turnout and gloat about how they won. I'd rather vote with my feet and wallet, as it's makes a bigger impact (See Detroit). Now consider if the election was for a Hitler or Stalin, would you really vote against them when doing so means death, considering they're going to know who you are anyways. I didn't think so.

I'll take Plato's stance over Aristotle and all the people you've quoted.

http://www.voluntaryist.com/nonvoting/index.html

And that strategy is working out great for the US? It's the people who do bother to vote who gets to decide over the ones who don't. Blaiming the system, alternatives, lobyists and money is just a cop out when the country has never even tried the effect of actual large voter turnout. There isn't enough lobbyists to keep these people in office, you do (through action or inaction). I don't disagree with voting with wallets too, not at all. this isn't either or.

Re:Democracy.

[MillionthMonkey]

Voting with your wallets is much more effective then the fake choice presented in elections.

good thing everyone has the same number of votes in their wallets.

This is a fair point, not sure how to answer it properly.

Voting with your votes is much more effective than the fake choice presented in wallets.

Re:Democracy.

[foobsr]

Eventually, the politicians should be accountable directly to the people.

For a starter, any type of accountability would do.

CC.

Re:Democracy.

[impaledsunset]

It's much more important to select a good candidate when voting, than to just vote. And that's not simply picking the best or the least bad. If there isn't an obviously good candidate that you want to vote for, sometimes the candidate that sends the biggest message, that penalizes those who supported terrible policies or stands against the worst things about the status quo would do.

Re:Democracy.

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah instead we should be giving all the money to the wealthy .1% so that they can "trickle down" their urine onto all of us. The fact that people still buy into Reagan's voodoo economics is hilarious.

Re:Democracy.

[Kjella]

That you only have fake choices in politics is mostly due to the fucked up US system. And very often you have false choices with your wallet, you get to pick from a number of mega-corporations and they're all equally bad. Too bad for GoDaddy they didn't realize that they run a dime a dozen business that people can switch from with hardly any penalty. But I hardly think it sells me on the idea that the free market would solve everything.

Re:Democracy.

[The Mighty Buzzard]

Your statement is also close to the truth. What's happening in America today is both the working-class and the upper-class are voting to steal from the middle-class.

The main problem today is nobody even knows what the middle-class is. It is not people who work a job that makes good money. Those are still working class. The middle class is small business owners. Period.

Without them a nation goes to shit and we've been fucking them from both ends with class warfare bullshit for decades.

Re:Democracy.

[aplusjimages]

It would be nice if people stopped donating to politicians. Instead, take that money and donate to help cure cancer or your local humane society. At least then you know it's going to something useful.

Re:Democracy.

[Anonymous Coward]

Decisions are made by a majority of those who make themselves heard and who vote - a very different thing. ~Walter H. Judd

Part of this is solvable by making voting compulsory. I'm surprised that more countries don't do this.

Re:Democracy.

[Anonymous Coward]

A herp. And a derp. And a herp. And a derp.

The poor don't have representation in government.

The rich *are* the government. Every person in government is rich. The corporations that fund them are rich. The legislation they make is all geared toward supporting the rich and making the rich richer.

How pathetic it must be to be so delusional as you.

Re:Democracy.

[M. Baranczak]

"Today's youth"? Really? You telling us that yesterday's youth was any better?

Re:Democracy.

[Anonymous Coward]

Democracy today is at a late alpha stage, i hope that soon, when the first beta comes out, it will include a feature for the democratization of economy and resources.

Re:Democracy.

[ranton]

The main problem today is nobody even knows what the middle-class is. It is not people who work a job that makes good money. Those are still working class. The middle class is small business owners. Period.

That is a pretty silly distinction. So a family headed by two brain surgeons is working class but a family that owns a struggling taco stand is middle class?

Re:Democracy.

[diamondmagic]

The fact that people value things sooner rather than later is perfectly fine, the future carries more uncertainty. It's not correct to say that we have no value for goods in the future. See the concept of time preference.

Re:Democracy.

[grahamd0]

Part of this is solvable by making voting compulsory.

Or what? Throw people in jail?

Support a corrupt Republican, support a corrupt Democrat, or a rot in a prison cell. Sounds like an awesome deal to me.

Re:Democracy.

[bhtooefr]

Except the corporatocracy will just rotate new candidates in, if people go into a "never vote for the incumbent" strategy.

Re:Democracy.

[Anonymous Coward]

The middle class is supposed to be the majority you pseudo libertarian moron, ultra rich and desperately poor are supposed to be outliers.

Re:Democracy.

[Anonymous Coward]

B-b-but it's easier to stay at home and be a consum -er, vote with my dollars because the market is good and government is bad, bad, bad?

Re:Democracy.

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry, some of us have full time jobs and families. We simply don't have enough time to be that politically active, and even if we did ten other people would undo our efforts with completely thoughtless voting, and equally thoughtless acceptance of obvious bullshit when it is dished out.

The people who suffer more than I do can get more politically involved than I can. That's fine. But don't demand that I sacrifice what really matters to me in order to champion your political agenda.

Re:Democracy.

[bky1701]

The answer is that money, and businesses, as they run on money, have no place in politics at all. The system we have now is institutionalized bribery. "Vote with your wallet" is not an answer; the answer is change the nature of corporations in this country to discourage corruption and control of markets.

Re:Democracy.

[Anonymous Coward]

Sounds like just another tragedy of the commons. Sounds like your country needs better consumer protection laws.

Re:Democracy.

[Anonymous Coward]

"Today's youth"? Really? You telling us that yesterday's youth was any better?

Yeah. At least the Hitler Youth had ideals, and the Musical Youth had music. These days it's too much about Air Jordans.

Re:Democracy.

[klearvue]

I followed the link you provided and read the following: ' ...a question was posed: "If you could have cast the deciding vote against Hitler, would you have done so?" I replied, "No, but I would have no moral objection to putting a bullet through his skull." ...' - this is simply beyond retarded, I can't take your position seriously any longer.

Re:Democracy.

[TheGratefulNet]

over time, yes, each generation feels the world 'owes them' more and more. they think less and less of the value of money.

my parents were more aware of how hard it was to earn money. I am somewhat cautious in spending, but people 20 yrs my junior seem to think nothing of the value of goods.

yes, I see a generational trend. not happy about that but I do see it as a trend thru at least 3 visible generations.

Re:Democracy.

[Asphalt]

Contrary to popular belief, democracy can never truly work. At least not for a large population.

In order for democracy to work, the populace must be of sufficient intellect to make the best decisions for itself. The masses cannot do this, and this reality is unchangeable.

That which we call "critical" or "abstract" thinking generally requires an IQ of 110 or greater. The average IQ of the U.S. citizen is 98. This means that the majority of Americans have an IQ of less than 100. Those with IQs of less than 100 tend to make decisions based on repetition and consensus rather than critical analysis, and even "smart" people have a difficult time resisting the lure of basing conclusions on "common knowledge".

As such, people can be fairly easily persuaded to vote against their own interests time, and time, and time again.

Democracy as a means of preventing tyranny and corruption is fairly useless, for democracy is 3 geniuses, 20 bright people, and 500 idiots voting on a course of action. The numbers are made up, but you get the gist, and they are probably not far off. When someone with an IQ of 65 has an equal influence on important matters as does a person with an IQ of 140, the Achilles heel of of democracy becomes evident.

A benevolent dictatorship, to whatever extent one can truly exist, would be a far better, more fair, more efficient, more humane form of government than is democracy.

GoDaddy will be fine, because even though Slashdotters know what SOPA is, 90% of people have no clue as to what is going on.

Despite nearly 18 months of seeming outrage over the TSA's backscatter and groping, airline travel was up this holiday season. Bloggers and talking heads were pissed, but Joe and Jane Soccermom remained oblivious. Were it put to a vote tomorrow, the TSA's groping policy would be overwhelmingly approved by American voters.

Similarly, when SOPA or a SOPA-like law is passed, and it will be, Slashdot will blow up with comments, but the legislators who pass it will be re-elected without issue.

3 geniuses, 20 bright people, 500 idiots.

The government will once again act against the interest of the citizens, while 3 people scream, 20 people complain on Slashdot, and 500 people watch Monday Night Football.

Democracy. It doesn't work.

It never did.

It never will.

Re:Democracy.

[Simply Curious]

I agree that citizens should yell and screech at politicians when they misbehave. However, in an ideal world, it should not be necessary to constantly baby-sit the politicians. Such a system has all of the disadvantages of a direct democracy (Citizens need to stay aware of every issue.) and all of the disadvantages of a republic (Politicians may not represent those who voted for them.) with none of the advantages of either (Citizens having a direct voice on issues for direct democracy, or politicians allowing citizens to devote more time to other issues for a republic.).

Re:Democracy.

[moortak]

21,000 out 20,000 in. They lost 1,000 domains for basically shitting on their customers. Yet their support for SOPA stands, despite the half assed mea culpa. Every person who voted with their wallet against SOPA still has to live with the outcomes in the political realm and Godaddy loses almost nothing.

