Goodbye Godaddy. $6.99 transfer to Namecheap. SOPASucks

Good for you! SOPA does indeed suck, as does Parsons.

I've been using Namecheap for many years with multiple domains and have been very happy with them.

Wow. Good going GoDaddy.

I've always been a Namecheap fan. But I've still got a lone domain sitting in my GoDaddy account. Looks like I'll go ahead and transfer it early.

I was a fan for both Godaddy and Namecheap. Now I will only use Namecheap for all domains.

This is interesting.

But, it is not as extreme as you and other people are making are making it sound :rolleyes:

I'm sure Godaddy's competitors (and supporting websites) will have a blast taking advantage of Godaddy's new move to support SOPA.

As of right now, all of my domains will stay put. Let's see what happens in the next couple of months.

While I've been following it on and off for the past month, it's ridiculous on what SOPA will do...it's pretty well explained in the 6th post from Josh.

Of course, I do agree, you should not jump into the band wagon unless you're educated about what SOPA is about. Funnily enough, I found out about SOPA through some news regarding Justin Bieber's comment on it

This is getting serious. I'll be removing my domains from Godaddy asap. Some of them are less then 90 days old, but others are good to go.

Guess I have something important to do before 2012 after all.

A quick sum up of SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) -

It's an act brought by major 'publishers' or content distributors in an effort to further prevent piracy.

That's great right? I as an Online Marketer would welcome tighter measures too so what is the issue? Well:

1) The definitions with the act are so vague that if passed, they can 'By LAW' take down websites who 'encourage' copyright infringement. Whereas now we have a takedown notification system, whereby you notify a site of an infringement and they take it down - with this law (because it is so vague) any comment or uploaded material by anyone using your site can result in immediate action against you - without any needs for courts.

All the power is being put in to the copyright holders hands - and that is what people see as dangerous (of course the major publishers will have access to instant terminations, for normal folk it will be a get in the queue system)

The government of USA will have jurisdiction to not only terminate the service (and force others to terminate services to your site) but they even want you to hand over domains (something the EU parliament has a massive objection too).

Although general elimination of piracy is a good thing, the bill goes too far and eliminates the rights of many common folk. It gives the power to many big corporates and that is why so many companies (including Facebook and Google) are against - although that is because it does not suit their business models, perhaps not because they care about your rights.

The second problem lies within how this is enforced. There is no clear guidelines as to how this can be done, meaning we may all be at some mercy of the bill makers - which is a very bad reason to pass the bill. It will mean that the bill can be enforced in any way 'they feel appropriate' as no guidelines have been stipulated. Something a lot of Venture capitalists and businesses fear.

There is a lot of other issues that people may state with the bill, but these 2 are dangerous if they are not answered before the bill is passed. It could have massive consequences to us as marketers and mean everything that is written on forums, to social media pages could be potentially dangerous.

In its current form we could have a case where Twitter, Youtube and others are crippled with fines, and sites such as our own Warrior Forum also fall victims to a bill which in essence terminated your right of appeal.

Without being political, those are the 2 main fundamental flaws with the bill. (I'm sure others can add to this)

IMO Godaddy is one of the most predatory companies online. I had a go-round with them earlier this week. I let a domain expire. Though it's still in my name. It went up for auction and wasn't sold. I called them and they said they'd gladly transfer it back to me for $90. I could have bought it at auction for $12. When I told them there was no way I'd pay $90 they said I could have it back for $50. I passed.

I once bought a domain through godaddy. When I got to checkout the charge was something like $160. All I bought was a single domain. I tried and tried to get the other charges out of the shopping cart but couldn't. Finally I had to call them. I asked how this other stuff got into my cart.

The guy admitted that new godaddy sales people are (were) encouraged to choose accounts at random and "practice" their sales skills by adding products to people's accounts. Then he said with a chuckle, "Sometimes they forget to remove the products before signing out." Ugh. How many people got screwed buying stuff they never wanted or needed from crap like this?

