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GoDaddy supports SOPA, redditor proposes "Move your Domain Day"
- emehrkay 15y agoI have a few go daddy domains. Where should I move my .it domains to?
- sunchild 15y agoNamecheap, if you can.
- justincormack 15y agoEuroperegistry is where I have my .eu, they also do .it
- jeltz 15y agoWe recently moved most of our domains from GoDaddy and various other registrars to Safenames. And vased on reading their list of support TLDs they do support .it. What I like about Safenames is the simplicity of their user interface, not the huge number of clicks required by many of the other registrars. Simple text areas where you just can paste the list of domains or a DNS zome file for example.
- bronson 15y agoThere's no need to move all your domains today (that can be a HUGE job). Just pledge to not give GoDaddy another cent and move your domains as they expire. In five years, problem solved.
- libraryatnight 15y agoThis what I'll likely end up doing, I only have, maybe, 60-70 names but that's a lot of money (for me) to move them all at once.
- bronson 15y agoIt works great. And it's a nice feeling every time you receive a GoDaddy email complaining that they were unable to charge your credit card. ONLY 60-70??? Can you just abandon 2/3 of them...?
- libraryatnight 15y agohaha, I think you're right, I could probably prune a bit. Domains can get addicting, but probably 15 to 20 are not related to anything but late night ideas. :)
- lambda 15y agoWhy is anyone who pays any attention still on GoDaddy anyhow? They're a scummy company that have no respect for their customers, obnoxious advertising, and a clunky, annoying web interface. Why would you use them when you could use any of hundreds of other name registrars and web hosts?
- citricsquid 15y agoTo put it frankly, godaddy don't give a shit. Their domain business exists as a way to get people into their other products, hosting, whois privacy etc. the ones that actually make money (nobody makes money on domains nowadays, savvy customers use coupons which godaddy provides a lot of). This won't do anything to Godaddy as a business, they'll be losing customers they don't care about -- unless people shutting off their other services too -- but if it makes people feel good then yay! This would be like walmart losing customers who do extreme couponing and only buy the products that serve as loss leaders. You could go as far as suggesting these people are helping godaddy. If you take away 120 domains (as one redditor is doing) that godaddy are losing money on and you're only using them because they're cheap... that's a win for godaddy surely, unless the scale at which people do this makes a dent in godaddy's total customer/domain figures, which are a marketing point, but that would require millions to leave.
- ohashi 15y agoEven with their extreme coupon usage, from what I can tell they are still not using them as loss leaders (if we ignore all costs besides registry/icann). You also neglect to see the effect of thousands or tens of thousands of savvy people actively changing their mind about a company and NOT recommending it to people or bad mouthing the company. My suspicion is, the kind of people reading HN/Reddit are also the type of people that get asked 'computery' stuff quite a bit. I know from personal experience I've probably influenced ~30-50 people's registrar choice this year. Even if it were 1-2 as the average number, the knock on effects could potentially put a nice dent in them.
- maeon3 15y agoIve been using bluehost.com for 3 years to host 3 websites. I could list them but I dont want to spam. They have everything I need and I have seen no significant outages or price increases. Anyone here use Godaddy? How are their prices and service?
- duiker101 15y agoi use it for 2 domains, just because it was the cheapest at the time i bought the first domain, and since i had no problem i kept using it.
- libraryatnight 15y agoI don't use any of their services except domain registration, I keep my WHOIS up to date, and keep my names regularly renewed, to avoid any mishaps, I have never had an issue. I have used their hosting in the past, and I wouldn't recommend it to a professional, but would to someone who wants to post pictures of their cats, or run a low traffic personal wordpress blog.
- realschool 15y agoive used them for 6 years, never had a problem. vps for 2 years was comparably cheap however if you have config problems you pay out the wazoo OR figure it out yourself. The two times I was desperate enough to need to call support I figure out the problem myself while waiting on hold/waiting for a reply.