Re:Democracy.

[Anonymous Coward]

I was yesterday's youth so yes it was better by virtue of me being part of it.

Re:Democracy.

[illumnatLA]

I would mod this up if I had points right now.

Re:Democracy.

[next_ghost]

However, in an ideal world, it should not be necessary to constantly baby-sit the politicians.

The only problem is that we don't live in an ideal world.

Such a system has all of the disadvantages of a direct democracy (Citizens need to stay aware of every issue.) and all of the disadvantages of a republic (Politicians may not represent those who voted for them.) with none of the advantages of either (Citizens having a direct voice on issues for direct democracy, or politicians allowing citizens to devote more time to other issues for a republic.).

Actually, it has advantages and disadvantages of both. Citizens don't need to keep track of everything that happens in politics. Each issue needs to be examined by only a few people who then write short summary for the rest or call for action against government decision. The disadvantages of the republic can be mitigated by voters getting a complete summary of good and evil done by each candidate in the past right before they vote. The advantage is that you get benefits of direct democracy for fraction of the cost. Checking if the decision is good or not often takes much less resources than actually making it. And now we can crowdsource the checking.

Re:Democracy.

[The Mighty Buzzard]

Class has nothing to do with how much money someone makes. It's all about their role in our economic system. The working-class hold jobs and the middle-class create jobs. If your example family heads are working for a hospital, they're just drawing a wage. If they're in practice for themselves, they're probably employing several other people. The upper-class, their main usefulness is as moneylenders, either directly or through investment. Yes, I'm aware that the above is an oversimplification and that people can hold multiple roles within it at the same time. It's usually not difficult to tell which is any given individual's primary function is though, so it still works. It is, in any case, a hell of a lot more sensible than declaring classes based on numbers pulled out of someone's ass.

Re:Democracy.

[hellop2]

Because buying shit longterm is only useful if you're going to stay in one place for the rest of you life (or haul a bunch of crap around). Youths are likely to strap on a backpack and hit the road. They don't need long term stuff.

Re:Democracy.

[Anonymous Coward]

Except the corporatocracy will just rotate new candidates in, if people go into a "never vote for the incumbent" strategy.

I'll assume you are American (sorry if wrong). It's amazing how you Americans can be so sure, before ever haven tried (abyssmal voter turn out isn't a new thing), that actually exercising your democratic rights and duties will be futile. It is more convenient to be convinced that you can't make a difference, because the opposite would mean actually bothering to investing time and energy to do something, other than complaining on the Internet. Become member of a political organization and actively work for better candidates, better policy suggestions, more support. Will you alone change the country? Of course not, but enough people actually bothering would. This is what democracy is. It is not a magic man in the sky that will give you the perfect world without you having to do something. It won't work if you don't botter to work it. Well, actually it do, it just works for the people you disagree with, since you leave it to them.

Re:Democracy.

[Anonymous Coward]

A herp. And a derp. And a herp. And a derp.

The poor don't have representation in government.

The rich *are* the government. Every person in government is rich. The corporations that fund them are rich. The legislation they make is all geared toward supporting the rich and making the rich richer.

How pathetic it must be to be so delusional as you.

Have you looked into how this work in other democracies, where the people actually bother to actively engage in their democracy? There is nothing different in the influence money and corporations could have, just how much the politically engaged and voting people allow it. Money don't vote, people do. I've lived in serveral Western European contries that is existing hard evidence against your "poor have no representation and there is no hope for change so I don't have any obligation to do anything about it, and I'm a realist and every one else thinking something else is dellusional, so I still don't have to do anything" theory. Is everything perfect? Not by a long shot, but we continue to work for it. Democracy isn't a magic man in the sky that will make everything right by you without having to work for it.

Re:Democracy.

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry, some of us have full time jobs and families. We simply don't have enough time to be that politically active, and even if we did ten other people would undo our efforts with completely thoughtless voting, and equally thoughtless acceptance of obvious bullshit when it is dished out.

The people who suffer more than I do can get more politically involved than I can. That's fine. But don't demand that I sacrifice what really matters to me in order to champion your political agenda.

I don't. As long as you don't have a political agenda of your own, and thinks things are pretty good as they are, that is fine. You are letting people who agree with you decide the agenda. But if not, I don't bythat that having a job and family (really unique there) is preventing you having time to put any amount of effort into help work towards a different result (if you want that).

Re:Democracy.

[Anonymous Coward]

"If voting changed anything it would be illegal."

Speaking as someone who "got involved in the primaries" and who counted the votes(it only matters if you're willing to risk going to jail) this argument that "democracy would work if we all just put a little bit more effort in to it" is just another example of the perverse behavior of blaming the victim/end-user.

If computers refused to run software that hasn't been cryptographically signed by Satan himself, the solution isn't to spend more time at the electron microscope or staring at disassembler screens.

The solution is to throw away the computer and build one yourself, transistor at a time if necessary.

People balk at the concept of doing this with government because lawyers like to wave their hands and use their Russian nesting dolls of verbiage to pretend that government is complicated and this is a law of nature that cannot be changed.

They'll support their position with Economics voodoo and cite obscure case law & historical trivia. All of this is self-deception to convince themselves that it takes 8 years of education to understand civics.

When you have to dedicate 1/6th of a human lifetime to understanding the intricacies of how to "optimize" every fraction of a percent, the consequence is a small minority of people are capable of running the machine. As a consequence, lack of competition results in human nature running the show.

These diminishing returns, which appear to offer a ROI when examined quantitatively, fail to justify themselves when in their pursuit, much more substantial low-hanging-fruit rots on the vine.

It's time that the throbbing mass of public opinion turned on flowery hand waving bullshit and a reductionist approach is utilized to take control back from the educated few in ivory towers and returned to the unwashed masses.

The GDP will likely suffer, but the average quality of life among the unwashed masses will likely improve as a result of eating the rich. I'm willing to see investor shareholder value suffer for the benefit of the workers.

Re:Democracy.

[Anonymous Coward]

Contrary to popular belief, democracy can never truly work. At least not for a large population.

In order for democracy to work, the populace must be of sufficient intellect to make the best decisions for itself. The masses cannot do this, and this reality is unchangeable.

That which we call "critical" or "abstract" thinking generally requires an IQ of 110 or greater. The average IQ of the U.S. citizen is 98. This means that the majority of Americans have an IQ of less than 100. Those with IQs of less than 100 tend to make decisions based on repetition and consensus rather than critical analysis, and even "smart" people have a difficult time resisting the lure of basing conclusions on "common knowledge".

As such, people can be fairly easily persuaded to vote against their own interests time, and time, and time again.

Democracy as a means of preventing tyranny and corruption is fairly useless, for democracy is 3 geniuses, 20 bright people, and 500 idiots voting on a course of action. The numbers are made up, but you get the gist, and they are probably not far off. When someone with an IQ of 65 has an equal influence on important matters as does a person with an IQ of 140, the Achilles heel of of democracy becomes evident.

A benevolent dictatorship, to whatever extent one can truly exist, would be a far better, more fair, more efficient, more humane form of government than is democracy.

GoDaddy will be fine, because even though Slashdotters know what SOPA is, 90% of people have no clue as to what is going on.

Despite nearly 18 months of seeming outrage over the TSA's backscatter and groping, airline travel was up this holiday season. Bloggers and talking heads were pissed, but Joe and Jane Soccermom remained oblivious. Were it put to a vote tomorrow, the TSA's groping policy would be overwhelmingly approved by American voters.

Similarly, when SOPA or a SOPA-like law is passed, and it will be, Slashdot will blow up with comments, but the legislators who pass it will be re-elected without issue.

3 geniuses, 20 bright people, 500 idiots.

The government will once again act against the interest of the citizens, while 3 people scream, 20 people complain on Slashdot, and 500 people watch Monday Night Football.

Democracy. It doesn't work.

It never did.

It never will.

If you are able to look down from your all mighty high-IQ horse, democracy do work quite well (not perfect, but quite well), in many places around the world. And often people with high IQ have a lot of learn about being good people from representatives of the lower IQ masses.

Re:Democracy.

[Anonymous Coward]

"If voting changed anything it would be illegal."

Speaking as someone who "got involved in the primaries" and who counted the votes(it only matters if you're willing to risk going to jail) this argument that "democracy would work if we all just put a little bit more effort in to it" is just another example of the perverse behavior of blaming the victim/end-user.

well, since I live in a functional democracy, where people get involved, a lot, and it mostly works out ok (at least better) - and people (unlike US) actually bother to vote! -- I still disagree. If US had 70%+ voter turnout for more than 8 consecutive elections, and you still felt that at 7th and 8th try nothing were moving in the right direction, then we could talk. You seem to feel so especially victimized, by money, corruption and corporations. Well, newsflash for you, we have those things in other parts of the world too. Yes, really. But we use the democratic process to keep it in check, while you people seem to have given up without even trying (no US election in recent time have a good turn out). It might be that US is such a young country/culture compared to most of the rest of the world, but that doesn't change what you could do, if you bothered to try.

