Imgur.com: Why We Dumped GoDaddy

Yea, well... by Black+Parrot · 2011-12-28 22:11 · Score: 5, Funny

GoDaddy.com originally supported the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) but quickly recanted its position when the call of a boycott circulated.

Nothing like money-at-stake to reveal whether someone has a spine.

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Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade

Re:Yea, well... by Arancaytar · 2011-12-28 22:18 · Score: 5, Insightful

Better spinelessly stop supporting evil than courageously continuing to support it, though. Boycott worked exactly as intended, that's great news.
Re:Yea, well... by Spad · 2011-12-28 23:21 · Score: 4, Insightful

This is the problem with assigning anthropomorphic characteristics to companies; in the context of people, I would rather that someone have the strength of conviction to make and stick with the choice that they believe is right, rather than flip back and forth to fit the prevailing opinion (subject to the original decision having been made with all the facts).
With companies though, it's really not possible for them to ignore things like this because of the likely impact on their business, so while GoDaddy are just shamelessly pretending to drop support for SOPA to vainly try and appease The Internet, they don't really have a choice. Of course, they could have made the right choice in the first place, but they're dicks, so that wasn't going to happen.
Either way, their initial support for SOPA and helping to write it to get themselves immunity from its provisions mean that regardless of their recent actions, there's no way I'd ever give them my business now.
Re:Yea, well... by rtfa-troll · 2011-12-28 23:22 · Score: 5, Insightful

Boycott worked exactly as intended....
It's astounding how long a meme can keep going. Go Daddy has not changed it's view; it has not changed it's actions; it has just removed a couple of press releases about those actions and started to support SOPA behind the scenes. If Go Daddy had changed their viewpoint, and actually was opposed to SOPA now, then we should stop the boycott and concentrate on others who are worse. However, this is not a decision we need to make. Even as I post today Go Daddy's "general counsel and corporate secretary" has a blog posting up which clearly states her opinion in support of SOPA and is undersigned in her official role.
If Christine is acting against company policy then Go Daddy needs to be disciplining her now. Lets be clear; not because of what she believes, but because she has a representative role for the company, is directly opposing and contradicting company policy and is doing so using the name of Go Daddy to get publicity for that role. Also because she was involved in drafting SOPA and should take responsibility for the mess that it is which is a clear and visible failure to work in Go Daddy's customers interests.
If Go Daddy is still employing her without disciplinary action, and that blog posting is still up then Go Daddy is effectively supporting SOPA and should continue to be boycotted.

--
=~ s,(.*),<sarcasm>$1</sarcasm>,g if any_point_you_wish();
Re:Yea, well... by Decameron81 · 2011-12-29 00:31 · Score: 5, Insightful

...I would rather that someone have the strength of conviction to make and stick with the choice that they believe is right, rather than flip back and forth to fit the prevailing opinion...
In this particular case, I do agree that GoDaddy has no merit in their change of mind - because they are acting consistently bad with their customers, and don't really seem to have changed their mind at all.

But it seems to me as if in our society we preferred that people stick to their decisions, rather than change their mind if there's overwhelming evidence that they've been wrong. Does it make sense?

Recognizing mistakes and dealing properly with them is IMHO a very rare and positive trait, which should always be encouraged. Think of how much better things would be if this was more widely encouraged.

--
diegoT
Re:Yea, well... by Anonymous Coward · 2011-12-29 00:43 · Score: 1, Informative

Even as I post today Go Daddy's "general counsel and corporate secretary" has a blog posting up which clearly states her opinion in support of SOPA and is undersigned in her official role.
With obligatory:

And, I spend a great deal of my working (and non-working) hours each day working to keep the Internet a better and safer place, especially for children.
Re:Yea, well... by RStonR · 2011-12-29 00:45 · Score: 1, Insightful

SOPA is just the latest "Change" that we got from Obama.
Doesn't anybody find it strange that There are no protests against Obama's wars?
Must not criticize this Nobel Peace Price winner, it would make quite a lot of people feel very stupid when they first treat him as the next messiah ("Jesus was also a community organizer", remember?) and then critizise him.
Re:Yea, well... by jellomizer · 2011-12-29 01:31 · Score: 3, Insightful

People make mistakes (a company is a collection of people). For some odd reason our culture has become one that wants blood for every mistake. We hear about a security breach or data loss at Google or Amazon and we go "Well someone is going to get fired!" Why should someone get fired for making a mistake that anyone might have done. Was the person who pushed the button the did the work take all the blame, or should the whole organization be at blame because it was too easy to do that with a push of a button. I remembered early in my career I was cleaning out some temp files that emacs makes "ends with ~", I had a bunch of them so i did an rm -f * ~ vs an rm -f *~ So I ended up clearing out my project then continued onto my home directory. I felt bad I lost all my work, I didn't get fired my Boss asked about backup, I only had some a week ago. so had to work harder to get caught up, and in a few days I was back. But now I became very careful when using the rm -f command. People make mistakes and learn from them. If we need to punish people extra for mistakes people will not learn from them they will just be hostile to the organization that makes it easy to make mistakes and then severely punished for doing such.

GoDaddy wants a reputation as a reputable DNS register. They probably supported SOPA so their name will not be targets as a friend to people/organization who perform software piracy. Then people started protesting it and pointing out how the rules are too strict and can hurt the good guy, so they changed their position.

Software Piracy is a bad thing. If you believe that software should be free then go out and support GNU and other Free software projects. But pirating closed software and state you are morally right to do so, would also mean the people could violate the GPL and other Open Source Licenses using the same moral standards. However we are having a hard time coming up with a legal/technical solution to the problem with software Piracy that doesn't dramatically hurt the honest customers as well.

So if they Didn't Approve SOPA they could have been seen as a harbor for software pirates (That gives them a bad name, and making new customers worry about choosing them).
If they Approved SOPA they would would be branded to be against the small internet company who wants to make the next new thing (Pissing off their key customers)
If they took no position then they would be considered apathetic to the goings on in the internet world. (That would mean that if a regulation passed they may not be in compliance and thus go out of business, so customers will avoid them)
Or they swap position depending what they feel is public opinion (Then you get what happens now)

--
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Re:Yea, well... by smpoole7 · 2011-12-29 01:53 · Score: 2

Right. I'm no fan of GoDaddy, and I think SOPA is one of the worst pieces of legislation to come along in a while. But here's the problem: if someone is doing "wrong," and then changes their mind -- even if that change of mind is obviously grudging and insincere -- how are we supposed to respond?
As an analogy, a million years ago when I working in customer service (consumer electronics), my manager told me something I've never forgotten. The customer who calls to complain, and who says, "I've always used you in the past, but I'm disappointed and I hope you'll make this right," got whatever we could give them. We bent over backwards to make them happy, up to and including giving them a replacement for their original purchase.
BUT ... the customer who calls, threatening, and who says, "I'll never buy your junk again and if you don't refund my money I'll write [insert name of authority or media outlet] and [insert random legal threat], you bunch of [insert random profanity] .. .. " we would do precisely what we had to, and no more.
(Yes, we considered the fact that the poor customer was upset, and that maybe we could "win them back," but once it became obvious that the customer couldn't be satisfied no matter what we did, we stopped trying, too.)
Like I said, I'm not a fan of GoDaddy. Not at all. But continuing to punish them after they've backed off of an unpopular decision may not be the best course of action.
Just my opinion, and you know what those are worth. (Precisely what you pay for them.) :)

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Cogito, igitur comedam pizza.
Re:Yea, well... by Snaller · 2011-12-29 02:02 · Score: 1

Few people believe that "Go Daddy" does anything but support this, regardless of what they say - forever after - because they are run by Old Industry - who hasn't thought clearly for decades - and who never thinks about whats best for the planet, only what they think its good for their wallet.

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If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
Re:Yea, well... by Anonymous Coward · 2011-12-29 02:09 · Score: 3, Informative

When the court seized domains last year, it was Go Daddy that became the new registrar and hosted the "This domain has been seized..." page for ICE. They are opportunists who have been caught with their pants down on the wrong side of an issue whose importance to their client base they did not foresee.
But then, if they had any sense of ethics in the first place, they would have known what they were doing was wrong.
Re:Yea, well... by shentino · 2011-12-29 02:13 · Score: 5, Informative

They didn't change their position.
Re:Yea, well... by drinkypoo · 2011-12-29 02:15 · Score: 2

GoDaddy.com originally supported the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) but quickly recanted its position when the call of a boycott circulated.
Nothing like money-at-stake to reveal whether someone has a spine.
It has been revealed that GoDaddy has NOT withdrawn its official congressional support for SOPA.

--
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Re:Yea, well... by Jerinaw · 2011-12-29 02:17 · Score: 1

I still canceled my account. I don't like the way they do things anyway.
Re:Yea, well... by bzipitidoo · 2011-12-29 02:30 · Score: 2

Wow, what a hackneyed piece of garbage that blog post is. Just the first paragraph is loaded:

aimed at protecting the intellectual property of hard-working Americans, U.S. business and the American public from the harm that necessarily flows from the purchase of counterfeit products.
Crammed into this phrase, we have that vague and presumptuous term "intellectual property", the implication that it is in danger with those words "protecting" and "harm", and that it is something virtuous and precious and essential to our national character with such bits as "hard-working Americans" and "American public". And finally, because "intellectual property" isn't broad enough already, she mentions "counterfeit products". How can people twist their brains around this trash? Does she actually believe what she wrote?
Later, there's even a "think of the children" appeal! Yes, yes, Jerry Sandusky thought of the children too.

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Intellectual Property is a monopolistic, selfish, and defective concept. It is "tyranny over the mind of man"
Re:Yea, well... by jhigh · 2011-12-29 02:35 · Score: 1

This is the real point: if anyone actually believed that GoDaddy did a complete 180 over the course of about 24 hours, then all could be forgiven and forgotten. I don't know anyone that is buying that BS, though.

--
Social Engineering Expert: Because there is no patch for stupidity.
Re:Yea, well... by capedgirardeau · 2011-12-29 02:57 · Score: 2

I definitely understand what you are saying, however I have two points:
1. What seems like continued action against them is really just 1 action against them. This is just how long it takes and what it looks like. They are going to lose customers and have their reputation trashed over this bad decision, it just doesn't happen all in one day. The boycott and moving of domains is just one event, it just happens to take a few months for it to play out.
2. This sets a precedent and acts as an example to other companies. Making poor, anti consumer, anti freedom type decisions that don't take your customers into account hurts. A lot. And it will continue to hurt for as long as the people you dumped on can make it hurt. Other companies should pay heed to what this incident can teach them. They should seriously consider their customers points of view if they are thinking of taking big public stands on issues.
My domains are moving as soon as I figure out a good place to move them to, that is the only reason it hasn't happened yet.

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Wax on, wax off baby!
Re:Yea, well... by Esion+Modnar · 2011-12-29 02:59 · Score: 2

I think I know where GoDaddy would stand with regards to a hypothetical extraterrestrial invasion. They'd be first in line to make a deal for themselves, while selling out the rest of Humanity.

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They say the first thing to go is your penis. Well, it's either that or your brain. I forget which...
Re:Yea, well... by misexistentialist · 2011-12-29 03:09 · Score: 1

Software piracy? What are you on about? That is certainly not what is inspiring SOPA (though I wouldn't be surprised if Microsoft were involved). By supporting SOPA DoDaddy came out as a collaborationist in the destruction of the open internet. Some things you can't just take back.
Re:Yea, well... by hesaigo999ca · 2011-12-29 03:19 · Score: 1

>Why should someone get fired for making a mistake that anyone might have done.
You are right, we should never impeach anyone for doing something bad, let alone even criminal, and then playing dumb, like "oops, did i do that"
Accountability is what is missing the most in the higher ups management position, I would take all the big bank CEOs that got us in the economic mess we still live today, while they got big bonues, line them up, and shoot them all, then let's see any more big shot think he can walk away with a big payday after screwing
so many out of their retirement.
Accountability is what is missing in the small time employee, who jacks off all day, thinking it is not right that he makes so little, while the big boss makes all the cash, so he is not going to pay attention to how he packs the orders, and low and behold, at the end of the year, all those employee mistakes, cost the company 12 millions dollars, that is again a major piece of change that could put some companies into bankruptcy!
Accountability is the magic word, that if so many more people truly knew what it meant and actually lived by, would have a much better world to live in, especially you BP, with all your oil spills, and no shame in walking away from that clean up without a scratch.
Re:Yea, well... by Chewbacon · 2011-12-29 03:22 · Score: 1

I feel offended, and so should every other Godaddy customer, they didn't think we'd see through the bullshit recant. So they're history. Just transferred all the domains I own or manage. Godaddy really punched themselves in the dick on this one.

