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BY DANNY MATTESON

​ANCHOR MEGAN MURPHY

 

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First, it was for it, then it was neutral, and now domain name registration site GoDaddy.com has reversed course completely, saying it opposes the Stop Online Piracy Act.


Following widespread backlash to the company’s controversial stance on the proposed bill currently in the House, GoDaddy CEO Warren Adelman issued an email statement on Thursday explaining the company’s opposition. PCWorld has it...


“We have observed a spike in domain name transfers, which are running above normal rates and which we attribute to Go Daddy's prior support for SOPA, which was reversed … GoDaddy 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 email was released on the same day as a planned protest of the site’s SOPA support. Beginning as a thread on Reddit, the protest aimed to convince webmasters to transfer their domain names to other online hosts. And some of GoDaddy’s competitors got in on the act.  


NameCheap.com , which called December 29th “Move Your Domain Day”, offered website transfers at below cost to customers using the coupon code “SOPASUCKS”.     


And even went so far as to offer a step-by-step guide to transfer a domain from GoDaddy.

 

But according to The Next Web , by the numbers, GoDaddy didn’t have that bad of a day -- posting a net positive in domain registrations despite the boycott. Yesterday, GoDaddy saw about 13,000 more domains transferred in than what it saw transferred out. And...  

 

"...with 43,304 new registrations. This meant that even with 35,907 domain deletions, the company saw a positive number of domains register on company accounts.”

 

And Gizmodo explains why the boycott might not have packed the punch that some had hoped.  

 

“...there wasn't much need by then for the planned Dec. 29th boycott , since GoDaddy had already (somewhat) relented. ”


But Electronista argues that GoDaddy’s shifting position may have had more to do with quality than quantity -- pointing out some big names that left the fold due to the company’s support of the controversial bill.


“Among the major domains jumping ship from GoDaddy have been Destructoid , I Can Haz Cheezburger and nearly 1,000 related domains, and Wikipedia.”


While the Stop Online Piracy Act aims to curb online piracy and copyright infringement, Internet heavyweights including Google, Twitter and Facebook argue the bill could allow the government and private corporations to censor websites.  


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