Archive for the ‘godaddy’ Category

1. GoDaddy CEO Shoots Elephant

The web was in shock after GoDaddy CEO Bob Parsons released a video of him shooting a “problem elephant” in Zimbabwe. PETA responded by shutting down its GoDaddy account and asking others to do the same.

When GoDaddy initially announced that it supported the controversial Stop Online Piracy Act, outraged customers closed their accounts by the tens of thousands. Soon after the backlash, new GoDaddy CEO Warren Adelman announced in a site forum that the company now officially opposes SOPA.

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Now, we don’t like to be negative, but social media inevitably lends itself to some epic fails. Whether it’s insensitive tweets or indecent pictures, people too often post without thinking. That’s the nature of today’s social network-obsessed world.

Let’s take a look at 15 of the most memorable social media mistakes of 2011. We’ve dug up everything from GoDaddy‘s elephant shooting video to @Qwikster‘s smoking Elmo. Curious about the rest? Flip through the gallery and add your commentary below.

More About: blackberry, fail, features, godaddy, Google, netflix, paypal, Social Media, trending

First, the obvious: Go Daddy runs horrible, sexist Super Bowl ads. PETA members and others who think animals should be treated kindly are fully justified in canceling their Go Daddy accounts because of founder Bob Parsons’s elephant shooting this past spring.

In addition, those who believe, as I do, that Go Daddy was on the wrong side of the SOPA issue, should also have no qualms if they cut their ties with the company before it changed course.

All of that is fine. What’s troubling, however, is the anger against the company for not fully internalizing the opposition to SOPA. It seems as if nothing short of a North Korean-style show of emotion will convince Go Daddy haters at this point and that’s just weird. People even got ticked off that it took Go Daddy a full four days — and this was over the Christmas weekend mind you — to get off the House’s list of SOPA supporters.

SOPA, as most of you know, is a bill that Lamar Smith (R-Texas) introduced in the House in October. The intent of the law is to block websites from distributing copyrighted content they they don’t own. There are probably many who believe that even this is going too far, but I think most reasonable people would agree that those who create content should be paid for their work and shouldn’t be ripped off. Website operators who are up in arms about the bill should also take a moment to consider whether they themselves would want their content to be plagiarized or pirated elsewhere.

For many, myself included though, SOPA methods for combatting piracy go way too far. Simply put, it seems to put the onus on website operators, rather than law enforcement. It’s a “shoot first, ask questions later” type of bill that would disrupt the web’s economy and give the government too much power. The backing of the bill by a Republican illustrates the overpowering influence of money on politics — the GOP is supposed to be against a government-imposed solution like this.

Despite this fact, Go Daddy was within its rights to support SOPA. If you run a company and your beliefs run counter to the majority, you should be able to voice your opinion. Go Daddy did and suffered the consequences, including widespread anger on the web and a call for a boycott. In fact, the opposition worked so well that Go Daddy completely reversed its decision.

End of story?

Unfortunately not. Now that Go Daddy has unequivocally opposed SOPA, haters are still up in arms because the company seems to have only done it because its business was at risk. Wasn’t this the point?

As it stands now, people seem to be angry at Go Daddy for not succumbing to groupthink. It’s as if just thinking differently than the majority is some sort of crime.

This, unfortunately, is a common phenomenon of the social media age. For instance, on Thursday, Kelly Clarkson was called to the carpet for tweeting her support of GOP candidate Ron Paul. Most of the criticism involved newsletters that were published under Paul’s name in the 80′s and 90s. Paul has disowned the content in those newsletters and whether you believe him or not, the truth is that there’s plausible deniability. Clarkson should be able to offer her opinion on Paul without getting excoriated on Twitter.

Speaking of Paul, I believe a libertarian philosophy should rule on the web. People should be able to say whatever they want and deal with the consequences. But there should also be some respect for other people’s opinions. Otherwise, one of the things that makes Twitter great — unfiltered access to your favorite celebrities’ thoughts — will become a thing of the past as publicists take over.

Similarly, all of us will suffer if entrepreneurs feel that they can’t take unpopular stands from time to time. In their heart of hearts, the people who run Go Daddy may have a different opinion about SOPA than you do, but, at this point, they’re not going to do anything about it, so who really cares? Punishing the company for a thoughtcrime is very 1984. Let’s not carry that into 2012.

More About: godaddy, SOPA

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Reddit user SelfProdigy has declared Dec. 29 Dump GoDaddy Day, following the domain registrar’s short-lived public support for the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA). Although GoDaddy has announced that it no longer supports SOPA, the site is still facing the backlash from its initial position.

Despite the public reversal in a press release, Dump GoDaddy Day is quickly spreading among the Reddit community.

The domain registrar reportedly lost 20,000 accounts in a single day following the SOPA outcry, but only time will tell how many accounts they will lose.

More About: godaddy, mashable video, reddit, SOPA

Following a maelstrom of Internet backlash, GoDaddy has withdrawn its support of the Stop Online Piracy Act, the company announced on Friday.

“As a company that is all about innovation, with our own technology and in support of our customers, Go Daddy is rooted in the idea of First Amendment Rights and believes 100 percent that the Internet is a key engine for our new economy,” GoDaddy CEO Warren Adelman said in a statement.