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Chewbacon
The Bible is like Wikipedia: written by a bunch of people and verifiable by questionable sources.
Re:Yea, well... by ArsonSmith · 2011-12-29 03:31 · Score: 1

It's like walking in on your best friend banging your wife, he looks up and says, "sorry, dude. I'm almost finished." then continues until done.

--
Paying taxes to buy civilization is like paying a hooker to buy love.
Re:Yea, well... by jellomizer · 2011-12-29 03:46 · Score: 2

Accountability. Is making sure the person who did push the button is actively involved to fix the problem. Accountability is also making sure the organization doesn't make the same mistake again.
When people are afraid to make mistakes they are also afraid to exceed.

Now if this employee has a history of making mistakes and being reckless then yes he should get canned. But for most people there are there to do a good job and if they mess up they are feeling really bad about it.

If you have 12 million dollars of activity tied to one person who can cause it to die with a few keystrokes, then the organization has a problem. If the problem is a situation where anyone could have made the mistake, then the accountability is on the organization because it is a matter of time before someone makes a mistake.

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If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Re:Yea, well... by jellomizer · 2011-12-29 03:49 · Score: 1

neither will rf command.

So you made a Typeo, So did I I meant rm -rf * ~ I have gotten in the habit of not doing the -r due to the same mistake.

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If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Re:Yea, well... by Alsee · 2011-12-29 04:02 · Score: 5, Informative

continuing to punish them after they've backed off of an unpopular decision
Did you even read their press release? They have not backed off on SOPA. The press release starts out stating that they consider the issue of the "utmost importance" and that they intend to continue "working to help" on the language of SOPA in some unspecified manner, and then astoundingly proceeds to declare "It's very important that all Internet stakeholders work together on [SOPA]". GoDaddy actually has the psychotic GALL to tell us how important it is that WE support this turd.
GoDaddy absolutely did not get the message here. The only message they got is that they are losing $$$.
GoDaddy has only temporarily withdrawn their public endorsement of the law. The press release states they feel SOPA is "worth the wait" and "Go Daddy will support it when and if the Internet community supports it". GoDaddy still fully desires and intends to support SOPA in the future. GoDaddy expects US to get a clue and reverse our position to support it as soon as possible.
They haven't changed their position in the slightest. All they have backed away from is the shitstorm over their pro-SOPA press release. They are merely trying to use the new press release as an umbrella to hide under while they continue "working to help" on SOPA.
-

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- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
Re:Yea, well... by frisket · 2011-12-29 04:05 · Score: 1

GoDaddy wants a reputation as a reputable DNS register.
So why do they have a joke name that makes them sound like a third-rate cut-price porn peddler?
Re:Yea, well... by Black+Parrot · 2011-12-29 04:31 · Score: 3, Funny

It's like walking in on your best friend banging your wife, he looks up and says, "sorry, dude. I'm almost finished." then continues until done.
In an old shaggy-dog joke, King Arthur goes on a long rant at the queen for her lack of fidelity, and then says:
"And as for you, Sir Lancelot, the least you could do is stop while I'm talking."

--
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Re:Yea, well... by Alsee · 2011-12-29 04:46 · Score: 3, Insightful

if someone is doing "wrong," and then changes their mind
GoDaddy didn't change their mind in the slightest.

if that change of mind is obviously [] insincere -- how are we supposed to respond?
The fact that they supported SOPA in the first place was bad, but forgivable.
Getting kicked in the nuts for it and still failing to Get A Clue, is even worse. It's generally rather unwise to forgive someone who is too stupid and stubborn to learn from their mistakes. But at least there would be some shred of respectability that they thought they were doing the right thing and being honest that they still think so.
However their obviously insincere response is unforgivable. They issued a threadbare and dishonest press release that they were withdrawing support in the hope that we would be gullible enough to be fooled by it while they continue "working to help" on SOPA. They feel SOPA is "worth the wait" and they intend "Go Daddy will support it" in the future.
Seriously, how do you respond when someone makes an insincere apology to pacify you, and they do it with the full intention to continue the behavior? Do you stand there saying "Thankyou for your apology, please continue kicking me in the nuts from behind my back."?
-

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- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
Re:Yea, well... by Alsee · 2011-12-29 04:53 · Score: 1

There seems to be a slight flaw in your analogy.
GoDaddy isn't making a deal with invaders who have landed here.
GoDaddy is trying to get invaders to land here.
-

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- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
Re:Yea, well... by OFnow · 2011-12-29 05:08 · Score: 1

While it's called Piracy by the RIAA and MPAA and the governments seemingly under their control, it is actually (depending on circumstances) actually copyright infringement. Or it is just fair use. Whatever. The real pirates near Somalia have nothing to do with copyright infringement.
Re:Yea, well... by TubeSteak · 2011-12-29 05:22 · Score: 2

, and then astoundingly proceeds to declare "It's very important that all Internet stakeholders work together on [SOPA]".

What a laugh.
Congress rarely invites consumer protection groups to the table when they're thinking of fucking the public with a law written by lobbyists.
And Congress never invites [strike]citizens[/strike] consumers (we're "internet stakeholders" too!) into the conversation.
The last straw is that when shitty laws like this one are proposed, they never die, even in the face of massive public backlash.
The law just goes into submarine mode and waits for another opportunity to pop up and be voted on.

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[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
Re:Yea, well... by gorzek · 2011-12-29 05:55 · Score: 1

Well, what kind of name is "Google" for a reputable company? Come on...

--
Check out my world simulator thingy.
Re:Yea, well... by Jawnn · 2011-12-29 06:03 · Score: 1

Either way, their initial support for SOPA and helping to write it to get themselves immunity from its provisions mean that regardless of their recent actions, there's no way I'd ever give them my business now.
That's the thing that has us planning to take our business elsewhere too; trust. GoDaddy has demonstrated, clearly and unequivocally, by their actions that the interests of their domain and hosting customers are of no concern to them. Indeed, they have committed serious resources to passing law that would directly harm their customers.
Guess what happens next, Mr. Parsons.
Re:Yea, well... by Jawnn · 2011-12-29 06:09 · Score: 1

When the court seized domains last year, it was Go Daddy that became the new registrar and hosted the "This domain has been seized..." page for ICE. They are opportunists who have been caught with their pants down on the wrong side of an issue whose importance to their client base they did not foresee.
But then, if they had any sense of ethics in the first place, they would have known what they were doing was wrong.
Oh, they know, but they absolutely do not care.
[wise-guy voice]
You'se gotta unnerstan'. It's just business.
[/wise-guy voice]
And I now know where I should take my domain and hosting business.
Re:Yea, well... by Nyder · 2011-12-29 06:18 · Score: 1

...
But it seems to me as if in our society we preferred that people stick to their decisions, rather than change their mind if there's overwhelming evidence that they've been wrong. Does it make sense?...
I was watching an episode of Mythbusters the other day, and they were up against the Monty Hall Problem (Paradox) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monty_Hall_problem.
The conclusion from the show was that people like to stick to their first choice, even though in the Monty Hall case it shows that switching your choice is better, because it's usually right.
What I drew from this is your "gut feeling" is usually wrong and if given a chance to change it, you should.
So it's seems like a human trait not to want to change your first choice, even if the odds say it's a wrong choice.

--
Be seeing you...
Re:Yea, well... by Dhalka226 · 2011-12-29 06:19 · Score: 1

But it seems to me as if in our society we preferred that people stick to their decisions, rather than change their mind if there's overwhelming evidence that they've been wrong. Does it make sense?
No. I agree with you. I've often thought the same about politics; how "flip-flopper" has become one of the most dirty words in politics, as if changing ones mind was reprehensible.
However, the kind of change of mind that you're referring to is usually accompanied by two things: First, an admission that you were wrong. There is really no way to change your mind based on the facts without admitting that you had the wrong, or incomplete, facts, or at the very least that you weighed them improperly. Politicians almost always fail here, which is why I think they get tagged as "flip-flopping" rather than changing their mind.
The second is some explanation as to what changed their mind. In the case of GoDaddy, for example, it wasn't as if the necessary facts about SOPA weren't out there or weren't known to them, and thus it is difficult to believe that even their professed--and wholly disingenuous--change of mind is actually a change of mind. They've changed no opinion. This is, quite literally, folding to pressure, and that is not the same thing. (In GoDaddy's case they haven't even really done that, but that is neither here nor there.)
Yes, I want people, and corporations, to be able to change their mind and admit then they were wrong. But step #1 in that process is changing their mind, not just saying so.
Re:Yea, well... by Mitchell314 · 2011-12-29 06:22 · Score: 1

From a mathematician's POV, it's a perfectly fine name.

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I read TFA and all I got was this lousy cookie
Re:Yea, well... by _0xd0ad · 2011-12-29 06:36 · Score: 2

No. That's exactly wrong.
What you should draw from it is that your first "gut feeling" is usually right and you should stick with it, but humans are really bad at taking new information and appropriately adjusting their original gut feeling based on the new information. But if you have all the information from the get-go, your gut feeling is probably correct. It's only if you get new information that you need to be careful to objectively consider all of the information, and don't let your gut feeling (which was based on incomplete information) taint your final decision.
The Monty Hall problem tricks people by making them feel lucky. They know their "gut feeling" only had a 1-in-3 chance of being correct, but after you reinforce the notion that their original choice "wasn't wrong" (since they didn't lose yet), they're inclined to trust their luck further.
If you told someone to pick 1 door, and then told them "now, you get to choose: either what's behind the door you picked, or what's behind both the doors you didn't pick", obviously everyone's gut feeling would be to switch. They just don't realize that that's what the Monty Hall problem essentially does. Their gut feeling was correct, it's only that they processed the additional information incorrectly.
Re:Yea, well... by Anonymous Coward · 2011-12-29 07:07 · Score: 1

People make mistakes (a company is a collection of people). For some odd reason our culture has become one that wants blood for every mistake. We hear about a security breach or data loss at Google or Amazon and we go "Well someone is going to get fired!"
Wrong. We want accountability. Anyone can make a mistake. Honest mistakes are accepted by the general public in most cases when it's clear those responsible are doing their best to mitigate the effects and ensure it does not happen again. The problem is, companies seem to make the 'mistakes' that happen to make them large amounts of money. In many cases illegally. These 'mistakes' are readily foreseeable in many cases, but might require them to spend a little money to ensure they do not happen. Corporations have adopted the 'do what I want now, apologize later' mentality and are not being punished for it.
I want accountability. I'll settle for blood in most cases.
Re:Yea, well... by hesaigo999ca · 2011-12-29 07:29 · Score: 1

>A good analogy will only clarify your personal point, not make it correct.
I agree
I do not agree completely that you can not really blame a company/organization/government for having 1 person in place that could make a decision that affects the said body to go bankrupt.
If you are MS, back in the day of Bill Gates, Bill could say, buy 1 billion chocolate bars, and you would buy 1 billion chocolate bars... even if that ment you went out of business, he was the boss....
If you are the US government, you can not say you to the president, you can tell us to do anything but we have something in place
where what you say does not matter. In the end, if Obama wants to spend trillions helping banks, which he did,
going against all cabinet party members advice, he will!
So I do not fully agree the company is responsible for that business model, if our democracy allows this to be the norm....
then it would be us the people who are responsible for allowing all companies to operate under our voted acceptance
of that business model as being the norm. 1 janitor can not send a whole company into bankruptcy unless he was the one to use bad cleaners
in the toilets, causing water damage to the pipes, and then flooding the whole warehouse of goods, and ruining all inventory in the process.
Insurance,..... of course, yet 1 person was able to bring it all down, now he did not mean to do that, maybe the cleaners were switched by accident,
but accountability is if he sees his actions were at cause, then he should own up to it.
Yes maybe lose his job, if the company deems necc. but if the company says, you cost us xxx dollars, you lose your pension or the like, to cover the cost, I think it only fair, where as these lame brains that ran the banks, and knew in advance the crisis was coming (proof is in many places) did nothing, and let the chips fall where they may... that sounds like a good reason to say you get no severance when we fire you, good luck in your future.
Re:Yea, well... by Bucky24 · 2011-12-29 07:42 · Score: 1

And from a porn star's POV, GoDaddy is a perfectly fine name.