- gravitronic 15y agoalternate: use godaddy, but only their loss-leading coupons when they appear. For example, I registered a domain last week using a code that got me $1.00 domain registration. The code expired last week unfortunately so posting it would be irrelevant.
- libraryatnight 15y agoI always do a coupon search, or just take the code from whatever their lowest Google ad price is. Just google "domains" they're always the first ad for me, and it's usually 4.99, 5.99, or 7.99 at the absolute most. (For .coms)
- shimon_e 15y agoOr if you follow a deal website, you'll be notified when they are running a $1.18 coupon.
- jonursenbach 15y agoWhy even support them at all?
- neutronicus 15y agoS/he's saying you should only buy things on which you're pretty sure they're losing money, so that you're actively hurting them by buying them. It's like buying a PS3 and never buying any games - I suspect people buying PS3's by the truckload to use as Linux clusters is what made Sony pull the Linux support.
- thebigshane 15y agoThe purpose of loss-leading products/services is to get consumers to purchase other things and that is where they make a profit. If a large enough group only purchases loss-leading products/services and don't purchase anything else, GoDaddy should be at a loss.... until they change their pricing models, and then you can just boycott them all together.
- krogsgard 15y agoI don't like GoDaddy any more than most others here, I'm sure. And I certainly hate the idea of SOPA. But don't a lot of big companies support it? In a quick Google search, I found this post referencing support by the Business Software Alliance, which includes Microsoft, Apple, and many others: http://thenextweb.com/insider/2011/11/17/which-tech-companies-back-sopa-microsoft-apple-and-27-others/ http://thenextweb.com/insider/2011/11/17/which-tech-companie...
- hamedh 15y agoyea but GoDaddy being a domain registrar and hosting DNS for many domains already is a bit more scary in this case
- cdr 15y agoThe BSA backed off SOPA support several weeks ago - the linked piece is from more than a month ago. Its initial support did lead to a couple of firms quitting the BSA though, notably Kaspersky. http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2011/11/even-the-business-software-alliance-now-backpedaling-on-sopa-support.ars http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2011/11/even-the-bus...
- jeffem 15y agoI was just going to ask the same. I've been thinking about moving away from GoDaddy for a while and this would be just another reason among many. I take it on a case by case basis whether I do business with a company, and I'll continue to do so with many that support SOPA (explicitly or implicitly) as much as I'm opposed to the bill. There's that expression, "Don't hate the player, hate the game". In the same way that I'm not a fan of a basketball player flopping to draw a foul, I'm not a fan of a company supporting this bill. I totally understand why they do it, but it's not in the spirit of the game IMO. The bigger problem is the way the game itself is set up. Most people think it's a good idea to hand over their power to a small group of people who get to make decisions for everyone. Businesses see this and figure out that they can realize the benefits of the larger group while only incurring the costs of catering to the smaller group.
- deleted 15y ago[deleted]
- l0c0b0x 15y agoYet another reason to move away from GoDaddy. They're making it way too easy now!
- freejack 15y agoThis blog post from their lead lobbyist defending their support is absolutely grating. http://rudysyndrome.com/2011/10/28/online-copyright-laws-wont-prevent-a-flourishing-internet.aspx http://rudysyndrome.com/2011/10/28/online-copyright-laws-won... "Most of what we are seeing is either 1) rhetoric, 2) regurgitated lobbying spin, 3) criticism of language we have already fixed, or 4) retweets by people who like to steal music and buy fake, but cheap, goods." Ugh. (oBDisclaimer: I work for a registrar that unequivocally supports the Open Internet."
- maximusprime 15y agoWhat does "Open Internet" mean though? You can't reasonably support free speech in all instances, just like you can't reasonably support an "open internet" in all instances. There have to be some exceptions. It's the listing of those exceptions and how you deal with them that's the tricky bit. So saying "I support an open internet" is just ignoring the issue.
