Slashdot Mirror
Rackspace: SOPA "Is a Deeply Flawed Piece of Legislation"
hypnosec writes "Cloud-based hosting service provider Rackspace has joined the ever expanding list of companies that are opposed to the U.S. Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA). In a blog post, Rackspace CEO Lanham Napier said that the controversial bill, which will get its final vote before the House Judiciary Committee, will do more harm than good, punishing innocent users in the process. 'The SOPA bill, as it stands, is a deeply flawed piece of legislation. It is bad for anyone who uses the Internet, including Rackspace, the more than 160,000 business customers that we serve, and the tens of millions of retail customers that they serve. It is bad for job creation and innovation,' Napier wrote."
No shit?
APK quotes people (including myself) without context and should not be trusted. Just thought you should know.
Most all laws over the last few decades have been deeply flawed in some way. That's what you get when you elect idiots.
The most hilariously annoying part of this bill is that there's not a single sane citizen of this country who, when properly educated on the bill's impact, would vote for such a thing....yet the lunatics running this country will probably pass it right on through since they're in the chokehold of the industries and power mongers which DO want it.
If it's possible to lose any more faith in the people at the top, I certainly will if this is passed. I'll also cast opposing votes against any representatives who vote for it, regardless of party affiliation.
Obama and most of the Democratic Party are owned by the big Hollywood studios. The Republican Party is owned by big business in general. The only reason this hasn't passed already (without even a public debate) is that Google and a handful of other big players are fighting it. But even Google is a relatively small fish in this money game.
As for those of us without deep pockets--well save yourself that stamp on a letter to your Congressman.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
“The dynamic is clear. Once SOPA — and its Senate counterpart, Protecting IP Act, or PIPA — became high-profile among the Internet community, the lazy endorsements from companies and various hangers-on became toxic. And now, those supporters are scrambling, hollowing out the actual support for the bill. Suddenly, a bill with ‘widespread’ corporate support doesn’t have much support at all,” Dayden said.
sysadmins and parents of newborns get the same amount of sleep.
Serious question for consideration:
What would happen if the "big players", such as Level 3, Verizon, Google and the like came out and said, "If you pass this legislation, we are turning off all of our equipment. We will back up our servers, send our customers their data, rip out the equipment, sell it for scrap, leave the wires hanging, sell our buildings and retire to the Caribbean. If you pass this, we won't be able to do our jobs, so we will simply quit and leave you with nothing to legislate. Good luck suing us, because you'll be back to typewriters, pens and wired telephones."
Totally NOT going to happen, but as an exercise in thought, would it be possible?
Could a company as big and powerful as Google hold the world hostage with nothing more than a power switch?
[End Of Line]
I think it's just free publicity, like just look, they got on /.
GoDaddy apparently had a material benefit in SOPA. It doesn't matter whether or not Rackspace is shitty, this cuts into their bottom line. Anyways, I'm glad they've publicly come out against it. We need all the help we can get in making sure that SOPA doesn't pass, and even if this is nothing more than lipservice PR, it's lipservice PR that makes SOPA appear less supported.
This is my signature. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
How about what Google is doing, paying lobbying groups and using lots of their resources to actively campaign against SOPA?
I remember back in 2004 when Rackspace turned over entire hard drives to the FBI that contained data for Indymedia websites as part of a terrorism investigation. The FBI only wanted copies of logs, but Rackspace I suppose wanted to go the extra mile.
http://jebba.blagblagblag.org/?p=175
Lets face it. The problem is money in politics. When the RIAA and MPAA come knocking with oodles of cash to help get congress critters elected how can they refuse? The only way to solve this problem and much of the problem with Washington is to thoughtfully and radically remove money from politics. Until that is done the politicians will just keep on promising the people and delivering to the corporations with the fattest wallet.
Actually, if you're on Google Plus, you'll have seen that the CEO of RackSpace have been fighting SOPA for quite some time now.