--
All the world's a CPU, and all the men and women merely AI agents
Re:Yea, well... by ppanon · 2011-12-29 07:52 · Score: 2

The option is there for a reason. Your reaction is like that of the person who cuts themselves by accident with a kitchen knife and resorts to buying all kinds of gadgets to protect their fingers instead of learning proper technique. The lesson you should learn isn't to never use -Rf or * with rm, it's that when you use one of those features you should double check everything you've typed before pressing the enter key. Measure twice, cut once works for more than carpentry.

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Laissez lire, et laissez danser; ces deux amusements ne feront jamais de mal au monde. - Voltaire
Re:Yea, well... by Grishnakh · 2011-12-29 09:32 · Score: 1

Measure twice, cut once works for more than carpentry.
You mean woodworking. Carpenters these days don't bother measuring too much; you can tell in the quality of modern houses.
Re:Yea, well... by ppanon · 2011-12-29 13:31 · Score: 1

Rule #35: That which does not kill me has made a tactical mistake.

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Laissez lire, et laissez danser; ces deux amusements ne feront jamais de mal au monde. - Voltaire
Re:Yea, well... by Grishnakh · 2011-12-29 13:38 · Score: 1

how "flip-flopper" has become one of the most dirty words in politics, as if changing ones mind was reprehensible.
The problem is, it usually is reprehensible. The reason is because "flip flopping" isn't about changing your opinion due to new information, it's because most of the time, it's because a politician only cares about doing what gets him re-elected (or more campaign finance "donations"), so he, being a lawyer (which is synonymous with "professional liar") by trade, will say whatever he needs to to pursue those goals. If he thinks he'll get more votes by saying "I've changed my mind, and now I think SOPA is a bad law even though I helped write it", he will, even though he really disagrees. Worse, after he gets re-elected, if he thinks he'll get more of an advantage by reneging on his campaign promises, he'll do that too, so even if he does claim that he's changed his opinion on the campaign trail, that's worth nothing. Just look at how much of a liar Barack Obama has turned out to be. Remember all those promises of "transparency"? His administration has been one of the least transparent, denying FOIAs left and right.
People want politicians who aren't just liars, they want people who have real principles and stand by those. Occasionally, you'll actually see a politician who does have real principles and sticks with them: Ron Paul is a great example of this. Of course, the problem here is that these principles might not always jive with the real world (e.g. his ideas about the gold standard). But it's a refreshing break from the flip-floppers, so people like it.
There is really no way to change your mind based on the facts without admitting that you had the wrong, or incomplete, facts, or at the very least that you weighed them improperly. Politicians almost always fail here, which is why I think they get tagged as "flip-flopping" rather than changing their mind.
No, they get tagged as flip-flopping because they're a bunch of liars and sociopaths, plain and simple. They didn't make the wrong decisions because of incomplete facts, they made what appeared to be the right decision (for them and their personal quest for power and wealth, not necessarily for their constituents), and then when circumstances changed, they made a new decision that again was right for them and their personal quest for power and wealth.
This GoDaddy case isn't really any different, because just like 99% of politicians, the guys running this POS company are also a bunch of liars and sociopaths.
Re:Yea, well... by Grishnakh · 2011-12-29 13:41 · Score: 1

Does she actually believe what she wrote?
It's irrelevant. She's a lawyer, and lawyers are nothing but professional compulsive liars.
Re:Yea, well... by Grishnakh · 2011-12-29 13:48 · Score: 2

Liberals detest him almost as much as right-wing radio talkshow hosts do.
I haven't seen much of this. Instead, most liberal-leaning sites/blogs seem to be 100% behind him, and people that aren't are treated like pariahs.
This guy (a self-proclaimed leftwinger) even has a couple websites bashing liberals for their backing of Obama:
http://americanextremists.thecomicseries.com/
So yes, there's a small core of liberals that do detest him, but most of them seem to have completely changed their opinions on everything so they don't have to admit to themselves they were wrong. I think this is called "cognitive dissonance". The real test will be the Democratic Primaries: if Obama gets re-nominated, then that'll prove that the Democratic voters really are this stupid. If they kick him out and nominate someone who isn't a clone of GWB, then it'll disprove it. If I were betting, I'd bet that Obama will get the nomination. There've been four times in history when a sitting US President did not get the nomination of his party for the second term, but those were all back in the days when voters weren't quite as stupid as they are now.
Re:Yea, well... by Grishnakh · 2011-12-29 13:49 · Score: 1

Go away, you idiot shill.
Re:Yea, well... by cheekyjohnson · 2011-12-29 14:01 · Score: 1

Software Piracy is a bad thing.
Subjective.

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Filthy, filthy copyrapists!
Re:Yea, well... by drinkypoo · 2011-12-29 15:40 · Score: 1

If I can't believe press releases from sleazebags then there is no hope for me? Your command of the language doesn't.

--
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Re:Yea, well... by rtb61 · 2011-12-29 17:27 · Score: 1

Seriously, "Go Daddy Backstaber" is not worth any additional effort, just enough to be ignored until they go away but certainly not be let off the hook, with we changed our mind because you forced us to.

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Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
Re:Yea, well... by _0xd0ad · 2011-12-30 00:29 · Score: 1

That's not all there is to it, though. If it "doesn't matter because it's 50%-50%", why won't people switch?

Let me be the first to say by Fluffeh · 2011-12-28 22:15 · Score: 5, Insightful

Que seneveratis metes.

Or some such thing. My schools motto was that. What you sow, So shall you reap. One of those wonderful things that I recall as a kid I didn't think too much of. These days, can't be closer to home. GoDaddy, you fucked up. You got caught with your fingers in the cookie jar. All the advertisements on Australian TV won't help you enough. You have angered the internet. To you, we are anonymous. But we are not. We have domain names. We have money that you need. We have integrity. We have choices. You chose SOPA.

We choose someone else.

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Moved to http://soylentnews.org/. You are invited to join us too!

Re:Let me be the first to say by mgblst · 2011-12-28 23:03 · Score: 5, Insightful

You're so right. This one web address moving, imgur.com, is going to cost Godaddy millions, if not billions or karma. Or about $10.
This will change nothing, Godaddy have already started lying about changing it's stance, when it has not.
Re:Let me be the first to say by Anonymous Coward · 2011-12-29 00:03 · Score: 2, Insightful

Do you not understand how publicity works? As this dump GoDaddy meme gets more and more visibility, more and more people make the choice of participating. The number of domains imgur uses is totally irrelevant.
This is one of the few case where a boycott actually works:
* monetary cost to protester is negligible
* amount of work needed is very small (neet to renew anyway)
* GoDaddy isn't that good anyway so moving usually has no negative side effects
At the moment GoDaddy really hopes this news coverage would go away. Every article shows on their bottom line.
Re:Let me be the first to say by Bill,+Shooter+of+Bul · 2011-12-29 02:53 · Score: 1

Really? As a technical person, I'd never heard of imgur. Too many places to get or put images for a non image freek to keep track of.

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Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
Re:Let me be the first to say by thegarbz · 2011-12-29 03:22 · Score: 2

Really? You probably just haven't noticed. When I type imgur in my browser bar the following come up:
A picture of a really early version of Android - Typically posted in every Slashdot story about Android by some Apple public opinion correctional officer.
A screen cap of a twitter comment between IGN and Oceanic Marketing - Got that from the Slashdot story only yesterday about Oceanic Marketing's braindead customer service.
And about a million photos of various lolcats.
Imgur is the defacto standard service for linking some stupid image to someone.
Re:Let me be the first to say by AthanasiusKircher · 2011-12-29 04:32 · Score: 1

Que seneveratis metes.
You mean "Quae seminaveris metes" maybe? The second word comes from "semina," which means "seeds," like in English "seminal," which refers to important work that bears fruit. (Ultimately from "semen," of course, i.e., "seed" in Latin....)
Re:Let me be the first to say by Bill,+Shooter+of+Bul · 2011-12-29 06:20 · Score: 1

Really? Hmm... I guess I never really look at the stupid images in a story or really anywhere online. Usually, just stick to text.

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Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.

Are we still talking about GoDaddy? by hcs_$reboot · 2011-12-28 22:19 · Score: 3, Insightful

Yes. And I don't mind having a reminder every other day.
This is not just about SOPA...

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Slashdot, fix the reply notifications... You won't get away with it...

Scr*w Godaddy by Anonymous Coward · 2011-12-28 22:22 · Score: 5, Interesting

I had all my domains in Godaddy but I was fed up with trying to find the hidden option to manage my domains in pages and pages of advertisements.

It seemed to me that, if I paid for a service, I don't want to be bombarded by ads every time I need to use this service.

I moved to Namecheap and never looked back.

Re:Scr*w Godaddy by Tvingo · 2011-12-29 00:44 · Score: 2

I had all my domains in Godaddy but I was fed up with trying to find the hidden option to manage my domains in pages and pages of advertisements.
It seemed to me that, if I paid for a service, I don't want to be bombarded by ads every time I need to use this service.
I moved to Namecheap and never looked back.
Completely agree. The webpage is a absolute mess at GoDaddy. You would think that a company that is 'selling' the internet and setting up webpages would set a good example. I moved all my domains to Namecheap yesterday as well. Figured if I waited till today they may be too swamped ;) Hopefully Godaddy takes it in the purse for supporting this attack on our freedom.

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Nothing i have to say is worth saying.
Re:Scr*w Godaddy by na1led · 2011-12-29 01:03 · Score: 2

I was thinking of hosting a website with Go Daddy, I decided to go with IXWebHosting instead. I wonder how much business they are losing? It's not like they get lots of ignorant people who know nothing about whats going on.

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-- By all means let's be open-minded, but not so open-minded that our brains drop out.
Re:Scr*w Godaddy by killmenow · 2011-12-29 01:34 · Score: 1

Same here. I only have one measly domain and next to zero traffic but I moved it from GoDaddy to namecheap several months ago.

GoDaddy keeps thinking advertisements with possibly hot women will cause their audience (nerds) to look past how badly they suck.
Re:Scr*w Godaddy by Clsid · 2011-12-29 04:22 · Score: 1

And let's not forget limited e-mail accounts for basic plans. And I'm not talking about 50 or something. It was only about 5 plus 1 with a 100 Mb capacity. For the other 5 you get 100 Mb you have to distribute between each account. Their service is ok but you get better deals elsewhere, I switched to hostgator at the moment and it's been great so far.
Re:Scr*w Godaddy by tunapez · 2011-12-29 04:44 · Score: 1

You would think that a company that is 'selling' the internet and setting up webpages would set a good example.
While I share your sentiment, IMO, it's a perfect example of the WWWs playing field. Hiding the truth in long-winded/ever changing EULAs, up-selling unnecessary features and misleading misinformations(or hiding/omitting pertinent details) are the norm on the 'tubez. Their vision of the future in this one-sided proposal is only more of the same, legitimized out of the grey area of the law(s). No surprise they wrote their 'exemption' into the legislation, cheaters, cons and snake-oil salesmen love a stacked deck.