Re:Democracy.

[Anonymous Coward]

Lol, without even trying? We have prison populations, mental institutions and pharmaceutical profits to measure our efforts.

You think it's lack of trying?

Media Monopoly, government/private sector incest, prison industrial complex, military industrial complex, veterans affairs, pointless wars, failed education system, criminal injustice system.

America's problems are systemic and have nothing to do with voter turn-out. Every 2-4 years the elderly and unemployed show up at the polls and vote for entitlements & expansion of government powers. These government powers are leveraged to further cement the single party system, expansion of the tax base for graft, and regulate competition to establishment players out of existence.

This has been the trend for the past 30 years and has nothing to do with democracy, & everything to do with a purple dog's tail.

The voters are force fed 2 sides of the same coin every election cycle and they will always choose the lesser of two evils. The only way to break this cycle is to storm the moat of party politics and try to "change things from the inside" like an anarchist going to law school.

Just like drowning, walking in to this den of vipers is a slow miserable way to die as you collapse from the exhaustion of fighting gravity.

Big campaign donors keep the party alive and position themselves as gatekeepers to leadership posts. From here, they ensure that only two types of people ever have more influence or decision making power than "where should I shovel this shit?"

Type 1: Ivy league frat brothers, golf buddies they met at the country club, their neighbors with million dollar mansions, judges, lawyers, etc.

Type 2: A popper who has demonstrated themselves to be adequately malleable & useful enough idiot that is social-able enough to bother investing time and energy in grooming for future political office. The puppets only get party money after they have demonstrated that they have Type 1's hand so far up their ass that fingernails are scraping teeth.

Generally speaking, Type 2 is a role filled by the husband/wife/offspring of Type 1, and they draw from the working class only in the rare circumstances that they are out of relatives to fill the seat. Both Obama & GWB are great examples of Type 2s, but all you have to do is find someone in congress that falls in neither of the above categories and my assertion has been falsified. Accomplish that and I will eat my hat.

Nobody get's past state legislature unless the hooks are set.

So you spend 5-10 years living in a ghetto because the hours that normal people work, you're volunteering for party politics. You make some friends, get some easy jobs through networking, and you've finally worn a shit-eating mask for long enough you get to go to the national convention.

There you meet and are surrounded by people who rode in to that party on a horse made of hookers, blow, and money and you are 1 populist voice among thousands who have an opportunity to influence the party nomination.

Selection bias, did 51% of the people in attendance work to get there or did every single one of them have a ticket through the door the day they popped out of their mom?

Some people are delusional enough to think that this system is a functioning democracy. They are probably union reps who have the free time and disposable money from government handouts to play this game. For the rest of us who aren't part of the problem, the "solution" means government not serving as a hindrance to a prosperous society.

If the above process is the necessary means of achieving the latter, government is undeniably broken. If our government is a democracy and the government is broken, I'll let you fill in the blank on what that implies.

BTW, this is a fresh batch of butt-hurt. I've actually been through an entire cycle of inner peace since the TARP bailouts but this country is so fucked it took less than 3 years to outrage me again. Some problems can be ignored. The United State government is not that type of problem. It needs to be solved, and solved with liberal amounts of enthusiasm.

Re:Democracy.

[Hognoxious]

Part of this is solvable by making voting compulsory. I'm surprised that more countries don't do this.

Belgium has compulsory voting, and yet managed to end up without a government for over a year.

Re:Democracy.

[thejynxed]

Because the deciding vote wouldn't have mattered at that point (it rarely does, because most elections are rigged to avoid any sort of tie vote situation). Hitler was the only person running after he and his underlings had eliminated all of the competition. Look up "Night of the Long Knives." So, personally, the 2nd option of feeling no moral compunction at putting a bullet in his head is the obvious and correct stance to take.

Re:Democracy.

[klearvue]

Look up what 'deciding' means. If, as you say, "...vote wouldn't have mattered at that point" it's by definition not deciding. Besides, that woman provided a dishonest answer in itself. She said she "would have no moral objection to putting a bullet through his skull". What does that even mean? Was she going to put the bullet through his head herself? If so, why not just say that? Or is it that she won't object to someone else doing it? What if no one else had the courage? Or no one had the opportunity? All that BS instead of taking an easy route of denying Hitler power by casting a deciding vote. The more I read on libertarians' positions, the less I think they have anything in common with reality.

Re:Democracy.

[Anonymous Coward]

How about a no confidence option on every electable office. If no confidence is in the majority they are forced to select a new set of electable persons for each position that got a majority of no confidence votes. This way they would be force to actually allow the citizen voters a say in who gets elected instead of setting it up for one of two main choices.

Just my two cents.

Re:Democracy.

[randyleepublic]

You're right. The only reason the US got as far as it did was that an intellectual elite, the founding fathers, set it up. But they were not perfect, and the gamers have been gaming the flaws they missed ever since. We are getting close to game over.

Re:Democracy.

[__aailob1448]

The things you say make me shudder. I think you may have a valid point (several, actually).

Can the electoral system be reformed to allow true public servants into office, without relying on big money?

Re:Democracy.

[Anonymous Coward]

Not Quite... Choosing the lesser of two evils is still choosing evil. There is no option for people that do not believe in any candidates..

If the whole system was changed so that you marked the person you would least like to see in office you would see much greater turn outs I bet. (In essense you couldn't vote for anyone.. You just noted against)..

Re:Democracy.

[Anonymous Coward]

It could be because I'm 32 right now, but generally I've always spent the extra cash on getting quality. Generally speaking, if my shoes die anywhere less than about 6 years in, I consider them crap shoes. My last ones lasted 7 years, and I only got rid of them because my wife didn't like how scuffed up the outside was getting. The inside of them was still comfy though. Went through a few replaceable insoles, but the rest survived.

Otherwise, in generally I do tend to look for something that will last significantly longer, with the exception of random crap that I need to use all of once or twice ever.

godaddy

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not over. I only have about 10 domains but I'm going to go elsewhere. The "reversal" was to little, to late, bitches. Man, I use to LOVE Bob Parsons and his whole in your face antics, but to Hell with him and Godaddy now.

Re:godaddy

[inviolet]

It's not over. I only have about 10 domains but I'm going to go elsewhere. The "reversal" was to little, to late, bitches. Man, I use to LOVE Bob Parsons and his whole in your face antics, but to Hell with him and Godaddy now.

Yep, I'm moving too. Looks like HostGator is a good choice for where to move. I'm looking forward to my "Cancel my accounts, I think your organization is evil" phone call to GoDaddy, those are always fun.

Their "remedy" is to support it from the shadows.

[Anonymous Coward]

I can only hope that when more and more special interests begin to require that their support of some law mustn't be made public, the politicians taking the money stop for a second and think about what the hell they're doing.

BWHAHAA. As if! Man, sometimes I kill myself.

Carry on, corrupt entities.

Significant?

[Anonymous Coward]

How significant is this? I don't know how to read this data, but TFA itself seems to note that almost as many domains transferred in on the same day, and it says here that they manage some 32 million domains, so that really doesn't seem like much. Can't find any historical data, though, so I don't know if it's outside the norm for daily activity... is it?

Re:Significant?

[Grave]

I would say this is just the start - the people who are usually in control of domain registration for web sites are the same sort who are going to vehemently oppose SOPA and it's ilk. The long term effects will likely be much more significant, as people change registrars when renewals come up, and fewer people register new domains with them.

GoDaddy's decision to not actually reverse their stance, and instead just put out a press release filled with lies has only compounded the problem.

Total control

[JoshuaZ]

GoDaddy controls around 45 million domains. So this is about 1/2000 of all their domains. Not that much by that metric. But what probably caused a notice is that this is a much larger variance than what normally occurs on any given day. And some of these domains were domains which were using affiliated services.

Re:Total control

[Anonymous Coward]

in one day.... the more their position got out, the more they would have lost. sure it would have slowed down, but any large company that starts NEGATIVE GROWTH because of ONE decision is going to find themselves reversing that decision pretty quickly.
I would have moved my 8 domains within a day or two.

Re:Total control

[abhi_beckert]

Customers tend to stick with a single domain registrar for decades, so 21,000 domains is millions of dollars in lost revenue, in just one day. If they continued to support SOPA it would have really hurt.

And that doesn't even take into account all the customers who're too lazy to switch existing domains, but will switch for future ones.

You can bet godaddy will think twice before supporting anything like SOPA ever again.

Re:Total control

[naroom]

If they continued to support SOPA it would have really hurt.

They DID continue to support SOPA. They just released some damage-control PR saying they weren't supporting it as strongly.

Re:Total control

[preaction]

Except they do still support it. Their carefully-worded PR piece and their CEO's blog both say exactly that.

Re:Total control

[YrWrstNtmr]

Customers tend to stick with a single domain registrar for decades,

It hasn't been that long since there were multiple places to register a domain.

Re:Total control

[Baloroth]

Also, the official "move your domain day" was the 29th IIRC, so while this could be an insignificant blip, it might be an indicator of how many will move later.