- revscat 15y agoMy list of what should be legally restricted in its availability is as follows: 1) Child pornography End list. National security is not enough of a reason for restrictions. Copyright is not enough of a reason. Further, the assumption that corporations or governments have exclusive moral authority to determine what constitutes impermissible material is, frankly, ridiculous. Giving them the authority to make such decisions is destructive, to both freedom and economy.
- maximusprime 15y agoI would personally add 2) Websites that are known for mallware, phishing, or otherwise going to mess you up. As I said I don't know if SOPA is good/bad, but my point was that "I support an Open Internet" is a bit of a cop out.
- X-Istence 15y agoEven those websites should be allowed. Should we provide counter measures to help the user decide of a website is legitimate or not, absolutely, but their right to exist shouldn't be tampered with.
- RexRollman 15y agoGodaddy has to be one of the least trustworthy domain registrars I have heard of and I am surprised that people still use them. I guess their crass commercials must be drawing in the customers.
- atourgates 15y agoWhen was the last time you saw a commercial during a football game for any other registrar? Unless I've missed something, the answer's never. So, when Joe Public wants to register a domain, he only knows about one way to do it. Seems like a pretty effective marketing strategy to me.
- jsolson 15y agoI've registered a few domains through Google Apps. At least the last time I did this GoDaddy was one of the places you might get randomly bounced to. It may have become the only place.
- moocow01 15y agoI would expect that SOPA on the whole would discourage domain registration and the general development of web properties amongst the masses so I'm a bit surprised GoDaddy supports it just from a business perspective. Anyone care to enlighten me about what I'm missing here?
- notahacker 15y agoAs I understand it SOPA results in a shift of the burden for policing content from registrars and hosts towards government bodies and the administrators of the DNS system. Alternatively-framed bills introduced in the name of combating piracy could have much more damaging implications for Godaddy.
- OoTheNigerian 15y agoI was just wondering... What if there is an unseen rational that trumps everything smart people have against SOPA? Would it be possible to get a SOPA proponent to argue their position? At least those against it have itemized their reasons why. They could easily do a point by point argument. PS: I am against SOPA.
- maximusprime 15y agoPlease can we at least try to ensure HN doesn't go the way of Reddit? I'm against SOPA as much as the next guy, but it's a moot issue. Browsers will just release new versions that use alternate DNS systems or get past any 'blocks'. There's nothing uglier than an internet hate/protest mob.
- jbrechtel 15y agoIt sounds like you're suggesting apathy instead? To say it's a moot issue because there are technical work arounds is pretty naive. I seriously doubt any major browser would ship with a work around to this...I don't know why you assume they would.
- maximusprime 15y agoI just think the sky isn't falling that's all. I think the endless posting of articles, protesting, etc etc is a big waste of man hours.
- jinushaun 15y agoWhether or not the sky falls when SOPA is passed is moot. The hope is that the louder we are, the better chance SOPA has of failing to pass.
- InclinedPlane 15y agoThis sentiment is exactly the root of the problem. If "the sky started falling" at exactly the moment when governments erected police states or attained excessive powers then they would be blocked from having those powers. Instead, these things tend to be two stage processes. In stage 1 the government attains new powers in order to further some generally positive goal. However, in stage 2 the lack of safeguards on that power leads to abuse and excess but by then it's already too late to easily roll back or block that power. If we wait until the sky is falling then we will have waited too long. We need to ensure that personal liberties have strong protections, both offline and on. Failing to do so won't lead to immediate disaster but it will lead to making it nearly impossible to stop a disaster as it's happening.
- bad_user 15y agoOn one cheap Linode VPS instance I already have 5 websites hosted, plus a personal email server, plus several private git repositories, all for ~ $20 per month. I get my domains from other services, like namecheap.com; and good/cheap hosting for PHP stuff (and even Rails) can be found on DreamHost.com. There really isn't any reason for anybody to use GoDaddy anymore, unless you're hunting for their coupons, but in this instance you really get what you pay for.
- libraryatnight 15y agoRight now I'm hosting with Chunkhost, it was their free beta period that got me off the crummy shared account I was on with GD. I could never go back, now.
