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?

[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?

[Skidborg]

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

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?

[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?

[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?

[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?

[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?

[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?

[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?

[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?

[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?

[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?

[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?

[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?

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.

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.

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.

[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]

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.

[foobsr]

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

For a starter, any type of accountability would do.

CC.

Re:Democracy.

[M. Baranczak]

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

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.

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?

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.

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!

[kyrio]

You can transfer it into my account for free.

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!

[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!

[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!

[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!

[SomePgmr]

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

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: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:Spellchecking

[Anonymous Coward]

What does "suprisingly" mean?

GoDaddy...

[forkfail]

... is now GoFsckYourselfDaddy

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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?