Re:Total control

[Opportunist]

Yes, just 1/2000. But when you know how companies work, you know they're probably still crapping their pants over it.

Companies have to grow to make their shareholders and investors happy. Stagnation is an alarm bell. Shrinking is a "gimme my money back NOW" indicator. No matter how small.

Especially in times like this when investors are at a hair trigger already.

Re:Total control

[Anonymous Coward]

If they were too lazy to switch what makes you think they'll jump to action now? Contrary to what you might think, not everybody has even heard of SOPA.

Re:Total control

[gmack]

Indeed, I am assigned the task of researching where to move my employer's 100+ domains since we want to move but can't just do it blindly. (requirements European based, reasonable prices)

Re:Total control

[Anonymous Coward]

Try https://www.gandi.net/ or https://internetbs.net/.

Re:Total control

[Rakishi]

No, they'll simply not make it blatantly obvious that they support it as they've already done with SOPA. And you'll fall for it as you've fallen for it this time.

Now they know just how easy it is to fool people like you and they're probably laughing about right now. While drinking $5000 wine. All it took was a bit of marketing double speak and you're their best friend again.

Making for a nice sale, though.

[Anonymous Coward]

I just bought a domain from them today. $4 for a .us? uh, yes, please.

Re:Making for a nice sale, though.

[statsone]

that is not something special and something that is ongoing.

It is actually more than 21,000 domains

[chrisgeleven]

This # doesn't include any domains transferred away from GoDaddy that were delegated to non-GoDaddy nameservers. The 21,000 number is only for domains that used GoDaddy's nameservers for DNS. So the actual # was higher than 21,000.

The question is what is the real number of transferred away domains? I don't know if any of those statistics are available publicly.

Re:It is actually more than 21,000 domains

[Anonymous Coward]

Of Course these stats are available. All you have to do is a get a dump of the .com whois database from before this fiasco and compare it with a dataset after.

How might you get such a dump?
I'll leave that as an exercise to the reader:
Hint: verisign offers dumps on .com (and other registries that they own)

Re:It is actually more than 21,000 domains

[PhreakOfTime]

Good point. I hate to admit my names were still there, and quite a few of them. I will admit to it being laziness on my part which kept them there, it was just easy to keep them at the same place... until now. My domains were all using my own custom nameservers, so wouldn't show up in those numbers if that is how the measurement is being done. As of today, the last of the confirmation emails came in closing out all my transfers out of godaddy to elsewhere.

Re:It is actually more than 21,000 domains

[MacGyver2210]

Excellent observation. I haven't used GoDaddy's DNS for a long time but I use their hosting because - whatever, it's cheap, I'm lazy, and I don't need any advanced control features. Put File Online -> Link to File -> Done.

The business server is CoLocated and uses CPanel. I'll stick to that for REAL web work.

Re:It is actually more than 21,000 domains

[Anonymous Coward]

It was the same here, though I only had the one domain. And it was almost as painful to transfer it as thought. But I'm glad I did it.

Re:It is actually more than 21,000 domains

[Anonymous Coward]

I have 50+ domains with godaddy, none are hosted there and I have my own DNS servers. All are in the process of being moved.

How different is this from other days?

[BLKMGK]

Seriously? If this is tracked I'd love to know that this is significant in some way and not just a blip...

Very good point!

[Weezul]

Also, GoDaddy has NOT withdrawn its official congressional support for SOPA, but they pretend they did when talking to the press.

Re:Very good point!

[rgbrenner]

GoDaddy has NOT withdrawn its official congressional support for SOPA

That's great... Yesterday, I figured I'll just leave my 15 domains there since they backed off their support.. but apparently only in words.

The way I see it, GoDaddy should be happy people are leaving.. if you run a site that has any user content, SOPA will mean you'll have to shut it down anyway.

godaddy + sopa support = one less godaddy domain
sopa passes = one less godaddy domain

So they're getting what they want either way. They should be happy.

Re:Very good point!

[RMingin]

I'm working on transferring my domain off of GoDaddy, but am destitute. Anyone who would like to send me a few bucks, I'll guarantee it's used only for this transfer.

Re:Very good point!

[Anonymous Coward]

Yesterday, I figured I'll just leave my 15 domains there since they backed off their support.. but apparently only in words.

No offense, but this is an example of how gullible people can be and how easy it can be to manipulate them. Say some pretty words and people will continue mindlessly giving you money to erode their own freedoms with. I wish more people understood the ideas behind public relations and marketing. But let's go over it again: you can't trust what corporations say to you. They will always make statements that stand to gain them the most favor, whether the statements are true or not.

One has to actually use one's brain a little. Why would GoDaddy support SOPA, and then less than 24 hours later NOT support it? Do you think it's because they all changed their minds over there for some reason? Do you think they learned something new about SOPA they didn't know before? Or is it because they saw a pending backlash on the internet and wanted to release a bullshit statement that would satiate the docile among us? Do you really think they "backed off their support"? This is not difficult to figure out with a little bit of thought.

Re:Very good point!

[Anonymous Coward]

Reddit is right around the corner.

Re:Very good point!

[kyrio]

You can transfer it into my account for free.

Re:Very good point!

[kyrio]

... my account at a different registrar, that is.

Re:Very good point!

[viperidaenz]

I can provide the funds you request. Misfortune has it that it is locked in a trust and I need $199 to process the fund request. If you send me the $199 I can then send you what you require. You can trust me...

Re:Very good point!

[rgbrenner]

Strong words from an anonymous coward.

I don't doubt for a second that they still approve of the legislation.. but if they stop supporting it, then I just don't care. I have a lot of other stuff to do (like my 100 hour work weeks) than search around for a new registrar and transfer my domains. If you refuse to do business with everyone you disagree with, you'll never get anything done. And at the end of the day, godaddy still works. So if they're willing to stop supporting SOPA, then it's fine with me.

When you move out of your parents basement, get a life and a job.. then you can talk to me about ethics.

Re:Very good point!

[PopeRatzo]

I'm working on transferring my domain off of GoDaddy, but am destitute. Anyone who would like to send me a few bucks, I'll guarantee it's used only for this transfer.

I see that you're joking, but for the record, I bet you can find a registrar who will gladly take a transfer from GoDaddy for practically no charge.

If you are small company like GoDaddy, and not a complete asshat, this appears to be a pretty good opportunity to get a whole bunch of new customers.

Re:Very good point!

[Anonymous Coward]

You have a 100 hours work week because you have to manage your domains with the atrocious GoDaddy interface.

And because you post on slashdot on work hours.

But seriously, businesses are made of people and if you still trust the people at GoDaddy, that's fine, but that trust as been lost for a lot of people who have domains with them on which they make a living. My domains are mainly with Tucows, but if I used GoDaddy, I would probably consider moving out soon as a purely practical matter, to secure the huge financial interest I have in my domain names.

Re:Very good point!

[cheekyjohnson]

If you refuse to do business with everyone you disagree with

I think for most of the people, it's not just a simple everyday disagreement.

When you move out of your parents basement, get a life and a job.. then you can talk to me about ethics.

What's with the assumptions?

Re:Very good point!

[Anonymous Coward]

That should be spelled "Trussssssssssst Meeeeee", like a snake would say it.

Re:Very good point!

[SlithyMagister]

They will always make statements that stand to gain them the most favor, whether the statements are true or not.

You're close. Corporations say and do that which will gain them the most money. They exist solely for the purpose of returning value to their shareholders.
If currying favour with the general public will gain them money, then they will do that. However, if pissing off the 90% will help them mine hordes of cash from the pockets of the other 10%, they will gladly do so.

Corporations are not moral entities -- they are devoid of conscience. Even the individuals who comprise the corporation must give secondary consideration to moral issues where they conflict with the primary purpose of making money.

Corporations must never consider an individual's circumstances -- not customers', not employees' nor even individual shareholders' -- all are subject to the overwhelming need to maximize return on investment.

One might argue that the extreme compensation paid to corporate executives violates this, but in those cases is it usually the extreme greed of the individuals involved, coupled with extreme manipulative behaviour that have convinced shareholders that such compensation will maximize their own return on investment.

In such a context, only greedy psychopaths remain eligible to inherit the American dream.

Re:Very good point!

[rgbrenner]

I make money from all of my domains.. what do you think I spend 100 hours/week on?

What I said is exactly the same as others have said:

CEO Ben Huh has announced that they will be moving their array of over 1,000 domains away from GoDaddy unless the registrar recants their support of the act.

http://techcrunch.com/2011/12/22/cheezburgers-ben-huh-if-godaddy-supports-sopa-were-taking-our-1000-domains-elsewhere/

If they stop supporting SOPA, then I (and Ben Huh and others) will leave our domains there. If they don't, then I will move my domains. Simple as that.

Re:Very good point!

[Anonymous Coward]

You forgot to include the riches to be released in the case of a working domain. How about a coming money transfer channeled through your domain in the form of Bitcoin money and the sender who helps to establish a new home for your domain is getting a 10% cut? But the donators should act quickly as only the first two enablers will get the cut!

