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Wikipedia Hasn't Forgiven GoDaddy
netbuzz writes "The fact that a month and a half has gone by and Wikipedia still hasn't followed through on Jimmy Wales public threat to remove its domain name registrations from GoDaddy over the latter's early support of SOPA has some concerned that the online encyclopedia may have had a change of heart. After all, GoDaddy did withdraw its backing of the controversial antipiracy legislation, at least publicly. But fear not, SOPA foes, as Wikipedia says its days with GoDaddy are indeed numbered and that number is getting very small."
As far as I'm aware, Wikipedia does not depend on GoDaddy for anything other than domain registrar services. They don't use them for DNS. They don't use them for hosting of any kind. So actually, yes, they literally can switch to another registrar on the turn of a dime. I've seen it done with corporate sites fielding millions of page views a month, and downtime should be precisely zero. Nothing changes aside from the registrar name in the whois info.
I believe when we were having this discussion namecheap was the consensus.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
I called up hover.com. Spoke with someone on the phone, gave her my godaddy login info. She did all of the work for me. I'm done with godaddy, and I can't think that there is any possible way it could have been easier.
San Francisco Photographers
And this costs GoDaddy what, $2.95? It's just domain registration. Wikipedia isn't hosted by GoDaddy.
There's a hierarchy of registrars. At the top is MarkMonitor, which registers domains like "ford.com". If you have to ask how much their registration costs, you can't afford it. This is where you register a "must stay up" domain. If anything goes wrong with a MarkMonitor registration, alarms go off and teams of DNS admins and lawyers swing into action.
Network Solutions is a reasonable registrar for corporate domains. They have "amazon.com", for example. If something goes wrong, you can usually get them ont he phone and get them to do something.
Much further down is GoDaddy. But they're not the bottom. Below GoDaddy are the bulk registrars, like Enom. That's where you register junk domains for link farms, domaining, and other dubious activities. At the bottom are the registrars in the ICANN list that don't even have valid contact information. It's not clear what they're doing, but it's probably not good.
Have you ever tried to switch from GoDaddy? I'm sure they're just having difficultly figuring out HOW to unregister from GoDaddy. It took me about 5 tries over the course of three months and I only had one domain to deal with.
-- QED
Don't forget The GoDaddy CEO shoots elephants in Africa for fun too.. Nice guy.
It's still not political and I am delusional, ignorant, or refusing to accept reality.
Political, in the contemporary sense, and in this context, means that it is an argument about laws, regulations, policy, or a school of thought on how society should be administered to the benefit of the society. There can two or more sides to the argument, but what they all have in common is at least the pretense that it is beneficial towards society and serves to protect it.
I deny SOPA that status. While politicians may be involved in it, there is no valid discussion, no valid arguments, and no valid sides supporting SOPA. That is why it is not political. It is entirely one-sided. No other argument in government can claim such distinction. Not FISA, not the Patriot Act, not Abortion, not Gay Marriage, etc. Every single one them has some sort of basis to support it. Some sort of rationale in which the American Way of Life (tm) is protected and allowed to flourish, even if I may disagree with it.
SOPA is pure corruption and abuse in its most distilled form. It is the most direct assault on intelligence, liberty, and common sense that I have been witness to in my entire life.
I don't know of any stronger terms that I can state just how evil SOPA *is*. For me to acknowledge it as political means that it there is some sort of public interest served in the debate. I just can't see that or say it.