--
Imagination drew in bold strokes, instantly serving hopes and fears, while knowledge advanced by slow increments...
Re:Scr*w Godaddy by Grishnakh · 2011-12-29 13:55 · Score: 1

No surprise they wrote their 'exemption' into the legislation, cheaters, cons and snake-oil salesmen love a stacked deck.
Something else that's no surprise is where GoDaddy is located: Scottsdale, Arizona. Take it from someone who lives here (actually, I live next door in Tempe): Scottsdale is chock full of scammers, con artists, and snake-oil salesmen (and don't forget the $30,000-a-year-millionaires that Scottsdale is famous for, but I guess that can be said to be a subset of scammers). If you're considering doing any business with a company and you find out they're located in Scottsdale, run.

Left GoDaddy Years Ago by handsup · 2011-12-28 22:24 · Score: 4, Interesting

This is not the first time GoDaddy is exposed. I remember transferring my domains from them years ago due to some other Bad Thing they did.

It surprises me that they still are used by many high-profile sites who are now only transferring.

Re:Left GoDaddy Years Ago by Elbereth · 2011-12-28 22:53 · Score: 5, Funny

It's human nature. If someone screws over a customer, a few outraged people will leave, but many others will stay, because the company never did anything to them. A couple on the sidelines will be wondering, "What the fuck is wrong with you? Right from the start, I could tell that company was slimy." And someone, somewhere will say, "It was his/her own fault for getting screwed. The company was perfectly justified in doing what it did. They're not a charity."
As a smug asshole who loves to be right, this whole drama has been very fun. Not that I need the validation of the entire fucking internet coming around to my opinion or anything, but it's still nifty.
Re:Left GoDaddy Years Ago by David+Gerard · 2011-12-28 23:16 · Score: 5, Interesting

> It surprises me that they still are used by many high-profile sites who are now only transferring.
The Wikimedia one was like:
"WIKIPEDIA! WHY YOU USE GODADDY?!?!!"
"... We do?"
It's plumbing. No-one thinks about it. Until it turns out their plumber is HITLER. [citation needed]

--
http://rocknerd.co.uk
Re:Left GoDaddy Years Ago by Lincolnshire+Poacher · 2011-12-29 01:10 · Score: 1

> It's plumbing. No-one thinks about it.
No, choosing a domain registrar is probably the most important decision an Internet-based company has to make in the early days after establishing a name and a business plan.
There is too much "intellectual property" tied-up in a domain name nowadays to trust the like of GoDaddy, or indeed any registrar which doesn't state that the domain is your property
Re:Left GoDaddy Years Ago by elrous0 · 2011-12-29 03:19 · Score: 2

There was a time when I would recommend GoDaddy as a host to my smaller clients. But their incredibly sleazy ad campaigns (that look more like ads for "Girls Gone Wild" videos than for a web hosting company) started to become so embarrassing that I stopped recommending them. I couldn't very well recommend them to a serious client only have that client catch one of their Hooters/strip-club ads during the Super Bowl.

--
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Re:Left GoDaddy Years Ago by Bucky24 · 2011-12-29 08:05 · Score: 1

Convenience. I wasn't happy about BoA's debit card fees, but I never use my debit card anyway, so it doesn't directly affect me. And I looked for another bank but you know what? I like depositing checks and having them credit immediately. And I have a credit card with them that I'd have to pay off (and can't really afford to right now). So it's really a matter of convenience. We as citizens, sadly enough, are willing to deal with a lot of shit for convenience.

--
All the world's a CPU, and all the men and women merely AI agents
Re:Left GoDaddy Years Ago by mcfedr · 2011-12-29 19:30 · Score: 1

and I'm incredibly unlikely to be affected by it, so who cares?
I think that is quite a nieve statement, unfortunately what the americans do affects all of us, whether we like it or not, not least because they set a precedent for everybody else but because all the core parts of the net are in america.

Re:Who dumped whom? by Anonymous Coward · 2011-12-28 22:35 · Score: 4, Insightful

Quite possibly, yes

Wikipedia also left GoDaddy by Anonymous Coward · 2011-12-28 22:45 · Score: 5, Informative

Just so you know. (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Jimbo_Wales&diff=prev&oldid=467377954/)

Re:Wikipedia also left GoDaddy by jampola · 2011-12-28 23:46 · Score: 2

This, is news. This is REAL news and THIS is what should be on the front page of /.

Anonymous Coward, thank you for what I think is the most informative link i've seen all day!
Re:Wikipedia also left GoDaddy by Elbart · 2011-12-29 01:49 · Score: 1

"News" from a week ago? I know this is Slashdot, but come on.
Re:Wikipedia also left GoDaddy by Bucky24 · 2011-12-29 08:59 · Score: 1

The article linked says that they are PLANNING to move, but since they are super busy they haven't done it yet.

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All the world's a CPU, and all the men and women merely AI agents

Re:Who dumped whom? by CharlyFoxtrot · 2011-12-28 22:50 · Score: 4, Informative

Imgur was created for, and thus heavily used by a little site called Reddit. Godaddy is the McDonalds of domain registration.

--
If all else fails, immortality can always be assured by spectacular error.

Re:Who dumped whom? by geekmux · 2011-12-28 22:51 · Score: 1

Am I the only person who's never heard of either of them?

GoDaddy would sure as hell hope so, after spending millions in SuperBowl ads.

But.. by andrewa · 2011-12-28 22:56 · Score: 5, Funny

Boobies!
http://www.joyoftech.com/joyoftech/joyarchives/1633.html

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:(){ :|:& };:

Mor organised boycotts by Kplx138 · 2011-12-28 22:59 · Score: 5, Interesting

Hopefully there will be a boycott and more boycotts if it fails to get the message across. Not something that should be given up on because it becomes all to hard and doesn't work the first time, after all how much do you value your freedom? Hell work to vote out every idiot that voted for it. Capitalism is supposed to be democratic, they tell you if people don't buy a product a company should understand that there's a problem with their product and rectify the problem or risk going out of business. Boycotts get that message across, worked well for south africa,

I swear schools should teach kids how to organise boycotts right along side the importance of voting. Generations of kids coming up willing to drop massive boycotts on companies for even looking like doing something evil. When someone says that the market will work it out naturally they mean it'll correct itself eventually and I'll a load of cash in the meantime... oh I'm slightly off topic now.

Re:Mor organised boycotts by digitalsolo · 2011-12-29 01:35 · Score: 2

In fairness, most kids have parents, that also hold a teensy bit of responsibility in raising said children.

I know that my son will be brought up to understand the "why and how" of things, instead of simply memorizing dates.

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Just another ignorant American.
Re:Mor organised boycotts by countertrolling · 2011-12-29 03:15 · Score: 1

Hopefully there will be a boycott and more boycotts if it fails to get the message across.
Absolutely!

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For justice, we must go to Don Corleone
Re:Mor organised boycotts by sunderland56 · 2011-12-29 04:42 · Score: 1

Hopefully there will be a boycott and more boycotts if it fails to get the message across.
A browser plugin that popped up a warning message when you went to a GoDaddy registered domain would be really useful to get a boycott started.

Step 1 is to move your sites away from GoDaddy. Step 2 is to stop going to sites that have failed to move.
Re:Mor organised boycotts by future+assassin · 2011-12-29 06:51 · Score: 1

>I swear schools should teach kids how to organise boycotts right along side the importance of voting.
It's the parents job to do this. In Poland in the early 80's My mom use to take to riots to show me how fucked the gov was. I can still recall the taste and smell of tear gas. I was there http://www.lubin82.pl/fotografie1.html

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by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
Re:Mor organised boycotts by Bucky24 · 2011-12-29 09:02 · Score: 1

This should be fairly easy to do-something that does a whois lookup of any domain. If I knew anything about scripting browser plugins I'd look into it.

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All the world's a CPU, and all the men and women merely AI agents

But they DIDN’T! by Anonymous Coward · 2011-12-28 23:06 · Score: 5, Informative

They *said* they changed their position.
They *didn't* *actually* change it. And they won’t change it.
There's a difference.

Re:But they DIDN’T! by Scutter · 2011-12-29 00:22 · Score: 5, Insightful

They *said* they changed their position.
They *didn't* *actually* change it. And they won’t change it.
There's a difference.
They didn't even SAY they changed it. They said "we'll go look at it again" or some such nonsense. Weasel words.

--

"Tell me doctor, with all of your defenses, are there any provisions for an attack by killer bees?"

Re:Who dumped whom? by Anonymous Coward · 2011-12-28 23:08 · Score: 2, Funny

What's SuperBowl, is it an American thing?

Given that I live in the UK... by Viol8 · 2011-12-28 23:08 · Score: 2

...its pretty unlikely I'd have seen them.

Re:Given that I live in the UK... by geekmux · 2011-12-28 23:47 · Score: 1

...its pretty unlikely I'd have seen them.
Guess you've got a solid point there, since I didn't know what the hell a "pitch" was for quite a few years...never really heard that term on the soccer field. Heh.
Re:Given that I live in the UK... by Viol8 · 2011-12-29 00:03 · Score: 1

Apparently not very well in that case given that I work in IT.
Re:Given that I live in the UK... by InterestingFella · 2011-12-29 01:02 · Score: 2

GoDaddy should be known by everyone, but Imgur is quite obscure. It's just one of those image hosting sites, there's hundreds of them. I only remember it now because I browse TF2 pics on Reddit and couple of days ago noticed it's quite well integrated into Reddit. I've probably used Imgur before too, but image hosting sites aren't exactly brands you easily remember.
Re:Given that I live in the UK... by rich_hudds · 2011-12-29 01:54 · Score: 2

I work in IT in the UK and hadn't heard of either of them either.

THIS is why free markets work by Catiline · 2011-12-28 23:10 · Score: 2, Interesting

For the next year (or so), this will be my counter-example when I debate politics with people who argue that a centrally regulated economy is better than the free market -- as in, "I will happily agree with you, if first you explain this one annoying fact please."

* Constituents and businesses pleaded with Congress [the regulatory body of US "central economic planning"] not to pass SOPA. Congress did anyway.
* People threaten to boycott GoDaddy (direct financial loss) due to supporting SOPA and they reverse course immediately.

I feel the answer is clear, obvious, and simple: businesses are more responsive to their "constituents" then politicians are. Therefore, we should discard [most of] the business regulations -- by which I mean things like minimum wage or union laws, not universal "regulatory" laws like EPA pollution controls -- and go back to a free market.

(Oh, and before people asks: EPA regulations are "universal" because private individuals can violate them just like big business does, for example by developing protected land, or burning waste material. Wage and hiring laws are not "universal" because private individuals cannot be in violation of those laws, only businesses.)

--
Do you like Japanese imports?

Re:THIS is why free markets work by Kplx138 · 2011-12-28 23:33 · Score: 3, Interesting

GoDaddy would have to cease to exist for me to believe the free market works, don't get me work I believe that free markets are a good thing but they need some amount of government regulation to balance out greedy dishonest a-holes.
A lot of people say if we had a "true" free market with out any goverment regulations or interference it would all work out in the end. Much like communists will tell you that most communist states failed because they weren't "true" communism. It's all the speak of a true believer.
Free Market Capitalism and Communism are really get theories but turn to crap when you add people to the equation, just like a computer program will work 100% perfectly until someone uses it then it'll just crash.
Re:THIS is why free markets work by BenoitRen · 2011-12-28 23:55 · Score: 1

You must have been living under a rock if you still believe that free markets work. They've repeatedly proven that they need to be regulated or they'll take advantage of their position. Go study your history.
Re:THIS is why free markets work by jez9999 · 2011-12-29 00:03 · Score: 5, Insightful

For the next year (or so), this will be my counter-example when I debate politics with people who argue that a centrally regulated economy is better than the free market -- as in, "I will happily agree with you, if first you explain this one annoying fact please."
OK, I'll try: domain registrars do not operate in a free market. They are regulated by ICANN. If they were in a truly free market, GoDaddy could (and almost certainly would) simply refuse to transfer any domains away from themselves.
When you hear talk of a free market working and really look at it, you almost always find that the market isn't TRULY free; it needs regulation, and if that regulation weren't there it would be a disaster.
I agree that domain registration is a relatively free market and this is an example of where a relatively free market works well. However it's not truly free; there's your explanation. In fact I suspect you'd be hard pressed to find any market that needs literally no regulation, to protect people's safety, or prohibit companies from screwing customers over.