Re:Very good point!

[Samantha Wright]

Posting anonymously is supposed to protect someone from the repercussions of making a strong statement. No one should be heckled for speaking their honest beliefs behind that protective cloak. You just made the "if you aren't doing anything bad, you have nothing to hide" fallacy, which is disappointing. (Moreover, there's more to civilization than the length of one's work week. Stop waving your dick around. It gets you flamebait mods.)

Re:Very good point!

[Anonymous Coward]

He accused him of being gullible, easily munipulated, believing everything a corp says, and not putting any thought into his actions. He's anonymous because he's a troll. And the guy who replied to him is an idiot for feeding the trolls.

Re:Very good point!

[grahamd0]

I have a lot of other stuff to do (like my 100 hour work weeks) ...

You have a shitty job.

Re:Very good point!

[flimflammer]

I wasn't aware snakes could actually speak at all.

Re:Very good point!

[Nrrqshrr]

President of Wigeria, is that you?

Re:Very good point!

[SomePgmr]

Indeed, there were a few that ran specials for godaddy xfers with deal codes like SOPASUCKS.

Re:Very good point!

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry Mr Gecko.. there's a huge movement in the world called "ethical investing" .. and many of the BIGGEST players in the market are on board.. It includes, incidentally , *not* doing business with people you "disagree with" and, let me assure you, WE GET things done...

Re:Very good point!

[Anonymous Coward]

Corporations say and do that which will gain them the most money. They exist solely for the purpose of returning value to their shareholders.

GoDaddy is privately owned. Bob does which will gain him the most money. FTFY.

Re:Very good point!

[Anonymous Coward]

I have a 170 hour work week, but I chose to NEVER use GoDaddy when I bought my first domain.

Re:Very good point!

[Rakishi]

They haven't stopped supporting SOPA, they simply told you they have. And you're apparently the sort of gullible idiot who believes professional liars when they tell you something. God damn, sales and marketing folks have got to just love you.

If GoDaddy thought SOPA was to their benefit yesterday then they still think it's to their benefit today. The only thing that's no longer to their benefit is to make their support public. And there's no need to make it public exactly what that large political donation is exactly for.

Then again I don't expect clear thinking from someone stupid enough to work 100 hours a week.

Re:Very good point!

[inglorion_on_the_net]

That's great... Yesterday, I figured I'll just leave my 15 domains there since they backed off their support.. but apparently only in words.

This is not aimed at you personally, but I just have to get it off my chest: if by now you still haven't figured out that GoDaddy aren't the Good Guys, then I don't know why SOPA would change your mind. Seriously. It isn't like the GoDaddy badness isn't well documented or hasn't been going on for years. It's like they're _trying_ to be the most evil they can be.

Re:Very good point!

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course they can. Haven't you watched a Harry Potter movie?

Re:Very good point!

[Anonymous Coward]

"You're close. Corporations say and do that which will gain them the most money. They exist solely for the purpose of returning value to their CEOs."

There, fixed that for ya.

Re:Very good point!

[rgbrenner]

What I said is exactly the same as others have said:

CEO Ben Huh has announced that they will be moving their array of over 1,000 domains away from GoDaddy unless the registrar recants their support of the act.

http://techcrunch.com/2011/12/22/cheezburgers-ben-huh-if-godaddy-supports-sopa-were-taking-our-1000-domains-elsewhere/

If they stop supporting SOPA, then I (and Ben Huh and others) will leave our domains there. If they don't, then I will move my domains. Simple as that.

Re:Very good point!

[raehl]

You're close. Corporations say and do that which will gain them the most money. They exist solely for the purpose of returning value to their shareholders.

Ok, but what if the shareholders themselves don't want the company to just do what will make them the most money?

What if the shareholders instead demand that the company sacrifice some profits to behave in a more ethical manner?

Corporatons reflect the will of their shareholders. It just so happens that the will of most shareholders is more profits.

Probably because the people who try to get the most profits end up with the most money, thus owning more shares.

Re:Very good point!

[Anonymous Coward]

WOO!

http://blog.hostgator.com/2011/12/22/sopa-must-die/
50% off Shared / Reseller / VPS first month. Coupon code: NOSOPA

Re:Very good point!

[cthulhu11]

I started transferring mine away when the elephant story hit the news. GoDaddy sure didn't make it easy - I had to figure out laboriously to unlock a given domain, then to -- for no apparent reason -- disable registration privacy, then figure out where they'd hidden the old contact email address that they'd reverted to, change it, wait, etc. It took days before I could get that all straightened out and get an auth code sent.

Re:Very good point!

[inglorion_on_the_net]

Yes, but I mean people are outraged that GoDaddy would be doing such a thing as supporting SOPA, while GoDaddy has been doing objectionable things for years.

Why were you guys even with that company in the first place? I mean, yeah, they're cheap, but I would rather go with a registrar where I didn't have to worry about what sort of stunt they would be pulling next. As it turns out, those aren't even necessarily more expensive. So, really, why are people still using GoDaddy?

Re:Very good point!

[rgbrenner]

Why were you guys even with that company in the first place?

Half of the 15 domains (and I recently dropped 8 unused domains).. are older than everything on that list.

Re:Very good point!

[c6gunner]

The intent of a system often has little to do with how it's used. While the ability to post "anonymous" comments certainly has a legitimate purpose, the fact of the matter is that it is most often used to post inflammatory comments free from any repercussion.

To use a car analogy - having the ability to drive at 200km/h can be very useful if you're bleeding to death and trying to get to a hospital, but the vast majority of people who drive at that speed are just irresponsible jackasses looking for a thrill.

Re:Very good point!

[Samantha Wright]

It sucks that public facilities regularly get abused, but that doesn't mean they should be taken away. Every now and then, someone is bleeding to death and needs to get to a hospital. These things must be balanced based on how much damage they can potentially do with the potential benefit to society. The cost of anonymous slurring is usually virtually nil, but, say, gun ownership is not. Anyway.

Re:Very good point!

[c6gunner]

Well, yes, gun ownership is generally positive :p

I agree - I don't think the ability to post AC should be taken away, I just chose to ignore them, personally. I see no reason to wade through mountains of drek, searching for a pearl.

Misleading summary

[SuperMog2002]

According to the article, GoDaddy lost 21,054, but they also gained 20,034, for a net loss of 1020. Given their scale, that doesn't exactly sound like a massive exodus. Also, without any further information, for all we know, this is just a regular day of churn that happened to end negative.

Re:Misleading summary

[klui]

Here is more detailed info on these "losses."

http://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/npj2q/godaddy_lost_21000_domains_yesterday/c3ay6yu?context=3

Daily changes http://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/npj2q/godaddy_lost_21000_domains_yesterday/c3ay675

Re:Misleading summary

[dwillden]

But don't forget that the article also stated thatthe number drops has been growing over the past few days.

Re:Misleading summary

[ulricr]

I wish I had mod points to mod you up! that's a great link

Re:Misleading summary

[Anonymous Coward]

According to the article, GoDaddy lost 21,054, but they also gained 20,034, for a net loss of 1020. Given their scale, that doesn't exactly sound like a massive exodus. Also, without any further information, for all we know, this is just a regular day of churn that happened to end negative.

And honestly, why wouldn't they gain? They have pretty good prices and good enough service offerings that most registrars don't offer or offer at a higher price. And not to mention they make it completely easy to register any domain, even my computer illiterate grandmother can do it.

I'll be one of the ones moving my domains and services out of godaddy, but I doubt that's going to make much of an impact, considering most of Godaddy's customers don't really care what they do politically as long as their services don't go down.

GoDaddy could have continued to support SOPA and I doubt it would have had an impact on their sales, they just got frightened but then realized that their change in stance was too premature

Re:Misleading summary

[jjp9999]

Yeah, that's probably why they still aren't taking a hard stand against SOPA.

Spellchecking

[Knave75]

Seriously, this is a high traffic site. A two-line summary should not contain two spelling mistakes.

Were != Where

And, "Daddy" has a suprisingly large number of D's

Re:Spellchecking

[Anonymous Coward]

What does "suprisingly" mean?

Re:Spellchecking

[Knave75]

lol... touche.

But my comment was not a summary on a major website.

Re:Spellchecking

[Anonymous Coward]

It's "high-traffic", "surprisingly" and you don't start sentences with "and". Seriously, a grammar nazi post should not contain two grammar mistakes and a spelling mistake.

GoDaddy...

[forkfail]

... is now GoFsckYourselfDaddy

Then Who?

[SuperCharlie]

I am in up to my eyeballs at Godaddy. Who has similar prices and services that are worth changing to?

Re:Then Who?

[Osgeld]

hostmonster, but if you want the deal you have to pay up front for a couple years (which isnt all that bad), otherwise they have no per month plan the shortest would be 90 days where it comes out to 10 bucks a month

yea their pricing is a bit of a ass, but their service is great, I switched from godaddy about 6 years ago and have had great experiences (and even have ssh access which is freaking awesome)

Re:Then Who?