- evandena 15y agoAnd more often than not the coupons are good for the first year only, and transferring after that year (for me anyways) is a bigger PITA than the coupon savings offered.
- georgieporgie 15y agoI've heard that GoDaddy is good if you want Windows-based hosting. (personally, I use DreamHost and love them)
- sixQuarks 15y agoI've been preaching about the evils of GoDaddy for many years now. The founder is a war-mongering, ultra right-wing POS.
- dmerfield 15y agoSerious question: Has anyone in the HN community actually bought anything from GoDaddy? I find it difficult to imagine that any HN reader would. Was there ever an era when GoDaddy's reputation and service were respectable?
- cdr 15y agoFor years, yes - years ago they were cheaper than anyone else and no worse than anyone else. It wasn't until last summer, I think, that I finally moved the last domain off of GoDaddy. If you find one of the not-infrequent "Which registrar do you use?" posts, even on HN a lot of people still use them.
- jinushaun 15y agoYou're forgetting the people and companies that bought domains back in the early 2000s who now have dozens or hundreds of domains on GoDaddy. People stay because it's easier than transferring. A lot of people still use them even for new domains because they're still the cheapest game in town.
- absconditus 15y agoYou are giving the HN users too much credit.
- sunchild 15y agoWhile I would never use them for domains, I did buy a $12 SSL cert back when everyone else was charging hundreds of dollars for the same thing. Before someone points me to a free SSL service, this was for an enterprise class application that was more about security theater than actual security. I was able to get away with GoDaddy instead of Verisign, etc. because my client used GoDaddy for their domains – go figure.
- realschool 15y agoI signed up with GoDaddy 6 years ago and have been using them since, stuck with them because it was easy but I want to move my stuff to Canada cause I know its safer here.
- devmach 15y ago
- iamdave 15y agoMove your Domain Day? Something tells me the affiliates are about to have a very wonderful christmas.
- tuananh 15y agoHover offers promo code for transferring too. 10% off http://twitter.com/#!/hover/status/149887742778683392 http://twitter.com/#!/hover/status/149887742778683392
- seles 15y agoI have been using GoDaddy for years. I'm just using it for a simple webpage+domain hosting and email. It works but I'm probably being overcharged since I don't bother with coupons. I have always been annoyed about the privacy complaints I've seen about them, but never cared enough to switch. Now I do care enough to switch, thanks.
- ubuntuftw 15y ago"I have always been annoyed about the privacy complaints I've seen about them, but never cared enough to switch. Now I do care enough to switch, thanks." +1. GoDaddy, you lost a customer today.
- jberryman 15y agoLots of people probably have recommendations, but I've been using nearlyfreespeech.net for a couple of years for hosting my personal site. They're great.
- hobbes 15y agoThey will be great when they finally allow their users to run cron jobs. https://www.nearlyfreespeech.net/about/faq?&keywords=cron&form=1#WontGo https://www.nearlyfreespeech.net/about/faq?&keywords=cro...
- pardner 15y agoIf you decide to move your domains from Godaddy, and if your DNS is hosted there too, and if you have enough DNS records to not want to recreate them, there's an undocumented way to export the nameserver records from Godaddy to another DNS provider such as Zerigo. In a nutshell (1) upgrade to Godaddy Premium DNS ($35 but refundable within 5 days) (2) Export each domain's DNS settings (3) Cancel Godaddy Premium DNS. Now you can quickly import your DNS settings at your new registrar or DNS host if they handle importing of bind files. Not everyone imports nicely, but Zerigo worked for me. Details here http://pardner.com/2011/11/how-to-switch-dns-painlessly-from-godaddy-to-zerigo/ http://pardner.com/2011/11/how-to-switch-dns-painlessly-from...
- wes-exp 15y agoAny recommendations on alternative services?