It's interesting that if you type the letters god into the google search field godaddy comes up first and God comes up like fourth or fifth. I guess godaddy believes they are god. Thanks for the heads up. I've been lazy up until now but it's time to make the move.

...but don't pay for your transfer using VISA, Mastercard, or any other payment method facilitated by a company that supports SOPA.. All the Companies Supporting SOPA, the Awful Internet Censorship Law—and How to Contact Them

Godaddy lost so many customers.

They decided that they weren't going to support it anymore, or it could be a lie to gain their customers. ---> http://www.godaddy.com/newscenter/re...ws_item_id=378

Godaddy must of lost a lot of money or something.

They might be (publicly) against SOPA now, but Godaddy still sucks. I hope Bob Parsons gets trampled and then pooped on by a herd of elephants during his next hunting outing.

Just an FYI, Godaddy just reneged on its support of SOPA about a half hour ago. I'd add a link, but I haven't posted enough yet.

** OK, nevermind... someone already said this. Sorry **

Where are name cheap based?

Bottom line though, if the big boys / copyright police go after any domain name for TM infringement, it doesn't matter where it's hosted, SOPA supporter or not, it will probably come down because the registrars/hosts/owners don't want to deal with legal action. It usually starts with a simple DMCA takedown notice to the domain owner. If that doesn't work, the host gets it, and ultimately the registrar may as well.

Damage control, of course. They surely know they can't get back those who moved out or
are in the midst of doing so, so at least lessen the impact.

Ah well, that's one less support for SOPA...

I think it is false to say Godaddy has changed their mind about SOPA. They have merely changed their public position from leading the charge to being supporting spectators. Godaddy's own lawyers worked with legislators to draft the actual language in SOPA.

Here are a couple of quotes from their CEO Warren Adelman regarding their so called change of heart.

"After digesting what was being said online and looking at how we got involved in the process, we came to the conclusion that it wasn't ready in its current state and that we'd step back and let others provide leadership," Adelman said.


"We were seeing and hearing customers and tech leaders -- many of which are our customers -- talking and writing about this so we did something that was easy to do: made changes to address their needs," Adelman said.

His comments don't sound very appeasing to me.

NameCheap is always the best.

It's always cheaper.

It has better customer service. 24 hour service live chat anyone?
(and it's not those laggy chat interface whereby if you press enter, your message will only appear 2 seconds later)

It has a much cleaner interface.

And they won't steal your domain (domain parking) when you search for a domain in Namecheap, unlike Godaddy.

I seriously don't know why people are still using Godaddy.

Any other good registrars besides Namecheap?

I've faced so much technical problems using its GoDaddy's webhost, one after another... It's support FAQ is quite misleading as well; I had to slowly find my way thru its fairly user-unfriendly interface...

So I followed what members instructed in their support section, closed my account and ask for a refund, which they denied as I've "received very steep discounts in my purchase" zzz. 1 of my domain's hosted with them, but I guess I'm gona observe a while too...

SOPA or no SOPA, if you want to be a marketer that uses affiliate marketing in order to maximize your success, you need to leave GoDaddy immediately!

They have predatory practices that no other registrar has. And those predatory practices are NOT just what extra stuff they throw into the shopping cart before you complete your checkout.

For instance, if you have an affiliate program and one of your affiliates spams in marketing the offer, they will shut you down and THEN MAYBE listen to what you have to say. They don't give you a heads up, they shut you down first and then leave you wondering what the heck happened. And the thing is, if you have an affiliate program, chances are you have a successful business!

They shut down Mike Filsaime years ago behind an affiliate out of who-knows-how-many after a spam complaint. And the thing is, ANYBODY can lodge a COMPLAINT. But the dirty part about their shutting down the domain is, they charge $250 to reactivate the domain even IF they even listen to the fact that you have eliminated the situation from your business. No heads up, just wham, your profitable domain is now no longer open for business. And now they rate-jack you to put $250 into their pockets even if you have done nothing wrong. Sounds a lot like the good ole days of La Costra Nostra to me!