[Solandri]

I am in up to my eyeballs at Godaddy. Who has similar prices and services that are worth changing to?

I was searching for Godaddy alternatives yesterday.

At a similar price, the registrars which consistently came up were namecheap.com, name.com, and surprisingly dreamhost.com (not for their features, but because they include whois privacy in their regular price). I think all these are resellers though (enom kept coming up as their registrar).

In terms of features and support, gandi.net and hover.com seemed to be most popular. They are pricier than Godaddy though.

Re:Then Who?

[MacGyver2210]

I find HostGator.com has similar pricing, though for all I know they support SOPA too.

I'm about sick of GoDaddy even without their support for this nonsense. How much spam can one company send?

I opted out of everything, now kindly f©k off.

Re:Then Who?

[wmbetts]

Namecheap is accredited and not an Enom reseller.

Re:Then Who?

[Anonymous Coward]

Seeing that official Hostgator blog has a post entitled "SOPA must Die" and is offering discounts for those who enter the coupon code NOSOPA, I would say that thery probably don't support it.

Re:Then Who?

[muridae]

I use nearlyfreespeech. They source domain name purchases through someone else, I forgot the company name already but it's not a GD reseller afaik. Hosting price is really cheap if your site is static or rarely used, since you pay as you go. I run a blog for about $30 a year, but the traffic is pretty light.

Re:Then Who?

[jon3k]

though for all I know they support SOPA too.

They do not support SOPA.

Re:Then Who?

[Osgeld]

I have buddies on hostgator, they love it and the service seems stable

Re:Then Who?

[SuperCharlie]

I actually have a reseller account at hostgator and looked into their domain registry services a while back.. I just revisited them and this is their page.. http://www.hostgator.com/domains/

Which redirects to this.. https://www.registryrocket.com/default.asp?ec=5103184A-8C21-4EFA-ACA0-0

Which is not very confidence inspiring..

Their webhosting is pretty good to great.. this.. I wouldnt drag up my gang of domains to..

Re:Then Who?

[SuperCharlie]

From a first-look impression.. this looks promising...

Re:Then Who?

[wmbetts]

I'm very happy with them. So happy I have several thousand dollars worth of domains for various clients there. I use to recommend godaddy to all my clients, but their past practices made it so I could no longer recommend them. I have clients with domains at other registrars(including godaddy :( sometimes you have to do what a client wants regardless of how you feel), but namecheap is by far my favorite.

Something I like about namecheap is their API. It's simple, to the point, and full featured. If you have a need for API access you can't go wrong with namecheap.

Re:Then Who?

[SuperCharlie]

Whats your experience with the timeframe between DNS updates in namecheap control panel and when it hits the web? I know the whole it depends on ISP's, local DNS settings yada yada thing.. my experience with godaddy is changes come through within 20 minutes almost all of the time.. round about.. is it comparable? I always tell the client up to 72 hours.. but it seems godaddy is mainlined to the root for how quick the changes come up.

Re:Then Who?

[illumnatLA]

I've been super-happy with Dreamhost. They are are pretty inexpensive and have great, fast, US based tech support. I'm using them for both domain name and hosting.

Re:Then Who?

[ThorntonAZ]

name.com is not a reseller they are an ICANN accredited registrar

Re:Then Who?

[nzhavok]

I transferred some domains from godaddy to namecheap and recieved the following in the domain transfer request email:

eNom, Inc. has received a request from... on 23 Dec 2011 to become the new registrar of record.

Also I was asked by namecheap to ensure godaddy changed the IPS tag to enom on my .co.uk domains, so it seems to me that they still rely on enom in some way.

Bwahahahahaha

[Anonymous Coward]

Nice job.....

A successful boycott

[J'raxis]

Serves them right.

On the one hand, this is a great example of a successful boycott: GoDaddy committed an egregious action which generated so many complaints, threats of monetary loss, and now 21,000 examples of actual loss, that GoDaddy did a complete about-face and dropped support of SOPA.

On the other hand, this company has committed so many egregious and unethical actions over their lifetime (anyone else remember NoDaddy.com?) that I would rather see them lose so much business that they go out of business. If I hadn't already moved my domains off of them after one of their earlier outrages, I'd still move them off now, even though they turned around on SOPA. Let their flaming wreckage be an example to other domain registrars.

Re:A successful boycott

[luther349]

yep i have been sending emails of shows that use them as sponsors and asking them to drop them as well. and if i see a go-daddy ad on them next week well i drop my subscription and donations.

Re:A successful boycott

[Anonymous Coward]

They haven't turned around. They are just pretending to be neutral. I'm still in the process of transferring my domains away. There is no way I'll ever trust them. It's not enough to just say you don't support SOPA, you have to make amend, position yourself against, and actively spend money against it.

Re:A successful boycott

[Anonymous Coward]

Umm.. If you believe they actually changed their stance on SOPA, I have this very nice bridge in NY that I'll let you have for a hundred bucks.... Read their BS
blog entry.. They just got scared and are pretending to have a change of heart.... GoF$$kYourselfDaddy.....

Re:A successful boycott

[J'raxis]

Good point.

Their press release was also pretty slimily worded. They basically said they support everything SOPA stands for (not in those words, but in effect), but they don't actually support the literal, exact bill in its current form.

Re:A successful boycott

[Rakishi]

but they don't actually support the literal, exact bill in its current form.

Of course not, it doesn't give them enough benefit yet compared to competitors. Guess some politicians got some nice Christmas gifts this year to remedy that little problem.

Wasn't this obvious?

[Haedrian]

Your customer base are people who own and maintain a website - not the general idiotic public.

And you're pretty much supporting something which goes against what they believe in.

What did they expect would happen?

Re:Wasn't this obvious?

[gl4ss]

free money, exemption and adviews!

Google uses Godaddy as a registrar partner

[symbolset]

Announced in 2010 Found on Reddit.

It's probably time to remind Google what "Don't be evil" is. Breaking the Internet is definitely a no-no.

I wonder how many other companies need to be reminded of this. Anybody got a list?

Re:Google uses Godaddy as a registrar partner

[M. Baranczak]

Google is pretty open-minded about that "evil" thing. But more importantly, they have a strong financial interest in not breaking the internet.

Re:Google uses Godaddy as a registrar partner

[Anonymous Coward]

Funny, that doesn't seem to be what the whois record on google.com seems to suggest.

Re:Google uses Godaddy as a registrar partner

[LS]

Speaking of which, why am I even still on this site. You can find everything on reddit as well, which now has a much more active community than slashdot. The founders of Slashdot have bailed, and Slashdot is dying.

http://www.reddit.com/r/slashdot
http://www.reddit.com/r/technology
http://www.reddit.com/r/science
http://www.reddit.com/r/gaming
http://www.reddit.com/r/geek
http://www.reddit.com/r/linux
http://www.reddit.com/r/hardware
http://www.reddit.com/r/android
http://www.reddit.com/r/apple
http://www.reddit.com/r/google

etc

Just goes to show..

[fred911]

It's really hard to unstep on your dick.

Where is the hate for Apple?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why must GoDaddy be the punching bag for SOPA?

Re:Where is the hate for Apple?

[luther349]

because they said they supported it mostly it was just faceless media puppets supporting it with there bribe money as usual. so they where the first chance to vote with are wallets we got. there also has been other protest like sites shutting down etc.

25,000 is laughably low

[Twinbee]

This news has been over Reddit and apparently has been discredited. 25,000 is apparently very low in this industry, and is therefore a joke. The real number is much higher. For the latest info, follow this story and listen to samzdaman who seems to know his stuff: http://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/nq17m/godaddy_has_actually_lost_one_million_1000000/ To quote him:

GoDaddy accounts for 30% of all domain registrations, and there are, on average, 27K .com domains registered PER DAY.

Re:25,000 is laughably low

[Sami Lehtinen]

Well, each domain is one less to go. I did my part, have you done yours?

Re:25,000 is laughably low

[Twinbee]

I wasn't with them to begin with.

The only thing surprising here...

[Anonymous Coward]

Is that anyone notices and cared. Self serving backstabbing rights tromping is the order of the day. Just because every once in a great while they actually get caught with their pants down and suffer a little minor discomfort for a short time something is supposed to change? I wish my pessimism was as weak as yours.

Looks like Godaddy is gaming the numbers

[Anonymous Coward]

1) If you take a look at godaddy New domains, they are mostly spam, malware or ad pages, and most are registered by one or a small number of people in China.
2) Transfers into godaddy are mostly bulk transfers from Chinese registrars.
3) Transfers out are also mostly spam/malware/ad pages, and are going to Chinese registrars.

The chinese connection is not a coincidence. I will bet money that those Chiese registrars are either controlled by Godaddy or have a sweetheart deal with them to either game ICAAN or the numbers.

Either way those numbers are misleading at domaincontrol and cannot be trusted.

21,000 out of 45 million?