Hundreds of website operators moved or threatened to move their domains away from GoDaddy after the company’s inclusion on a list of nearly 150 backers of the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) released by the United States House of Representatives judiciary committee gained widespread attention online earlier this week.

The company also said that it has removed blog postings discussing areas of the bill it did suport, “in an effort to eliminate any confusion about its reversal on SOPA.”

“GoDaddy has always fought to preserve the intellectual property rights of third parties, and will continue to do so in the future,” general counsel Christine Jones said in the statement.

SOPA is a fervently debated piece of legislation that would greatly enhance the powers of companies and the U.S. Justice Department to effectively censor websites they deem to infringe on copyright holders.

“The game changer with SOPA is that it gives private entities an enforcement mechanism that previously only existed with a court order,” Ross Dannenberg of the intellectual property law firm Banner & Witcoff told Mashable on Thursday.

“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,” Adelman 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.”

More About: godaddy, Internet freedom, Internet Piracy, SOPA, stop online piracy act

GoDaddy is one of more than a hundred companies catching flak online for supporting the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA). Many website operators have threatened to move their domains away from GoDaddy, and Y Combinator founder Paul Graham has said SOPA-supporting companies will no longer be invited to the startup incubator’s popular Demo Days showcase for investors.

A list of nearly 150 supporters released by the United States House of Representatives’ judiciary committee contains broadcasting, publishing and trade groups expected to attend, including ABC television and the Country Music Association. But it also includes several initially eyebrow-raising entrants including a number of private law firms, First Amendment Coalition Executive Director Peter Scheer told Mashable.

SOPA is a hotly contested bill that would greatly expand the ability of U.S. law enforcement and copyright holders to deter and punish online copyright violations. The bill would enable companies and the U.S. Justice Department to effectively force American payment processors and ad partners to cease doing business with copyright-infringing websites that target American customers but operate from outside the United States.

Supporters of the bill argue that it is a necessary means of protecting intellectual property, but others say it’s draconian legislation that goes too far and will drastically reshape the Internet’s current architecture. While many agree that Internet piracy is a legitimate problem, the SOPA debate has largely turned into a standoff between Internet-freedom advocates — including sites and services such as Tumblr, Firefox and Reddit — and major consumer-content creators such as the Motion Picture Association of America.

“The game changer with SOPA is that it gives private entities an enforcement mechanism that previously only existed with a court order,” Ross Dannenberg of the intellectual property law firm Banner & Witcoff said in an interview.

Ben Huh, founder of the popular Cheezburger Network websites, told Mashable on Thursday he was “very surprised” when he learned the day before that GoDaddy, where his company has registered more than a thousand domain names, had come out in full public support of SOPA. He said Cheezburger will move all of its domains away from GoDaddy if GoDaddy doesn’t withdraw its support.

“I don’t think they understand how poorly the bill is written and the consequences it will have for their customers,” Huh said. “We’ve had a very good business relationship with GoDaddy and would love to keep working with them. But if they’re going to support a bill that’s going to recklessly kill Internet jobs, then we can’t support them.”

In a long Reddit thread that began on Thursday, more than a hundred other domain holders have said they will or already have transferred their sites away from GoDaddy.

The additional presence of several major law firms on the list of supporters is another sign of the powerful forces behind SOPA, Scheer said.

“Firms usually like to keep above the fray in terms of their own views and interests, but here they’re signing on their own, which is uncommon,” he said. “My guess would be that in this case two things are involved: the supporting companies are big and important, and also may be longtime clients of the firms that involve some personal alliances.”

The presence of companies and groups like pharmaceuticals manufacturer Pfizer, cosmetics brand Revlon and the 60 Plus Association seniors’ advocacy group may also come as a surprise to many casual SOPA observers.

But Danneberg said that Pfizer and Revlon are seeking through SOPA to make it easier to curb the sales of fraudulent pharmaceuticals to American customers through websites based offshore. Parker Higgins, an activist with the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), told Mashable that groups like the 60 Plus Association likely support the bill because they receive money from companies with a more direct interest in SOPA passing — in the 60 Plus Association’s case, for example, from pharmaceutical companies.

The EFF — a donor-supported organization that says it defends digital rights in the public interest and is comprised of lawyers, analysts, activists and other technology advocates — strongly opposes SOPA. Higgins said that the rundown of official backers released by the House Judiciary Committee reveals whose interests SOPA serves.

“It’s clear form the list of supporters that companies that would be granted broad immunity from the bill, or who would be granted the power to silence speech they don’t like, have come out in its favor,” he wrote in an email.

SOPA was originally introduced as legislation by Texas Republican representative Lamar Smith in October. The House Judiciary Committee announced this week that it would postpone further debate on the bill until early next year. Scheer called the delay a positive step.

“It’s certainly good because as of now it’s been much too complicated to be considered, vetted and acted upon under a lot of time pressure,” he said. “It’s one of those issues where both sides have legitimate concerns and the question is whether legislation is drawn in a way that adequately accommodates the need for copyright protection in certain areas, and the need for freedom of innovation and freedom of speech in others.”

More About: Ben Huh, Electronic Frontier Foundation, First Amendment, godaddy, House Judiciary Committee, Internet freedom, SOPA, Stop Internet Piracy Act, trending