- X-Istence 15y agoI moved my personal 25+ domains away from GoDaddy to name.com and gandi.net. Best move I have ever done. I don't get shitty advertisements emailed to me anymore, I don't have to jump through hundreds of hoops to purchase renewals where I get bombarded with advertisements for various other services. And name.com is a small company here in Colorado, so I am supporting local while I am at it.
- unreal37 15y agoI still find this funny. I used to work for a web incubator called NAME (and had the name.com domain) in 1999-2000 before they went out of business in the .com bust. I always thought they had a great domain name. Not surprised it was snapped up by a registrar.
- lincolnwebs 15y agoI already moved all my domains after their CEO's elephant hunting earlier this year. That company is a pit of depravity.
- nextparadigms 15y agoI think going after the supporters of SOPA one by one is a pretty effective method, if enough time. First let's go after the representatives who support it, and then after all the companies, and either terminate your account with them if applicable or at least e-mail them to express your feelings about them supporting SOPA.
- sp332 15y agoGoing after a few and making public examples of them might be effective faster than trying to take them down one-by-one.
- deleted 15y ago[deleted]
- flatline 15y agoI know, there is already an entire site for discussing reddit posts, it's called reddit. Why not just repost the source article here? I don't think that a bunch of redditors moving their domain names is particularly newsworthy, but the Godaddy issue is.
- spenvo 15y agoFor those interested in switching, Dreamhost offers an affiliate program, and I have created a discount code with the maximum discount of 5 free domain registrations (a 75$ value). Simply use the discount code REDDIT5FREE when joining! "SCREW GODADDY" is on a loop in my head right now.
- rockLAWbster 15y agoOnline piracy needs to be regulated. Maybe SOPA is a little stiff. But, I agree with The benefits of SOPA listed on Quora- "It will allow user generated content websites to keep exclusives, and not have other people illegally upload content that was shared on their website without the uploader's knowledge, onto other ones, instead of embedding it as they should do."
- danso 15y agoI try to avoid helping anyone who needs help with their GoDaddy-hosted website. Not only is the interface atrocious (at least compared to DreamHost), I hate logging in and seeing Dana Patrick splayed out...if I want people around me thinking that I'm browsing Maxim magazine, I'll buy a Maxim magazine.
- frabcus 15y agoThis doesn't feel aggressive enough. How about blocking any domain registered with GoDaddy from a certain date? Do it on DNS servers Hacker News techies control. Extreme I know, but less extreme than what SOPA will do!
- pg 15y agoEven if domains are just a loss leader for GoDaddy, they surely look at their numbers, so this is a way to send them a message they'll hear. Maybe it will work, maybe it won't, but no one who still has a domain at GoDaddy will be entitled to complain about SOPA if it passes.
- solipsist 15y agoWhile I understand your sentiments towards SOPA, are you really going to distance yourself from all of these companies? http://judiciary.house.gov/issues/Rouge%20Websites/SOPA%20Supporters.pdf http://judiciary.house.gov/issues/Rouge%20Websites/SOPA%20Su...
- shmerl 15y agoIt's good to be distanced from this kind of crowd ;)
- solipsist 15y agoYes, but I was rather inquiring about whether it was even possible to do so. That list is huge and most likely growing. One of the companies on the list is McGraw-Hill Education. I have to use their products at my school - how do I get around that?
- phaus 15y agoIt doesn't really matter which textbook manufacturer you get your books from. They are all morally bankrupt institutions. The entire textbook industry is a scam. I love how you can pick nearly any topic in almost any subject(especially computer science) and find an amazing book for free, or for about $60, yet every textbook my school uses gets < 2 stars on amazon and costs $150. My "favorite" was a biology book written by a guy with a B.S. in journalism. He published the book years ago and every year he releases a new edition with the chapters out of order.
- praptak 15y ago> I have to use their products at my school - how do I get around that? Be a proud pirate.
- noomerikal 15y agoI wish I could participate but I moved my domains to namecheap and pledged not to use gd when Parsons went on that elephant hunt.