[ZZ-Type]

So they lost 21,000 domains in a day? According to WikiPedia, they had 45 MILLION domains registered through them in 2010! Bet they didn't even notice. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Go_Daddy

Re:21,000 out of 45 million?

[rsilvergun]

You're right it's a small number (about 1/20th of a percent); that's small enough to chalk up to regular attrition. I think the point is it happened in one day. The stat we'd want to see is average transfers in a day. That's how you'd know if this was BAU or something to watch. The article does suggest this looks like an accelerating trend though.

Re:21,000 out of 45 million?

[ZZ-Type]

Just using oversimplified math, I divided 45,000,000 by 365 (days) and got 123,287 per day. I know that's not "real," but helps to give some perspective.

derp derp

[Anonymous Coward]

You didn't capitalize lol. Where is the accent mark in "touche"?

You suck at being a grammarnazi.

Re:derp derp

[Anonymous Coward]

Sentences like this spellingnazis write. Gramernazis write them like this sentence.

Re:Compared to whom?

[foniksonik]

1&1 is fine with me. I've still got a free DEV package with unlimited domains (register for $6) and 300 MB of space. More than enough to host prototypes. Comes with sudo access so again works.

I'll change, but not now

[frps25]

I'm certainly changing from GoDaddy, but not right now, yes, I'm pissed off but also I don't wanna loose money, anyway I have already paid them for a year on several domains, Why not wait a little while?

Re:I'll change, but not now

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm certainly changing from GoDaddy, but not right now, yes, I'm pissed off but also I don't wanna loose money, anyway I have already paid them for a year on several domains, Why not wait a little while?

transferring domains to another providers also brings any time u have paid for already.

Re:I'll change, but not now

[statsone]

I am in the same position. I will transfer registration as it come due for payment. It doesn't make sense for cash flow to transfer them all at the same time. I am looking for a new registrar now. Hosting will follow shortly. This will take a while.

Exactly where

[zoomshorts]

in Nigeria , are you?

Good Alternatives to GoDaddy?

[rwwyatt]

What are the good alternatives to GoDaddy?

register.com ? I have about 20 domains I need to transfer

Re:Good Alternatives to GoDaddy?

[Yosho]

For what it's worth, I've been using DirectNIC for years and have never had a problem with them. They are also not on the list of SOPA supporters.

Re:Good Alternatives to GoDaddy?

[imkey]

namecheap, clean no bs interface

Re:Good Alternatives to GoDaddy?

[Anonymous Coward]

namecheap.com gandi.net 1and1.com

Re:Good Alternatives to GoDaddy?

[cpghost]

I've had no problems with dotster for ages (some 20+ domains with them). And they seem to oppose SOPA, so I'm considering moving my remaining domains from GoDaddy to Dotster as well.

Re:Good Alternatives to GoDaddy?

[theskipper]

Just wanted to chime in and say avoid Register.com because of the ongoing renewal costs (and Network Solutions of course). As others have replied, there's absolutely nothing wrong with the low-margin registrars like Namecheap. There's Moniker and Fabulous too.

So be sure to check renewal pricing on their published price list on the site. Quite a few offer sweetheart transfer deals then revert to $30-$40 annual renewals (Register.com, Netsol, others). There's absolutey nothing that $30-$40 buys you...except financing their marketing budget to suck in more people paying $30-$40 a year.

Best of luck.

Re:Their "remedy" is to support it from the shadow

[Anonymous Coward]

This. The easiest ways is usually through a fellow employee owning a child company who is then given the money from parent company to support whatever nasty stuff the parent company doesn't want the world at large to see.

Not impossible to trace, but for most people they fail to connect the dots, or care enough. ("oh it's just some saddo employee who supports it", or something)

Most corrupt companies do it to some extent.
In particul, those damned "lawyer groups", sometimes with 5 different groups all owned by the same twat who tries to use scare tactics and numbers to get people to pay up, even though most of the times these groups operate outside of legal terms, such as when a debt has went unpaid for X years. They aren't entirely to blame though, the companies selling said debts are just as bad for breaking the law through deceptive practices with respect to selling, quite literally, out-of-date debt.
The worst parts is when you get a company trying to make off with a quick one AND one of these lawyer groups.

I had to deal with this a while back, even though I had proof of no payment ever passing my letter box, or any such payment on their own systems since they had it listed on their website. (then my account "suddenly became unavailable"...)
Not once had I ever missed a payment with that service. Then this new company come in and start pulling all sorts of dodgy crap out of their behind.
I say deal, more like telling them to get their money back because no such payment existed, or I wasn't the person they were looking for. So far, no new notices. If they do, straight to mediation and someones going to have their ass handed to them, and I know it ain't going to be me. If it needs to go any further, then that will be dealt with.
If only more people knew their rights when it comes to corrupt companies like that. So many people pay up out of fear alone. Especially when it comes to cases like "copyright infringement" and shotgun tactics used by those corrupt groups. (worse, embarrassment tactics by sending letters to next door and family! How horrible, that sort of stuff should be highly illegal, especially if it is finance related!)
Sorry for that slight tangent there.

What are you afraid of?

[cheekyjohnson]

Only pirates oppose SOPA. They know it'll completely stop them from downloading copyrighted material (magically)! Anyone who says that it will be abused is just a conspiracy theorist.

Re:What are you afraid of?

[gzipped_tar]

Some mod's sarcasm filter need fixing.

Re:Compared to whom?

[datavirtue]

Give HostGator a try. Excellent service although they do charge more to register domains. I had to switch from APLUS.NET (A Deluxe Company!! YAY!) after ten years due to horrendous, defunct, abysmal service from hell. I think APLUS.NET fired anyone who knew anything about networking and hosting accounts.

So if they lost over 20,000...

[thaddeusthudpucker]

... How many are left? You cant crumple them unless it is over 85% of their customer base I'd say.

Re:Compared to whom?

[PT_1]

Seconded. I haven't used Hostgator to register any domains, but do use their shared hosting and VPS, and have found them to be excellent.

How Appropriate...

[LVSlushdat]

Couldn't have happened to a more appropriate company.... Serves them right for being such a douche company...

Re:Compared to whom?

[ironjaw33]

Give HostGator a try. Excellent service although they do charge more to register domains. I had to switch from APLUS.NET (A Deluxe Company!! YAY!) after ten years due to horrendous, defunct, abysmal service from hell. I think APLUS.NET fired anyone who knew anything about networking and hosting accounts.

I've also used HostGator for several years for both domains and hosting. My experience has been great with few problems.

To paraphrase Lady Bracknell (or was it Stalin?)

[Hognoxious]

To lose one may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose 21,000 looks like fucking retardedness.

Re:Their "remedy" is to support it from the shadow

[blahplusplus]

"I can only hope that when more and more special interests begin to require that their support of some law mustn't be made public, the politicians taking the money stop for a second and think about what the hell they're doing."

See here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GPQgjkTRRRI

Plugin to boycott GoDaddy's remaining customers?

[Kogun]

So where is the browser plugin to allow me to boycott the websites STILL using GoDaddy for their domain hosting?

Money buys power

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem is indeed the gov's power.

Progressive "pass a law, make the world a better place" + "rule by experts" + "money buys power" ==> ownership of the 99% by the 1%.

Do you notice that no Progressive ever uses a dynamic system argument? That meme has been squeezed out of the public's mental world because it, and many other such understandings, didn't fit with the Progressive's goals.

The dynamics of power and money were well known to the people who wrote the US Constitution. Consolidated power was one definition of tyranny. Progressives have consolidated power in nearly every country in the world.

That is how we got here.

Re:Compared to whom?

[Anonymous Coward]

I do NOT recommend 1&1. I used them a while back for registering a domain. They tried auto-renewing my domain name, but my debit card expiration date was updated. I was not aware of this due to them sending the email to an old address. So instead of just letting my domain expire, calling my phone, or sending me a bill in the mail, they sent a collection agency after me. I didn't even find out about this issue until I tried making a change to my account. This is NOT good PR. It was pretty much impossible for me respect 1&1 after an action like that.

I recommend NameCheap for registering domains now, as they let domains expire (with many warning emails) if you do not renew them.

GO [Off Line] Daddy

[Anonymous Coward]

Perhaps the Occupy movement could occupy GoDaddy's CEO's front lawn.

A gallon of kerocene can get the barbi going real quick.

Re:Compared to whom?

[Anonymous Coward]

HostGator is atrocious hosting. Host here if your website is not important to you in the slightest.

Re:Compared to whom?

[Pento]

1&1 is a terrible host - I write a moderately popular WordPress plugin, and the only host-specific bug reports I get are for 1&1 - even shitty GoDaddy hosting is better.

How big is the dent?

[mapkinase]

How many domains they have and how popular are the domains that were being pulled off?