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== Jez ==
Do you miss Firefox? Try Pale Moon.
Re:THIS is why free markets work by thelinuxfan · 2011-12-29 00:54 · Score: 1

In a truly free market, you don't just remove ICANN and expect the result is mayhem. A truly free market would have a competitive registrar that you could buy rights to the domain, or you would have a contract with GoDaddy to maintain the rights of the domain name.
Free market does not mean lack of control and oversight.
Re:THIS is why free markets work by Catiline · 2011-12-29 00:59 · Score: 2

I'm sorry, you seem to be conflating corporations -- who have a position within a market, and long term goals -- with the market as a whole. Let me demonstrate by removing the pronouns from your statement:

...still believe that free markets work. Free markets [note: only plural antecedent] have repeatedly proven that free markets need to be regulated or free markets will take advantage of their position.
I can't make head or tails of what you mean by "free markets will take advantage of their position". Markets, as a whole, don't have a position -- that only can make sense within a market, which requires your use of "they" to referring to a smaller unit, not previously mentioned. I'd assume you mean corporations, in which case you're confused as to what "free market" means -- it is when buyers have freedom to select from among multiple sellers, and refers to corporations not one whit.

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Do you like Japanese imports?
Re:THIS is why free markets work by Catiline · 2011-12-29 01:17 · Score: 1

OK, I'll try: domain registrars do not operate in a free market.... If they were in a truly free market, GoDaddy could (and almost certainly would) simply refuse to transfer any domains away from themselves.
You are absolutely, 100% correct in your premise, but you arrive at the wrong conclusion; this is unfortunately all too common because very few people understand what "free market" really means.
Your argument is phrased like this:
* Domain registrars do not operate in a free market.
Correct: a "free market" is one where buyers may select freely from vendors offering different services. Regulation prevents this differentiation, and thus closes off the market from being "free".
* GoDaddy, a registrar, could refuse to transfer names in an unregulated market.
Correct, but you overlook the competition from other registrars -- your conclusion:...
* Therefore, we can expect an unregulated market in domain names to provide fewer services [transfers] than a regulated one.
...is thereby invalid. In a free market, it would be an advertising advantage to allow transfers to your company; furthermore, we can expect each business' interests to force any such agreements to be reciprocal and thus forcing businesses to allow transfers away as well.

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Do you like Japanese imports?
Re:THIS is why free markets work by magamiako1 · 2011-12-29 01:23 · Score: 1

I think you're the one mistaken about a "free market". It means that the market works with NO government intervention into business.

This includes:
No OSHA
If you contract with a company knowingly putting yourself in danger, well, that's *your* fault, not theirs. You should have worked somewhere safer.
Monopolies and Oligopolies are free to exist since no government can step in to take them down.
Collusion is free to run rampant since there will be no regulation on it.
Insider trading and stock manipulation is all good to go, again, no government to stop them!
Privacy? Regulatory Compliance? Who needs that?
You got injured from a product, aka lawn darts? Then don't buy them if they're so unsafe!
Re:THIS is why free markets work by digitalsolo · 2011-12-29 01:37 · Score: 2

You got injured from a product, aka lawn darts? Then don't buy them if they're so unsafe!
I was with you until this one. It should never be the government's job to regulate around blatant idiocy.

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Just another ignorant American.
Re:THIS is why free markets work by Mateo_LeFou · 2011-12-29 01:56 · Score: 1

"... businesses are more responsive to their "constituents" then politicians are."
You're partially right here, but the main difference is (supposed to be) that business is responsive per the formula "one dollar, one vote" rather than "one person, one vote".
The US government has increasingly drifted away from the latter formula toward the former one, though.

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My turnips listen for the soft cry of your love
Re:THIS is why free markets work by Anonymous Coward · 2011-12-29 01:58 · Score: 2, Informative

I think you should realize that, for people like Adam Smith, free market literally meant "free of unnecessary charges" and a "market free from monopoly power, business fraud, political insider dealing and special privileges for vested interests". A "free market" particularly meant one free of foreign debt, as discussed in The Wealth of Nations. [blatantly taken from wikipedia]
You have confused "free market" with "market free from regulation" (a.k.a. laissez-faire or libertarian economics). In fact, I would equate a free market with the economic model of "perfect competition" (wikipedia it).
The problem is that a _truly_ free market model (on which the concept of the Invisible Hand is based on) requires several things:
a) low or no barriers of entry and exit and/or high number of participants;
b) rational economic agents/profit maximization;
c) information symmetry/perfect information;
d) the capability for means of production to adapt (long term) to market changes
e) low/zero transaction costs.
Whenever one or several of these assumptions cannot be met, the "free market model" (as described by Adam Smith) no longer works as advertised and pricing is sub-optimal: the market is no longer "free of unnecessary charges".
If you look around, there's plenty of examples of anomalous situations in (so called) free markets, such as inside trading (violation of point C), market panic and hype (violation of point B) and the establishment of monopolies and cartels (usually violation of point A and/or D), which obviously impair the correct allocation of resources in any economy.
This... just to point out that "free market" is not the same as "market free from regulation". If economical agents are rational, they WILL try to subvert free market rules as much as they can for profit maximization and I think you'll find plenty of examples of that, if you care to look around.
Now... regarding this whole GoDaddy situation... let's go back to the assumptions and see which ones were being met:
a) low or no barriers of entry and exit and/or high number of participants - nowadays... I'd say this happens... there ARE lots of domain registrars from which to choose and it's not THAT expensive to join the domain registration market;
b) rational economic agents/profit maximization - sure... in general. Although not totally... GoDaddy, for instance, is known to push unneeded services to their clients, exploiting their lack of rationality+information;
c) information symmetry/perfect information - well... this would be highly ideal... no one knows the price per domain of _every single_ registrar... nevertheless, the fact that this market works over the Internet increases information symmetry... review websites, for instance, help to propagate such information faster between economic agents... in this case, the Internet also helped to propagate information about GoDaddy's unethical/immoral actions;
d) the capability for means of production to adapt (long term) to market changes - uh... sure...
e) low/zero transaction costs - this is true... it's easy to transfer domains between registrars at zero (or near zero) cost; notice, like someone already told you, that this is only so because there is ICANN regulation that imposes that on domain registrars.
So... yeah, in general, the domain registration market _does_ seem to work like a "free market". Nevertheless, it's not a market free from regulation (and it shouldn't be), otherwise it's certain that registrars would abuse (at least) point E for their own profit. Also, notice that, despite the fact that GoDaddy has overinflated pricing for the quality of service they provide, that was not the reason that made people switch: the reason was purely POLITICAL, not ECONOMICAL. The problem of GoDaddy is _simply_ that they decided to support a law that's opposed by a vast majority of their clients and, since domain registration is a free market (although not free from regulation), and their clients are often politically-min
Re:THIS is why free markets work by shentino · 2011-12-29 02:17 · Score: 1

Actually politicians are VERY responsive to their constituents.
It's just that Joe Voter and Jane Q. Public are not actually their constituents.
Re:THIS is why free markets work by shentino · 2011-12-29 02:18 · Score: 1

I'd say that with the hassle involved in actually transferring a domain when the registrar uses all sorts of dirty tricks to make transfers a pain in the ass if not outright impossible, it's not actually a free market.
Re:THIS is why free markets work by Catiline · 2011-12-29 02:32 · Score: 1

free markets are a good thing but they need some amount of government regulation to balance out greedy dishonest a-holes.
OK, how about something simple, straightforward and universal, like ending the idea of corporate personhood, or perhaps "corporate fraud automatically 'pierces the veil' allowing lawsuits against executives and stockholders"?

--
Do you like Japanese imports?
Re:THIS is why free markets work by nedlohs · 2011-12-29 02:40 · Score: 1

No OSHA
Which would be fine. Of course you are ignoring the overlap with other things: if someone get hurt on my property I am possibly liable for damages - yet OSHA doesn't apply. So clearly there are other restrictions that aren't intervention in business anyway.

If you contract with a company knowingly putting yourself in danger, well, that's *your* fault, not theirs. You should have worked somewhere safer.
That's just a repitition of the previous point.

Monopolies and Oligopolies are free to exist since no government can step in to take them down.
I'll take that over the government created monopolies and oligopolies we get with the current way of doing things. Since monopolies that arise in a free market can at least be destroyed by a new competitor (say when tech changes reduce the barriers to entry) but the government created ones get protection from the government.

Collusion is free to run rampant since there will be no regulation on it.
Repeating yourself again, collusion only works when the number of players is reasonably small and barriers to entry are reasonably large - so it's the same issue as monopolies and oligopolies.

Insider trading and stock manipulation is all good to go, again, no government to stop them!
I also have no problem with that. Obviously that increases the risk in owning shares in companies and hence would increase the risk premium and so lower the price of shares and provide more pressure on companies to provide dividends and so on.
And private stock exchanges would be free to restrict such activity too - as they do already in the current system (for example: http://www.nyse.com/pdfs/11-NYSE-6.pdf). If a company is listed on the NYSE they have to follow the NYSE rules.
In a free market you can get some competition on this - one exchange can have very strict rules that are expensive to comply with. Another can have less rules that are easier to comply with but result in more risk of manipulation. One exchange can spend lots of money on investigation and enforcement of their rules and charge higher fees to be listed or higher transaction fees on trades. Another can do less investigation and enforcement but have lower fees.
People get to decide what risk level they are comfortable with and what terms they'll agree to in order to use said exchange. Companies get to decide what level of compliance they are willing to deal with (stricter exchanges result in lower risk premiums and hence higher stock prices so there's an incentive to go with them).

Privacy? Regulatory Compliance? Who needs that?
What does privacy have to do with government intervention in business? That's an area of general law.
Regulatory compliance again just repeating the previous item.

You got injured from a product, aka lawn darts? Then don't buy them if they're so unsafe!
Exactly. And sue them (just like in the current system) if you think they were negligent/etc in making the product.
Re:THIS is why free markets work by bzipitidoo · 2011-12-29 02:46 · Score: 2

Try this analogy. How would it work if we "deregulated" football and hockey? Trust the players to regulate themselves. No more penalties. No more central authority to impose rules.
Of course it would be complete chaos. While the dumber players were overdosing on steroids, the more cunning ones would be figuring ways to spike the opposing team's drinks with something debilitating, rigging the playing field for instance by widening the distance between the goal posts the visitors must defend, loading up with ringers to brawl with and injure the other players the next time a bench clearing fight breaks out, and of course, provoking such a fight. It wouldn't be sporting, wouldn't be a game anymore.

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Intellectual Property is a monopolistic, selfish, and defective concept. It is "tyranny over the mind of man"
Re:THIS is why free markets work by frisket · 2011-12-29 04:15 · Score: 1

It should never be the government's job to regulate around blatant idiocy.
Don't see why not...they did it for the banks...
Re:THIS is why free markets work by Catiline · 2011-12-29 04:23 · Score: 1

Try this analogy. How would it work if we "deregulated" football and hockey? Trust the players to regulate themselves. No more penalties. No more central authority to impose rules.
What a beautiful straw man! Good job confusing anarchy and zero government (in your analogy the penalties) with a free market. Are you trying to argue that the only choice is binary, between a Soviet-style "central control" and "no-government anarchy"? The very fact we have a regulated market shows there is a broad middle ground. All I suggest is that maybe we've moved too far in one direction, not that we should immediately shoot to the opposite extreme.