- kevinburke 15y agoJust trasferred all of my domains out of Godaddy a few days ago into Namecheap. The timing couldn't have been better.
- richtaur 15y agoHere's a helpful article I used to move my domains off of GoDaddy: http://www.namecheap.com/support/knowledgebase/article.aspx/876/83/how-to-transfer-a-domain-from-godaddy http://www.namecheap.com/support/knowledgebase/article.aspx/...
- mrcalzone 15y agoI've been thinking of moving away from GoDaddy for a long time, and this was the last drop. It is crazy how they design the webpages to make it as hard as possible to cancel anything. In the email I got, there were two (identical) links telling me how I could cancel the transfer-request, but no link to accept it. It took me a couple of minutes of poking around in my account before I figured it out.
- mindprince 15y agoDoesn't Google have a partnership with GoDaddy for registering Google Apps domains? Conflict of interests?
- aacook 15y agoI just transferred 9 domains from GoDaddy to Namecheap. I transferred about 15 a while back after the whole elephant hunting incident. fyi: when you transfer a domain, you're actually getting an entire year renewal + the existing time left on the domain. Using one of the coupon codes from Namecheap ("XMASJOY" or "SOPASucks" or "BYEBYEGD"), it's around $5 on average per domain... less than it is to renew at GoDaddy. Go do it! Takes only a couple clicks.
- zbuc 15y agoI sent an email: Hello, I am writing to you to inform you that because of GoDaddy's continued support of SOPA I am transferring my domains to a different registrar as soon as I can(they were renewed recently so I have to wait). I read your press release today and I felt that you didn't actually respond to a bulk of the criticism of SOPA, that is that takedown requests can be filed by private parties and the respondent is legally required to remove the content before even considering challenging the takedown request. This obviously presents a large challenge to sites based on user-created content. A world with SOPA is one in which businesses can't run websites with user-generated content without having a legal team on hand. SOPA is bad for the open internet and if GoDaddy refuses to look into the issue and actually give a reasoned, intelligent response(as opposed to the "well, we have to stop piracy!" argument your press release made -- yes, something should be done about piracy but SOPA is NOT the answer) then GoDaddy, too, must be considered bad for the open internet and I will stop hosting my domains with you and stop recommending my clients host domains with you. Thanks, <me>
- clark-kent 15y agoGoDaddy always rubbed me the wrong way. Their support of SOPA is about the 50th reason to stay away of GoDaddy.
- plasma 15y agoI've transferred about 10 domains from GoDaddy now, thanks for the step-by-step guide.
- kenamarit 15y agoEmbarrassed to still be on Godaddy when I vowed to move away a few years ago. And timing is unfortunate. I just paid them lots of $$ to renew everything. Still, biting the bullet and (finally) transferring everything over now.
- tyrelb 15y agoTransferring my domains to https://dnsimple.com/ https://dnsimple.com/ :) A little more expensive than the cheap registrars... but Anthony who runs the company is amazing! Shameless plug: he did some development work from the back in the day, and is one of the best RoR programmers in the world!
- intenex 15y agoAnd let's not forget: GoDaddy is evil to begin with. You're not just fighting SOPA, you're fighting the very forces of evil themselves.
- MattBearman 15y agoI thought it would be interesting to see how many domains are moved away because of this, so I just knocked together this quick site - http://stopsopa.mattbearman.co.uk/ http://stopsopa.mattbearman.co.uk/ It would be awesome if anyone who is transferring domains away from go daddy could add their to the list
- MattBearman 15y ago[accidentally submitted twice]
- stanmancan 15y agoSo... I know spams bad and all. But what about writing a crawler that sends a single email to the owner of every domain it finds hosted on GoDaddy? Just something that says "Incase you haven't heard, this is SOPA, this is what it means, GoDaddy supports it, this is how to switch if you decide to" type of thing. Sure, it's certainly in a grey area, but even if you could send out 10 million emails and 0.2% actually took action as a result, thats another 20,000 customers.