There was a boycott that we completely missed!
SOPA: Stop Online Piracy Act.
The boycott: GoDaddy.
Reason: SOPA = Censorship.
FoxNews reports:
"It's a welcome step in the right direction, and we at GoDaddy.com applaud the leadership in the House Judiciary Committee, the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Intellectual Property, Competition and the Internet and the Senate Judiciary Committee, for taking decisive, bicameral and bipartisan action," said Christine Jones, executive VP of GoDaddy. She is also the company's general counsel and corporate secretary.
GoDaddy supports SOPA for "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." Yet, a slew of other prominent tech companies, including Apple and Microsoft, have recognized the holes in the SOPA and have pulled their support from the bill. In November, Google, Facebook, Twitter, Zynga, Yahoo, eBay, AOL and LinkedIn raised their concerns about SOPA in a joint letter to Congress.
"We support the bills' stated goals--providing additional enforcement tools to combat foreign 'rogue' websites that are dedicated to copyright infringement or counterfeiting. Unfortunately, the bills as drafted would expose law-abiding U.S. Internet and technology companies to new uncertain liabilities, private rights of action and technology mandates that would require monitoring of Web sites," the letter said.
Social blogging service Tumblr summed it up best:
"As written, [Congress] would betray more than a decade of U.S. policy and advocacy of Internet freedom by establishing a censorship system using the same domain blacklisting technologies pioneered by China and Iran."
GoDaddy supports SOPA for "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." Yet, a slew of other prominent tech companies, including Apple and Microsoft, have recognized the holes in the SOPA and have pulled their support from the bill. In November, Google, Facebook, Twitter, Zynga, Yahoo, eBay, AOL and LinkedIn raised their concerns about SOPA in a joint letter to Congress.
"We support the bills' stated goals--providing additional enforcement tools to combat foreign 'rogue' websites that are dedicated to copyright infringement or counterfeiting. Unfortunately, the bills as drafted would expose law-abiding U.S. Internet and technology companies to new uncertain liabilities, private rights of action and technology mandates that would require monitoring of Web sites," the letter said.
Social blogging service Tumblr summed it up best:
"As written, [Congress] would betray more than a decade of U.S. policy and advocacy of Internet freedom by establishing a censorship system using the same domain blacklisting technologies pioneered by China and Iran."
So why aren't we boycotting our elected representatives who have run amok with this proposed law?
At last count, GoDaddy has lost 73,000 domains. That is a huge hit to their business and a swift and welcome response to their support of the law. They have since changed their position, although rumors abound that they are still supporting the law behind the scenes.
So why can't we make 73,000 calls to our elected representatives? Start 73,000 repeal petitions?
This was a partial boycott. Great for the response, but falling short of targeting the source of the problem.
Jonathan Mann, a card-carrying lib, spreads the word. When he's right, he's right.
Here is the link he references in his video on how to transfer your GoDaddy domain.
Jeepers Media has a 15min video that explains piracy-inducing activities by the 'victims': Disney, Microsoft, Time Warner, AOL, and others. (Companies that are losing market share and are doomed to fail.)
We found this video through Forbes.
This guy sets the standard for the presentation of fantastic research. He deserves the 500k+ views in just three days!
Censorship? If so, why aren't we boycotting the politicians?
GoDaddy's statement:
SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. (Dec. 23, 2011) - Go Daddy is no longer supporting SOPA, the "Stop Online Piracy Act" currently working its way through U.S. Congress.
"Fighting online piracy is of the utmost importance, which is why Go Daddy has been working to help craft revisions to this legislation - but we can clearly do better," Warren Adelman, Go Daddy's newly appointed CEO, said. "It's very important that all Internet stakeholders work together on this. Getting it right is worth the wait. Go Daddy will support it when and if the Internet community supports it."
"Fighting online piracy is of the utmost importance, which is why Go Daddy has been working to help craft revisions to this legislation - but we can clearly do better," Warren Adelman, Go Daddy's newly appointed CEO, said. "It's very important that all Internet stakeholders work together on this. Getting it right is worth the wait. Go Daddy will support it when and if the Internet community supports it."
We've added a row in our Obama To Do List for SOPA. Hopefully we won't put a checkmark next to it.
Full Disclosure: We use GoDaddy and do not have plans to move our domains.
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