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Do you like Japanese imports?
Re:THIS is why free markets work by Toonol · 2011-12-29 04:37 · Score: 1

Neither is correct. A free market is one where BOTH PARTIES are free to engage or not in any transaction. There is no reason to distinguish a company from a person, a buyer from a seller. It's just a mutual trade. Thinking in terms of a corporation vs a consumer, or an employer vs an employee, is muddying the issue. Everything is a trade between a person and another person. Neither should be privileged over the other.
Re:THIS is why free markets work by Toonol · 2011-12-29 04:38 · Score: 1

How does the 'Free Market' (TM) work with financial organizations that are 'Too Big To Fail'?

It lets them fail. Socialism bails them out, which is what we've seen recently.
Re:THIS is why free markets work by madmark1 · 2011-12-29 04:46 · Score: 1

Except that you can't sue them for being negligent in making a product, since no regulations would exist allowing you to do so, since those regulations could not be applied in a truly 'free' market. The only remedy in a truly 'free' market is to stop buying any negligently made products, so they stop being made. Unfortunately, that doesn't much help the people who died or were injured, eh?
We have never, nor will we ever, have a truly free market. That isn't just because of government regulation, but also because corporations don't want it. For a market to truly be 'free' and regulate itself, all costs associated with a product have to be internalized to that product. The price of a gallon of gas should include the cost not only to drill, refine, pump, and distribute that gas, but also the cost of removing the carbon and pollutants involved in burning it, the cost of 'replacing' that gas to create a renewable resource, and any other costs associated with it. The same is true of cars. Why are electric cars so much more expensive than gas powered ones? It isn't because the technology is so expensive, its because the price of a gas powered car is artificially lowered, because most of the costs are externalized. The oil companies get subsidies to make gas cheaper, the oil companies and car companies don't have to pay for cleanup of the byproducts of their output, so none of that is reflected in the price, which makes it more popular in the 'free market'.
Why do you think many manufacturing plants move to countries like China or India? They will claim it is because of labor costs, but those are really a small portion of the cost of most businesses. They move to those countries because they do not require them to clean up after themselves near as much as other nations do, thus allowing them to externalize even more costs.
Re:THIS is why free markets work by nedlohs · 2011-12-29 06:40 · Score: 1

Except that you can't sue them for being negligent in making a product, since no regulations would exist allowing you to do so, since those regulations could not be applied in a truly 'free' market. The only remedy in a truly 'free' market is to stop buying any negligently made products, so they stop being made. Unfortunately, that doesn't much help the people who died or were injured, eh?
That's simply not true. The solution in a free market is to buy products that have have been certified as safe by an entity you choose. We already have competing safety testing an certification companies (e.g Underwriters Laboratories and MET Laboratories) so we know that works.
And the current government regulation system doesn't help the people who died or were injured much either. The lawn darts example from the post I originally applied to - the dead kids are still dead even though we had government run product safety.

We have never, nor will we ever, have a truly free market. That isn't just because of government regulation, but also because corporations don't want it. For a market to truly be 'free' and regulate itself, all costs associated with a product have to be internalized to that product. The price of a gallon of gas should include the cost not only to drill, refine, pump, and distribute that gas, but also the cost of removing the carbon and pollutants involved in burning it, the cost of 'replacing' that gas to create a renewable resource, and any other costs associated with it.
"replacing" costs are irrelevant, and shouldn't be part of cost of something - the others are fine. And free marketers would agree with you.

We have never, nor will we ever, have a truly free market. That isn't just because of government regulation, but also because corporations don't want it. For a market to truly be 'free' and regulate itself, all costs associated with a product have to be internalized to that product. The price of a gallon of gas should include the cost not only to drill, refine, pump, and distribute that gas, but also the cost of removing the carbon and pollutants involved in burning it, the cost of 'replacing' that gas to create a renewable resource, and any other costs associated with it. The same is true of cars. Why are electric cars so much more expensive than gas powered ones? It isn't because the technology is so expensive, its because the price of a gas powered car is artificially lowered, because most of the costs are externalized. The oil companies get subsidies to make gas cheaper, the oil companies and car companies don't have to pay for cleanup of the byproducts of their output, so none of that is reflected in the price, which makes it more popular in the 'free market'.
Obviously anyone for a free market wants oil subsidies removed. Pollution costs are also handled by a free market - pollution that damages other people's property needs to be paid for. Pollution that damages your own propety you pay via the reduced value of said property. Pollution which has less obvious effects (say CO2 and climate change) is handled by consumer choice.
If people want more efficient cars or "green power" they can buy those things. If people don't want that then they can buy the CO2 producing stuff.
How does that work any differently from if people want "green power" they can vote for the politicians who will regulate for "green power", and if they don't they can vote the politicians that will subsidise the oil companies? I guess richer people are getting more of a vote since they buy more stuff and so have a bigger impact with their choices. Then again there's a limit to just how much gas or electricity a person (no matter how rich they are) will buy - whereas there doesn't seem to be such on a limit on how much the rich will spend to influence politicians.

Why do you think many manufacturing plants move to countries like China or India? They will clai
Re:THIS is why free markets work by nedlohs · 2011-12-29 06:48 · Score: 1

I misread a section, this bit:

also the cost of removing the carbon and pollutants involved in burning it
I would also think free marketers would disagree with. The costs of the pollutants (including carbon) from burning it should be paid for by the one doing the burning not by the one who produced the gas.
Re:THIS is why free markets work by geminidomino · 2011-12-29 07:58 · Score: 1

Except your argument fails.

* People threaten to boycott GoDaddy (direct financial loss) due to supporting SOPA and they reverse course immediately.
Not even close
Re:THIS is why free markets work by DigiShaman · 2011-12-29 08:58 · Score: 1

It all comes down to trust. If the answer is only a handful of people, that's the problem right there. We live in a word that has too many social abstractions. However, we also live in one in which doesn't have enough in all the right places. Who will you trust to make those decisions? Again, who you gonna trust!?

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Life is not for the lazy.
Re:THIS is why free markets work by NoOneInParticular · 2011-12-29 11:13 · Score: 1

Socialism would have let the banks fail as well. A true socialist would have immediately put a 100% state owned bank in place. It would have put the 700 billion (or 7 trillion, or whatever was necessary) in that socialist bank to make sure that the American economy would not come to a screeching halt, and that payroll could be made for otherwise healthy companies. A socialist bank works without any leverage, 1 dollar in, 1 dollar out, and makes money purely on interst. It would be there as long as it can compete with the commercial banks.
The amount of savings flowing into the socialist bank by worried individuals would quickly have made the bank solvent without any bail-out money going into the bonus pot. The 'too big to fail' banks would instantly be 'big enough to fail', go bankrupt, and would not have taken down society with them.
The bailouts are not socialism, they are corporatism.
Re:THIS is why free markets work by Grishnakh · 2011-12-29 14:06 · Score: 1

I feel the answer is clear, obvious, and simple: businesses are more responsive to their "constituents" then politicians are.
This has little to do with "the free market", and everything to do with corruption.
Re:THIS is why free markets work by Grishnakh · 2011-12-29 14:08 · Score: 1

A lot of people say if we had a "true" free market with out any goverment regulations or interference it would all work out in the end. Much like communists will tell you that most communist states failed because they weren't "true" communism. It's all the speak of a true believer.
The thing is, while there really were no "true communist" states (they never got to that stage according to Marx's writings), we actually do have a "true free market" nation that we can examine to see how well it works. Its name is Somalia. There's no annoying government regulations or interference there to get in the way of your business.
Re:THIS is why free markets work by Grishnakh · 2011-12-29 14:10 · Score: 1

The only thing they've done is changed the text on their website. This is like cheating on your wife, getting caught, and then telling her your affair is over . . . when you're still just banging your mistress behind her back.
They never said they stopped supporting it, just some weasel words about how they want to look at it again. It's really more like cheating on your wife, getting caught when she walks in on you and your mistress in bed, then you telling her your affair is over while you're still banging away.
Re:THIS is why free markets work by Grishnakh · 2011-12-29 14:15 · Score: 1

We have never, nor will we ever, have a truly free market.
Not necessarily true. There is one country on Earth with a truly free market: it's called Somalia.
And there's no guarantee that we in the US (or anyplace else for that matter) will never achieve the level of market freedom enjoyed by Somalis; all we have to do is elect the right politicians and dismantle all the regulatory structures of our government, or faster just have the government collapse, and we can all live in free-market goodness just like our Somali friends, guided by The Invisible Hand to bliss.
Re:THIS is why free markets work by Grishnakh · 2011-12-29 14:19 · Score: 1

Free market does not mean lack of control and oversight.
Yes, it does. "Control and oversight" are synonyms for "regulation", and are provided for by the government (who else is going to do it?). "Government regulation" is apparently antithetical to the free market, so yes, it really does mean a lack of oversight.
Re:THIS is why free markets work by Grishnakh · 2011-12-29 14:25 · Score: 1

It could do wonders for Baseball. There isn't a more boring "sport" to watch than baseball.

Re:Who dumped whom? by mdm42 · 2011-12-28 23:10 · Score: 5, Funny

MacWho?

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New mod option wanted: -1 DrunkenRambling

I'm actually glad that I hosted with them by cptBongo · 2011-12-28 23:14 · Score: 5, Funny

...so I get the satisfaction of dumping them now.

Re:I'm actually glad that I hosted with them by jez9999 · 2011-12-28 23:57 · Score: 2

That's like saying you're glad you got malaria so you could feel what it was like to be cured after a while. :-)

--
== Jez ==
Do you miss Firefox? Try Pale Moon.
Re:I'm actually glad that I hosted with them by 19061969 · 2011-12-29 00:32 · Score: 1

I'm thinking of getting a domain with GD just so I can dump them too ;-)

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bang goes my karma... again...
Re:I'm actually glad that I hosted with them by Alsee · 2011-12-29 07:03 · Score: 1

Maybe a better comparison would be syphilis. That's almost worth the satisfaction of getting, and getting cured.
BTW, as someone linked above, boobies boobies boobies!
-

--
- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.

Re:Godaddy alternatives? by webnut77 · 2011-12-28 23:14 · Score: 1

SimpleURL has served me well. $12.50 per domain and has good domain management including DNS.

Re:This is all bull**** by Seumas · 2011-12-28 23:40 · Score: 5, Insightful

Your comment is probably the most willfully ignorant of this entire topic. You don't think that any of them reallyc are about supporting SOPA or not and that it was probably just some random "hey do we support SOPA?" comment that lead to someone saying "sure, whatever" and then posting that on their website?

Then please explain GoDaddy's role in actively adding their names to the list of SOPA supporters.

Please explain GoDaddy's role in actually CRAFTING PART OF SOPA ITSELF.

Please explain GoDaddy's role in additionally crafting part of SOPA itself such that GoDaddy is exempt from it.

Hipster GoDaddy by Praeluceo · 2011-12-28 23:53 · Score: 1

Hipster GoDaddy supported SOPA before it was cool...

...and pretended it didn't anymore once it got the attention it was seeking.

One problem its who GoDaddy's customers are. by robbak · 2011-12-29 00:10 · Score: 4, Funny

I mean, how do we get lowlife scum like typo-squatters to boycott? Who else would tolerate them?

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Prediction for end of Universe #42: Fencepost error in Quantum_bogosort.cpp

Re:One problem its who GoDaddy's customers are. by ghislain_leblanc · 2011-12-29 02:53 · Score: 1

I tolerate (and keep my domains at) GoDaddy because I just can't be bothered to go trough the turmoils of migrating all my stuff (DNS, Web hosting, some e-mail boxes) somewhere else for something which I consider will (or will not happen) no matter what GoDaddy thinks of it.
Re:One problem its who GoDaddy's customers are. by Myopic · 2011-12-29 04:19 · Score: 3, Insightful

You, sir, have just given the reason why Free Market theories are wrong: consumers do not, in fact, give a flying fuck. Flying fucks are the underlying premise of all Free Market theories -- that consumers will act to get what they want. I have always maintained that consumers do not, in fact, act to get what they want, and you have just shown me right. Thank you! Remember, markets are good, but free markets are bad!
Re:One problem its who GoDaddy's customers are. by TubeSteak · 2011-12-29 05:46 · Score: 1

You, sir, have just given the reason why Free Market theories are wrong: consumers do not, in fact, give a flying fuck.
Competitive market theories presume that barriers to entry and exit are kept to a minimum.
Free market theory (laissez faire) pretends shitty market behavior doesn't happen and that if it does, we shouldn't do anything to stop it.
The end result of that ideology was a golden age of oil barons, corporate titans, and the Great Depression.

