It’s been a rough holiday for GoDaddy. First the domain registrars were outed for supporting that vile SOPA bill. Then, after an online uprising, they said they no longer supported it, but weren’t quite against it. But as of yesterday, GoDaddy has finally, officially declared its full opposition to the internet-killing legislation.
About time.
According to PCWorld, GoDaddy CEO Warren Adelman issued an apology Thursday night that emphasised his company’s new position opposing the SOPA bill. And promised to repair relationships with its clients — at least those who haven’t already switched registrars.
We have observed a spike in domain name transfers, which are running above normal rates and which we attribute to GoDaddy’s prior support for SOPA, which was reversed… Go Daddy opposes SOPA because the legislation has not fulfilled its basic requirement to build a consensus among stake-holders in the technology and internet communities…
The change of heart was most certainly inspired by the online backlash that included the declaration of >December 29 as being the official “Leave GoDaddy Day”. And while many of the company’s clients have indeed left over GoDaddy’s prior support of the bill, the actual numbers don’t seem so devastating.
According to TechDirt, yesterday GoDaddy actually ended up with 20,748 more domains at the end of the day on Thursday, with the number of transfers to the domain host doubling the number of transfers out. Which makes sense; there wasn’t much need by then for the planned December 29 boycott, as GoDaddy had already (somewhat) relented. And presumably, the modest exodus of clients was still enough to convince GoDaddy that just withdrawing support for SOPA wasn’t enough.
So! That’s one SOPA supporter down. On to the rest of them. [PCWorld]