Rackspace is a large constituent of Lamar Smith's District 21 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Texas.21st.Congressional.District.gif) as they are headquartered in San Antonio, Texas. Having this large of an employer in his own district against the legislation should be a big wake-up call to Rep. Smith.
I don't know. We said the same thing about the AT&T buyout of T-Mobile. We all knew it was bad for competition. We all knew AT&T was lying to the government about it. And even when the truth leaked out, AT&T and various government people continued to push for it. It looked really bad. But there was LOTS of talk. It became very high profile. The added light and notice the issue got eventually killed the deal.
People need to continue shouting from the rooftops about SOPA.
One thing I have yet to see talked about is how laws like DMCA and the proposed SOPA continue to increasingly put police and government powers in the hands of non-government people... people who aren't otherwise accountable for their actions. It's a huge violation of government trust.
Thats what happens when you wait to protect the very thing you live on - the internet. Those parties perpetrating sopa has been trying to pass some shit like this since early 2004. What have you done ? nothing. just kept on with your business.
If you had had started lobbying as the datacenter/hosting industry back then, none of these would have happened. But this industry is not the only one to blame. There are search industries, device manufacturers, google, microsoft. Granted, some of the latter did some stuff about acta. But totally insufficient. Instead, everyone sat in their pretty and secure silicon valley bubbles, and behaved as if internet was untouchable. At least it seemed totally stupid to break it, and to the detriment of everyone. But hey ! here is something to break it totally for the benefit of a VERY small minority - so much that a few hands could count the number of those who will primarily benefit in the ultimate end.
Now, what are you going to do ?
Read radical news here
DNSSEC is unpopular with governments because it breaks censorship.
I know this is going to get voted down by offended Americans, but...
After 9/11, the US government began dismantling support for Constitutional rights in favour of anti-terrorist security theatre. They invested billions in surveillance, security, police, staff, and computer systems. Yet despite that huge investment, they couldn't stop the domestic terrorism of the fellow in Texas who recently took out a half dozen people.
They claim to have stopped a few terrorists over the years, but when they've presented the "evidence" against those who were planning attacks, it turned out that the attackers were using ineffective techniques that were unlikely to kill anyone (e.g. The underwear bomber.)
Now they've stepped it up and officially denied the Constitutional rights of anyone the government deems a "terrorist", without having the nasty hassle of proving it to a judge and/or jury. They can just "hold" someone for years without charges or court cases while they "investigate".
SOPA is just the next step of that change in American policy. Instead of championing the legal system, they want to be the arbitrary judge and jury over the world.
Sorry, but the American government does not deserve that level of trust from the world when they can't even follow their own rules for governing a country.
And don't get me started about the persecution of medical cannabis users south of the border and the denial by the US government that cannabis has any medical use.
And yet some people can't understand why so many in the world hate the US and what it's done to their nations in the defense of "freedom" and "democracy." You can't go around invading people, ignoring their laws, ignoring your own laws, and expect to receive any measure of respect on the international stage.
But I bet not ONE of the Congressmen who support SOPA have ever even thought about how this bad legislation is going to be received by the rest of the world.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
Speaking as someone who works at RS, you have no idea what you're talking about.
We employees have been running calling campaigns and such for months against SOPA, and there has been extensive discussion internally all the way up and down the org chart regarding what a terrible price this will exact on the Internet. I'm surprised it took Lanham this long to go public with what has been a long running sentiment here, expressed directly to our senators and representatives, rather than in press releases.
Amusingly that very reluctance to make grandiose announcements has lead you to accuse Lanham of the same, but if you knew anything about him (look up some YouTube videos or something) you'll see he's one of the most earnest, no-BS people you'll ever meet. He's been campaigning against SOPA on a personal level for months.
Mod parent -1 Horribly NaÃve for thinking that's all the Powers That Be will do once SOPA passes.
Eat the rich.
If companies want free publicity by being sensible and opposing draconian and disastrous laws, I'm all for it. Sounds like a good use of the /. front page to me.