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[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
Re:One problem its who GoDaddy's customers are. by Myopic · 2011-12-29 06:20 · Score: 1

Seriously. Don't you wish the "end result" of free market ideology had ended with the Great Depression, instead of continuing to fuck up the world and the economy to this very day?
Re:One problem its who GoDaddy's customers are. by Myopic · 2011-12-29 08:20 · Score: 1

If you do not do business with a given company, then why do you give a flying fuck at all that other people do?
Ooooh! A non-sequitur! I love those! I will answer your question with the obvious and trivial answer: because what other people do affects me. Thanks for asking!

Trying to send a political message with your wallet is fucking retarded, you will not be heard.
Thank you for agreeing with me! That is another way of saying what I said. Sometimes that approach works, but it is very rare and limited.
The rest of your post is an unhelpful and meaningless rant, so I'll ignore that.

I used to have a domain with Godaddy by iphinome · 2011-12-29 00:17 · Score: 2

But then they took a SOPA to the knee.

Of course they did... by Anonymous Coward · 2011-12-29 00:25 · Score: 1

If SOPA goes through, Imgur has a lot of problems....especially since a majority of the pics I've ever seen linked to them are copyrighted and not posted by the original author or with permission from said....

Re:Of course they did... by madmark1 · 2011-12-29 05:21 · Score: 2

I am sure those three people care quite a bit, as do their families. You will also care if you host a site, some idiot posts a link to something copyrighted, and your site gets taken down because of it. Or you happen to have your site hosted on a machine with someone else who has an offending link, and you lose your site because of it. Or someone just decides they don't like your site, files to have it removed, and it goes away, taking YOUR livelihood with it. SOPA isn't unpopular because it fights piracy. It is unpopular because it goes well and beyond fighting piracy. It is unpopular because it very clearly puts piracy prevention above silly things like free speech, the property rights of people who aren't media conglomerates, things like that.

Re:Benefits for Go Daddy by Grave · 2011-12-29 00:33 · Score: 3, Insightful

I couldn't agree more. In fact, I think it's extremely selfish and stupid that people aren't willing to give up the rights that the founders of this country fought and died to give us. It's extremely shortsighted for people to think their freedom is more important than the almighty, benevolent, caring, giving corporation. How dare they! Long live the corporation!

Sigh...

Re:Who dumped whom? by Lumpy · 2011-12-29 00:38 · Score: 1, Funny

OH god, BK fries SUCK. they don't use animal fat oil... YUCK with that veggie oil crap. BK had good fries back in the 80's. Fries are only good if they are cooked in animals that have been rendered down into a nice cooking fat.

Props to the Wendies spicy nuggets. Gotta love mystery processed chicken by product nuggets. I can eat those by the fist full.

--
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.

Free market != Anarchy by mangu · 2011-12-29 00:40 · Score: 5, Insightful

If they were in a truly free market, GoDaddy could (and almost certainly would) simply refuse to transfer any domains away from themselves.

You seem to have fallen into the common mistake of thinking a free market is the same as anarchy.

Free market is composed of "free" and "market". Market assumes a certain set of rules, among them the right to property. If you have a domain hosted at GoDaddy the domain is yours.

GoDaddy refusing to accept transfer of domains would be like a commercial garage refusing to let people take their cars out. That would be theft, not freedom. What a free market means is that buyer and seller are free to negotiate among themselves the price and conditions of a sale. It does not mean someone is free to steal from someone else.

Re:Free market != Anarchy by jez9999 · 2011-12-29 00:43 · Score: 1

But who defines that a domain is property? The government, or the regulator. It's not necessarily obvious. And there are other various restrictions in place which make the market operate much better for the customer, too. The point is that whilst the definition of "market" may not be disputed, the definition of "free" is. Some of those big companies would pretty much like it to mean "anarchy" (wonder why?)

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== Jez ==
Do you miss Firefox? Try Pale Moon.

You have to be okay with criminals to use GoDaddy by BitZtream · 2011-12-29 00:40 · Score: 1

in the first place. Pretty much everything they do borders on criminal activity and fucking over people. The only people who use them intelligently are the scammers (which includes squatters) and thats only because they are cheap and common company for each other.

If you host your name with Go Daddy, you pretty much deserve to be treated like shit. Their commercials alone are enough to prove my point.

--
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager

SCO by C_Kode · 2011-12-29 00:59 · Score: 1

GoDaddy also paid SCO at least $1M too. I would have left them then if I were a customer of theirs.

Bandwidth unit by Lord+Lode · 2011-12-29 01:10 · Score: 1

The unit of bandwidth is bits/second.

The article mentions a bandwidth of 28 terabytes. Dimensional analysis shows that the unit of that is bits, not bits/s. What does this mean????

Re:Bandwidth unit by MattSausage · 2011-12-29 01:47 · Score: 1

My understanding is this particular measure is 28 Terabytes/Day... so in bits per second it would go to...224teraBITS/Day which equals roughly .0026 TeraBITS/Sec... which is roughly 2.6megabits/sec.. 24 hours a day without a pause. Does that help clear it up, you monster?
Re:Bandwidth unit by MattSausage · 2011-12-29 01:48 · Score: 1

crap, got my prefixes wrong... 2.6 Gigabits/sec

I dumped them by Megaport · 2011-12-29 01:48 · Score: 1

Because I had so many domains with them I needed to call the support phone number to get them to produce a csv with all the auth codes, and surprisingly they answered quickly and did what I asked. They were very polite.

When I said that SOPA was my reason for transferring, the call center guy asked whether it was GoDaddy's initial position or their later decisions that made me want to transfer. I told him that their initial stance was enough for me to leave, and that I've been a customer since their first year of operation.

If the crowd is to have any power at all, we need to punish the corporations that we can effect.

--M

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# grep slashdot access.log | grep html | sort | uniq | wc -l 2604

Re:I dumped them by cpghost · 2011-12-29 03:19 · Score: 1

When I said that SOPA was my reason for transferring, the call center guy asked whether it was GoDaddy's initial position or their later decisions that made me want to transfer.
Apparently, management is still confused at GoDaddy, if they ask their support people to find out whether people are leaving because of their SOPA support or because of their reversal. That may explain their ambivalent press release: they can't make up their mind whether the majority of their customer base is anti- or pro-SOPA, and probably still think that the pro-SOPAs are in the majority. If something is scaring with GoDaddy, it's this fundamental disconnect with their customers.

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cpghost at Cordula's Web.

It is time to stop this malarkey by trolman · 2011-12-29 01:56 · Score: 1

Man up time. I am transferring domains off of godaddy, writing and calling Lamar Smith, and will get support from our county and city governments. It is time to put a stop to fear mongering, corporate control proxy, and censorship by the federal government. http://www.co.kerr.tx.us/

Will GoDaddy refund registrations paid in advance? by blahbooboo · 2011-12-29 02:01 · Score: 1

I am paid through another 2 years for my Godaddy domain. As I already paid for the registration, if I transfer my domain to another registrar will GoDaddy refund the 2 years I didn't use?

Re:Benefits for Go Daddy by jellomizer · 2011-12-29 02:05 · Score: 1

Um... For GoDaddy to support SOPA would mean more work for them and will cut into their bottom line. This corporation vilification is nonsense, Most corporations do not have Billions of dollars. They are smaller businesses that provide the backbone to the economy the CEO's know the employees and work hard to keep the company growing and keeping their employees hired.
Except for targeting corporations you should target the corporations that do evil things.

What is a corporation. A corporation is a legal setup for a business where in case they go bankrupt the employees/share holders are not legally responsible for the dept themselves. So if your company goes under you do not need to sell your house during bankruptcy. Why was this created because economic prosperity needs people who take risks. A corporate license or LLC helps the business take some risks while protecting the person from some of the consequences.

What happened during this economy was the bust started in the housing market (Adjustable rates sub-prime loans, made lending less risky per lender, and offered loans to more people, most of which shouldn't have been able to get such a loan). Housing Market was normally recession resistant area where people who needed loans could use their homes and property as collateral. As well the banks who leaned their money made a good chunk from Mortgages. So Banks lost a source of income and their primary source of collateral is loosing values so they became hyper risk adverse to giving loans. This means employers cannot get loans to expand their business or pay the bills to go threw the down time. So they are getting short on money, a lot of a companies values are in non-liquid form such as property, equipment, and long term investments. So they face a crunch in cash they they need to pay now. They cannot just sell their property or equipment so unfortunately as they have less business they need to layoff people. Layoffs are actually bad for a company in long term as on the average Employee turnover costs a company 150% vs keeping the employee, and laying off a person during a bad time means they will need to spend more when times get going again during good times. But however employees are more liquid and demand payments (for a piece of equipment you may be able to push maintenance from once a week to every other week) Cutting employee pay usually effect performance worse then layoffs. So they need to layoff people. Now a lot of companies are in this situation so a lot of people get canned. This means there is a drop in demand for goods and services that exasperated the problem.

Now we are in a Depression (not the Great Depression but a normal Depression) People are afraid of a lot of stuff so they are not trying to start their own business because they cannot get loans to start one. We need companies and people to start new companies to innovate and grow to expand.
Corporations are mostly good. There are some large bad apples out there that needs to be brought down. If a company is too big to fail then it is too big. But there are a lot of companies out there that are doing a lot of good. We need to stop demonizing corporations and start supporting the good ones and not be a customer to the bad ones.

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If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.

Re:Exactly by Bengie · 2011-12-29 02:15 · Score: 3, Informative

That comedian recently sold his video online for $5 and DRM free. Was all over torrent immediately. He made over $200k profit in 12 days, and still selling. I fail to see how copyright is required unless someone tries to re-sell his stuff or pass it off and theirs in some other way.

Re:Will GoDaddy refund registrations paid in advan by blahbooboo · 2011-12-29 02:22 · Score: 1

How does Namecheap know how much time to credit to my account?

Also, I use Google Apps for domains, will this mean my email to the domain will bounce during the transfer to NameCheap?

many more domains to loose yet by Pirulo · 2011-12-29 02:27 · Score: 1

I am on vacation and won't put the time to move 50+ out of godaddy right now, but it's the first item on my to do list

Re:many more domains to loose yet by initialE · 2011-12-29 03:15 · Score: 1

Then they don't get to feel the pain immediately, before their law comes into effect

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Starbucks, Harbuckle of Breath.

surprisingly by perryizgr8 · 2011-12-29 02:29 · Score: 1

that was a really well balanced article from fox news!!

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Wealth is the gift that keeps on giving.

Good riddance GoDaddy! I can't stand 'em! by Frenzied+Apathy · 2011-12-29 02:43 · Score: 4, Insightful

As a web developer, I've worked on a couple of projects hosted at GoDaddy, and I can't stand anything about them - control panel overly confusing, unhelpful help section, horrible tech support, even their marketing (how can anyone take a web hosting company seriously that uses some hot chick to sell their business?). Every chance they get they throw some marketing pitch at you to get you to add on to your services.

They've had plenty of bad press over the year, too: The GoDaddy Saga Continues, GoDaddy Loses over 21000 Domains in One Day, GoDaddy Reverses Course on SOPA, GoDaddy VP Caught Bidding Against Customers.

Every new client I get I recommend they not use GoDaddy - if they insist, I tell them to find another developer...

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The cake is a lie.

Re:Good riddance GoDaddy! I can't stand 'em! by tsdw · 2011-12-29 07:20 · Score: 1

Idiot . Tmobile uses hot chick beer commercials, if name cheap were big enough so would they. Sex sells. You are just trying to find an excuse. Pretty poor choice

Re:Who dumped whom? by Anonymous Coward · 2011-12-29 03:13 · Score: 1

I think it's a standardized size dish for Americans.