Gone

[EmperorOfCanada]

I am so gone as soon as I can find an organization I can trust but first why I am going:
SOPA holy crap! Godaddy should be blasting with all guns on this one. I would suspect that 99% of their customers would be fully against SOPA if they knew what it was about. At this point I wouldn't really believe any Godaddy anti SOPA talk. I get this feeling that if some organization didn't like my use of the word "the" that Godaddy would shut me down and hand them my domains in a second.
Godaddy girls... have zero interest from a technical point of view.
Upsell, upsell, upsell STOP IT!
That case where the guy lost his domain out of the blue and Godaddy didn't do squat about it. They probably thought $9 per year who cares. But that scared the crap out of me.

When am I going? I am not going to rush this. I won't be part of the 20,000 per day this week but within a month I will be moved. I am only around 10 domains with influence over another 20; but off I go. Of greater loss to Godaddy will be my recommending against them. There are probably around 200 domains held their directly because of me.

Where am I going? Looking for:
Good prices. Anything much over $10 a year is gouging.
Basic multidomain hosting with near unlimited subdomains and bandwidth that need not worry me(2000GB)
No upselling!
Clean interface. I have been using Godaddy for around 10 years and their interface still confuses the crap out of me.
Fast. If your site isn't fast then what chance does mine have?
Fast DNS. Some DNS types are faster than others. The lookup time for my sites with Godaddy is fairly slow.
A site with a reputation of protecting their customers against the lunatics now running the US.
This last one seems to push me out of the US but for some reason the Europeans seem to think that it is 1993 when it comes to pricing.
Some history. Nothing with less than 5 years of profitable operations. It would be a disaster if the registrar went under and got trapped in a vortex of stupid.

For years people have been crapping on Godaddy for various good reasons but my billing has been reliable, the hosting quite reliable, costs have been low, basically it just worked. Annoying but functional. But with SOPA support and screwing that guy out of his domain means that Godaddy is presenting a clear and present danger to my business. Loss of any functionality would be ruinous. Hiring lawyers to deal with domain shenanigans would be doubly ruinous. But while other registrars are probably thinking "Yay the techies have seen the light" the US regisrars should be thinking, wait a second we will be living in SOPA or son of SOPA's playground; how many customers will we loose just because we are in the US?

Re:Compared to whom?

[Anonymous Coward]

1&1 sucks. It's slow, the infrastructure is setup poorly. You are given one ssh user. Their support is not very good. Crappy DNS management.

Dec 29

[Anonymous Coward]

I thought we were supposed to move away from .govDaddy on Dec. 29?

Re:Compared to whom?

[illumnatLA]

1&1 is terrible. I had a site go down for about a week due to crap on their end. Initially, their tech support would say that there was nothing wrong. Then I would get 'bumped up' and the only response they would give me is "our technicians are aware of the situation and are working to resolve it." Can you give me an estimate on how soon it will be fixed? "I do not have that information." What is the problem? "I do not have that information, sir." That was all after about a 2 1/2 hour wait on hold.

I switched to Dreamhost after that and haven't had any problem since. Once when I did submit a trouble ticket, the tech responded to me BEFORE the automated responder saying "your trouble ticket has been received and someone will be with you shortly."

Plus... there's the added benefit that their US based tech support is an hour south of me in Orange County just in case if I ever did have any real problems, I could take a drive and do some, uh, encouraging. ;-)

Re:Compared to whom?

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree with you. I've been a long time in the business and 1and1 is regarded as being the worse both for web hosting and domain registration.
Obviously I had to try it for myself, how could it be that bad anyway, right? It has been the most painful experience I ever had dealing with a company. It ended in having me calling my credit card company and having to declare a fraud.
Then they threatened to sue me if I don't pay them the money they tried to steal from my credit card, etc.

Old News, try 37,000

[assertation]

Old news. This article states that Go Daddy has lost 37,000 domains in protest

http://venturebeat.com/2011/12/24/godaddy-domain-loss/

It looks like GoDaddy qualified with only a few days to spare to be on the list of "Corporate Miscalculations Of 2011" along with Netflix and Bank Of America.

Not the first time?

[assertation]

I seem to have a vague memory that this is not the first time GoDaddy did something that upset the general public into taking their business elsewhere.

Anyone remember what happened last time?

Good

[Racing_Turtles]

The CEO of GoDaddy proudly shot an elephant. He supports SOPA too? I hope they go out of business.

Publicly funded campaings.

[wfstanle]

"The whole thing is solved by a simple set of campaign finance rules. Publicly-funded campaigns. "

I fully agree with your solution but big money is fighting this. Arizona has a law that says that a politician can get his campaign publicly funded if he voluntary agrees to limits on his outside fund raising. It also stipulates that if his opponent spends a ton of money, his public funding will increase to match the spending by his opponent. Big money doesn't like this and are suing (maybe the case his over, I don't know) because they say the law dilutes their ability to influence elections. If anybody out there knows anything more about this, I would appreciate it.

So much for publicly financed campaigns if this tactic prevails. If it does, the only recourse is a constitutional amendment that says that

1. Corporations are not people,
2. publicly financed campaigns are OK.
3. Political contributions can not be anonymous.

Senator Bernie Sanders (Independent) has introduced into congress an amendment stating item 1. It is going to need a lot of public support because big money is fighting this as well. The proposed amendment really is just a start on fixing a broken system. Please contact your congress critters telling them to support this proposed amendment.

Or did Godaddy lose over 72000 domains?

[walterbyrd]

GoDaddy lost 72,354 domains this week. It's not enough.
http://www.techi.com/2011/12/godaddy-lost-72354-domains-this-week-its-not-enough/

BTW: I very seriously doubt that godaddy only lost 1000 domain. I find it unlikely that godaddy would change it's stance on SOPA over 1k domains.

Google "godaddy loses 72000 domains"

[walterbyrd]

Without quotes.

I think that the generally accepted number, is a little over 72,000.

Although, considering the millions of domains that godaddy is hosting, even72,000 is not that much.

Because it's much easier to boycott Godaddy

[walterbyrd]

Boycotting godaddy will cost you nothing, it might even save you money.

And, for the most part, it's no more difficult to host with namecheap, or whatever.

Whereas, moving from your chosen OS platform can be a lot trouble, and expense.

Google "godaddy loses 72000 domains"

[walterbyrd]

without quotes.

Although 72k is not that high either.

Then again, it takes a while to transfer a domain. Who knows, maybe the number was significant.

Also of interest...

[idbeholda]

http://news.cnet.com/8301-31921_3-57348511-281/godaddy-accused-of-interfering-with-anti-sopa-exodus/?tag=mncol;mlt_related

what options

[Anonymous Coward]

Since Go Daddy is holding one of my domains hostage, what options do we have to rebuild the Internet? After all, it is we that have the talent to do such things. It is we, that have the abilities to create our own technology. Why do we yield to over-the-hill baboons, and others that are not capable of creating technology to dictate how we use ours?

It seems cynical to some degree, but is a valid question. It isn't just them, but all of the large corps at this point. Those that seem to think they are too big to fail, and yet completely don't understand their customers, and force us all to conform to whatever technology they suddenly decide is profitable enough to make.
 
So I ask all of those on this planet that have some capability to create their own technology, what options do we have?

Re:what options

[speculatrix]

perhaps what we need is a peer-to-peer form of DNS, using something like the way bitcoin works to allow distribution of root nameservers, with reputation scoring for central services. people can vote up popular domains, and bad domains (scammers, phishers and spammers) voted down.

What about The Linux Action Show?

[Anonymous Coward]

They advertise and offer deals for Godaddy... I would like to hear their opinion on the situation. Might have to call them freedom hating bastards for just advertising for them?

You're suggesting taking away power to regulate.

[Burz]

We already know how that turns out: Hoarded funds in the hands of a few, breadlines and starvation for many.

The problem with regulation and subsidy is that it obfuscates the costs of delivery

No. We just tried the Chicago School, trickle-down way and it didn't work. Its a return to Gilded Age economics which is empire driven, highly exploitative and leads to profound market crash when the wealthy overreact to conditions they're poorly equipped to understand. Its a path to a tiny and ignored middle class. Unregulated markets gloss over all hard data (like the effects of externalizing costs to the underclass, the biosphere, etc.) that aren't measured with currency, obfuscating existential crises and opportunities.

The only way forward is to foster a business and political culture with a sense of fairness and which answers the question of which classes benefit/lose whenever there is an opportunity to regulate/subsidize/deregulate. With our mass media dominated by a handful of multinational for-profit conglomerates, we are getting ever-increasing amounts of distraction and avoidance of these questions and so little opportunity to (constructively) get on the same page at the same time on most issues.

selective DNS blackouts and paying extra @godaddy

[speculatrix]

Godaddy used to be my first port of call as a DNS provider. I didn't like their email service much, preferring to use Google*. However, not so long ago Godaddy decided that they needed their customers to pay more, so would deliberately allow their basic service to degrade and thus "encourage" customers to pay for premium service:
http://rscott.org/dns/GoDaddy_Selective_DNS_Blackouts.htm

* unfortunately, google's free hosted service only allows 10 users now before you have to pay, they used to allow 25. I understand that Google want to commercialize their services, but it is disappointing.

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[Anonymous Coward]

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