Re:Will GoDaddy refund registrations paid in advan by greed · 2011-12-29 03:38 · Score: 1

The current expiry is listed in the WHOIS data for a zone. There should be a set of 3 dates: created, updated, and expires.

As for downtime and bouncing: you need to have your new nameservice in operation before the registration is changed. If you are not using GoDaddy, then this is easy, your nameservice doesn't need to change at all.

Otherwise, you should be able to set up the zone data at the new provider before the registration is transferred to it. Even if you do it in a single transaction, the registration transfer will usually take longer than it takes to populate the new nameserver with your data. (The former requires communication with GoDaddy and the global root servers, the latter is done entirely on the provider's equipment.)

Re:Will GoDaddy refund registrations paid in advan by gweihir · 2011-12-29 03:42 · Score: 1

If you transfer, your money is gone. If NameCheap credits you anything, they do it of their own free will, not because they have to.

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Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.

SLASHDOT YOU MORONS by Weezul · 2011-12-29 03:45 · Score: 4, Interesting

Could you PLEASE STOP saying that GoDaddy recanted its support for SOPA!

GoDaddy has NOT withdrawn its official congressional support for SOPA

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The Christian religion has been and still is the principal enemy of moral progress in the world. -- Bertrand Russell

Host Gator has been good for me by lytithwyn · 2011-12-29 03:57 · Score: 1

Not long ago I moved all my stuff from GoDaddy just because of how sleezy they'd gotten. Sleezy as in "check out our internet only ads that are too 'hot' for tv" being plastered all over their home page, etc. That plus the fact that you couldn't navigate their account/hosting controls even if you had a tour guide. I eventually decided on HostGator due to price per options, and I've been happy. You might give them a look. Their support people were always able to intelligently answer any technical questions as well (e.g., Why are you still stuck on Rails 2?). YMMV. Just my 2 cents worth.

Re:Free market works by Zaphod+The+42nd · 2011-12-29 04:03 · Score: 1

No, we just need to regulate government and SOPA away...

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Re:Who dumped whom? by domatic · 2011-12-29 04:12 · Score: 1

McDonalds switched from beef tallow to vegetable oil in the early nineties. They still use a beef flavoring in the oil to more less have the fries taste the same.

Re:This is all bull**** by Myopic · 2011-12-29 04:16 · Score: 1

What I don't understand is what was the business case in favor of SOPA from GD's perspective?

Re:Will GoDaddy refund registrations paid in advan by dlgeek · 2011-12-29 04:23 · Score: 2

Wrong. All transfers extend expiration per ICANN rules. You never lose time on a transfer.

My domains by ravenswood1000 · 2011-12-29 04:23 · Score: 1

I'll be transferring my 20 domains out of GoDaddy. I don't want anything to do with people that support something as dangerous as SOPA. What really bothers me is the millions of dollars tax payers are spending on this worthless bill. And only a very select few will benefit by it while the rest of us suffer. Fuck you RIAA/MPAA!

Re:Will GoDaddy refund registrations paid in advan by blahbooboo · 2011-12-29 04:24 · Score: 1

I just the transfer request. Namecheap said they will credit the time left for my registration and gave me a year extra for $5.

Re:Will GoDaddy refund registrations paid in advan by dlgeek · 2011-12-29 04:27 · Score: 1

That's how all transfers work - the transfer fee is the extension cost for the next year.

ICANN "Policy on Transfer of Registrations between Registrars"

8. Effect on Term of Registration
The completion by Registry Operator of a holder-authorized transfer under this Part A shall result in a one-year extension of the existing registration, provided that in no event shall the total unexpired term of a registration exceed ten (10) years.

Re:Exactly by Bengie · 2011-12-29 04:38 · Score: 1

"Money that he would have enjoyed spending on all sorts of unnecessary stuff, but creating jobs in the process"

The money comes from some where. If he makes $2mil, that's $2mil other people don't have, which reduces jobs. Actually, what causes job loss is money NOT being spent. Who do you think is going to spend more and faster, 1 Person with $2mil or 400,000 people with $5 in their pocket?

People hording money is bad for the economy. Anyway, it's unethical to make that much money by restricting access to culture. Ethics dictates that he be fairly compensated for his work AND the public have access to their own culture. Copyright is NOT about making people money, but providing an incentive to create culture.

incentive != lots of money
incentive = fair compensation

Re:Benefits for Go Daddy by madmark1 · 2011-12-29 05:13 · Score: 1

Actually no, it will not mean 'more work for them, and cut into their bottom line' since one of the provisions they helped write into the law makes them exempt from it.

What is the benefit to them? Domains seized by the government go to them by default, which they then auction off or get paid for renewals for, not to mention getting paid by the government for taking care of the 'costs' of the seizure in the first place. Their support (in fact, their active participation in the crafting) of this bill is completely self-serving and has little or nothing to do with stopping piracy or anything else other than increasing their profit.

Are all corporations evil? No. Why are they demonized, as you put it? Because they are completely amoral. A corporation can be neither good nor evil. They are artificial creations with no morality, and no goal, except to maximize shareholder value. If that means doing things that actual humans think is evil, then they will. If that means doing something actual humans think is good, they will. The amoral reality of corporate 'personhood' is the reason they are demonized. Its the reason Ford can know they have a problem with vehicles rolling over, know it may relate to the tires, or their own designs, know that people are dying, but make the conscious decision not to do anything about it, because paying out lawsuits later would be *cheaper than a recall*.

Also, what you fail to note about what happened during this economy was the fact that the very same people making those sub-prime loans were packaging them into bundles, lying about the risk involved in those bundles, then selling shares of those bundles to others. In many cases (Goldman Sachs did this) they were at the same time buying insurance against those bundles, and/or short-selling them, because they knew they were going to fail. Making it sound like the poor banks just made some bad calls belittles their active participation in bringing us to that point in the first place.

Re:How long for whois info to update? by _0xd0ad · 2011-12-29 05:14 · Score: 1

Should take about 6 days for the entire internet to catch up - according to this site its TTL is 6 days.

Renew your domains 1st if they expire soon. by Esion+Modnar · 2011-12-29 05:31 · Score: 1

I just got through transferring my domains from GoDaddy (about 12 of them), and I was told by GoDaddy customer service that I should renew any domains that expire soon. I have 6 expiring tomorrow and the transfer takes up to 5 days. Unfortunately, I had to pay GoDaddy more money to do this, of course, but it is the last money they will see from me.

--

They say the first thing to go is your penis. Well, it's either that or your brain. I forget which...

whois still says voxel.net (godaddy) for me by jcarr · 2011-12-29 05:40 · Score: 1

They didn't just transfer to one of the godaddy resellers did they? voxel.net is just a godaddy reseller. I'll assume the best and the records just didn't update yet.

Whois Server Version 2.0

Domain Name: IMGUR.COM
Registrar: GODADDY.COM, INC.
Whois Server: whois.godaddy.com
Referral URL: http://registrar.godaddy.com/
Name Server: NS.VOXEL.NET
Name Server: NS2.VOXEL.NET
Name Server: NS3.VOXEL.NET
Status: ok
Updated Date: 28-dec-2011
Creation Date: 09-jan-2009
Expiration Date: 09-jan-2015

Re:whois still says voxel.net (godaddy) for me by lothos · 2011-12-29 14:51 · Score: 1

Voxel appears to be a hosting company. I'm still seeing whois results showing Godaddy as the registrar, though. It may be in the transfer proces.

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Hosting and Domain name coupons

Re:How long for whois info to update? by _0xd0ad · 2011-12-29 05:49 · Score: 1

Whoops, that's for i.imgur.com - the imgur.com TTL appears to be only 2 days.

I am a GoDaddy customer by MoronGames · 2011-12-29 06:05 · Score: 1

I use GoDaddy for cheap hosting and domain name registration. Which inexpensive provider should I switch to for a similar set of CONVENIENT services that actually cares about my rights?

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hey!

Re:I am a GoDaddy customer by Osgeld · 2011-12-29 09:41 · Score: 1

hostgator

Ditched GoDaddy a while ago by billcopc · 2011-12-29 07:01 · Score: 1

I ditched GoDaddy a while ago, must be 2-3 years now, so the boycott is a non-issue for me. Funny thing is, I can't quite remember why I switched in the first place. Could be pricing, could be that I was tierd of clicking through 5 pages of upsells just to buy a domain, could be their "holier than thou" attitude of preemptively seizing domains they don't like... Either way, GoDaddy was never a reputable company to begin with. I mean, really, Danica Patrick as their mascot ? She's only famous for not looking like a man.

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-Billco, Fnarg.com

Re:Will GoDaddy refund registrations paid in advan by blahbooboo · 2011-12-29 07:54 · Score: 1

Ok, so it didn't cost me anything. Great. I was willing to move it as I hate Godaddy but I had paid in advance and didn't want to lose that

Re:Exactly by geminidomino · 2011-12-29 08:02 · Score: 1

even for the pirates that are too dumb to realize it.

Oh, I'm sure some of them realize it. They just also realize that enforcing copyright is a win-lose situation, with them on the exact same side of the hyphen. Not exactly a great incentive to play by the (made-to-order) rules.

One thing for certain... by Roachie · 2011-12-29 08:55 · Score: 1

Im fucking sick of hearing about GoDaddy.

Any of you policy-minded assholes cancelled your basic cable? ( ESPN supports SOPA ).
No more comics or comic book movies for you ( Marvell Entertainment )
No more football for youse sports fan neckbeards! ( NFL )

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This sig is not paradoxical or ironic.

Re:This is all bull**** by tsdw · 2011-12-29 09:29 · Score: 1

Man get your facts straight. Godaddy did not craft anything, they made solicited suggestions. The exemption you are so hysterical about is one that would apply to all registrars so that their other customers arnt affected should one customer violate the law. Finally the only reason godaddy was asked to help advise is because of their impact in the industry.

Re:This is all bull**** by tsdw · 2011-12-29 09:33 · Score: 1

Godaddy has always worked toward a better regulated internet with protections. Clearly something like sopa is needed so godaddy was doing what its always done. Work toward a better internet.

Re:This is all bull**** by Myopic · 2011-12-29 09:45 · Score: 1

That's a circular argument. ("They work for it because it is better, and it is better, which is why they work for it.") Do you have any other reasons?

Re:This is all bull**** by Seumas · 2011-12-29 10:46 · Score: 1

Godaddy did not craft anything, they made solicited suggestions.

Right. So they helped craft it. Like I said.

Re:This is all bull**** by Seumas · 2011-12-29 10:49 · Score: 1

Godaddy has always worked toward a better regulated internet with protections.

. . . . . no . . . . .

Why we dumped GoDaddy: Good PR by aztektum · 2011-12-29 11:10 · Score: 1

GoDaddy has a history of being shifty. They shouldn't have used them in the first place. They're riding the anti-GoDaddy sentiment for PR reasons.

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:: aztek ::
No sig for you!!

Re:Who dumped whom? by Grishnakh · 2011-12-29 14:00 · Score: 1

The only person? Don't be ridiculous. The only person on Slashdot? Quite possibly. Especially after that last article a day or two ago.

Re:Exactly by Grishnakh · 2011-12-29 14:12 · Score: 1

Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater. Copyright is a good thing, in limited quantities, for helping to create an incentive for people to create intellectual works. By allowing people to profit off these works, they don't have to have a day job, and can produce more.

The problem with copyright is the perpetual extensions. Cut it back down to 14 years, and everything will be good. For software, it should probably be cut down to 5 years.

Re:Will GoDaddy refund registrations paid in advan by gweihir · 2011-12-30 00:45 · Score: 1

Good to know. I think I will start to transfer my domains as well.

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Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.

Re:Will GoDaddy refund registrations paid in advan by gweihir · 2011-12-30 00:59 · Score: 1

Sorry for the misinformation....

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Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.

Slashdot Mirror

Imgur.com: Why We Dumped GoDaddy

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