Come to think of it, that sounds a LOT like SOPA in its present form . . . ! Maybe THAT'S why they have no problem with supporting it (other than the marketing black eye they are getting). Except with SOPA, you are guilty until proving your innocence and have no hope of ever proving your innocence because all of the advantages go to the complaintant who has lodged to get your site taken down.

(At least with La Costra Nostra, the Mafia, you knew the deal. They were upfront with their treachury (sp?) and there was no air of legitimacy in the actions of those who moved against you!)

The main issue that I have with SOPA is that it doesn't matter where in the world you get your hosting or where your registrar is located, US law is the law of the land. So if you get your hosting from Pakistan and your domain registrar is located in the Bahamas (Domain Name | Internet Domain Registration | Register Domain Names - decent prices, too!) it does not matter, the USA will STILL take down your domain if they see fit, even though the laws in question might not apply to the place(s) where you have set up business. Think it's appropriate for the USA to tell Iran how to do business? Or Russia? Or China? Or Belarus? Well, under SOPA it gives them the right to do so. And that is a violation of international law. Some day the USA will come to regret such decisions, and instead of somebody dropping a nuke on Japan it just might land someplace within the 48 contiguous states. Don't think Chavez down in Venezuela hasn't thought about it! While he might not do it over something like SOPA, the US lawbooks should not apply outside US borders on something so internationally available as the internet.

Oops! I've done gone all political on y'all! Sorry!

There is an interesting case that most of you are not aware of. The RIAA filed a complaint against a website that had recordings available that were leaked prior to release, and the site was seized by ICE, was taken down and had one of those official-looking copyright violation notices in place of the front page of the site. In most cases everyone would say, good, the people running the site got what they deserved. But in this case the site had received the recordings FROM THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS and their marketing reps as a form of pre-release advertising, and had NOT given the RIAA the right to represent them! And yet the site stayed down for over a year anyway, even though the RIAA and US Govt had no legal standing to do what they did. The Attorney General stalled and stalled and stalled. Eventually the site owners got their domain back after a year or longer, but now their momentum is gone. And the way that they were treated reads like something you would expect from Russia during cold war days, not the USA. The attorney for the website owners was not even allowed to read most of the complaint, nor were they provided with timely updates of what was going on with the case, something required by US law and court procedures. Freezing a defense lawyer out and not giving the lawyer representing the defendant access to information and status updates about the case that are required under the law is something I would expect from China or North Korea, not the USA.

For those who want more information, or believe that it cannot happen to them, I suggest you take a look at this

This Is All Kinds Of Wrong of the Day - The Daily What

Or this site here

ICE Admits To Returning Domain While RIAA Threatens Dajaz1 With More Legal Actions | Techdirt

The site in question is Dajaz1. See your favorite search engine for more details if you want them.

So don't go saying "It cannot happen here." Because you never know . . . until it's too late. See my sig file; was Einstein dealing with a government agency when he said that?

By the way, just so you know, I have no affiliation with the domain registrar I mentioned above. It's just a company I found that has reasonable pricing that is located outside the USA.

Godaddy was SOLD this last summer. Bob is no longer running the show and many many people have left as well. A lot has changed as they need to recover a few Billion in investment as that is what they paid for the company. FYI - Godaddy is NOT the company it was before the sale.

[quote=flyinghammers;5287826]I'm really surprised that a big tech company like GoDaddy supports SOPA. I am finally getting rid of them for good.

http://SOPADdaddy.com
Stick it to Godaddy where it counts, the wallet!

So, here is the update folks...

Now Godaddy not only don't support SOPA, but also oppose SOPA!

What a weird way to react? Shouldn't they realize what the community wants and go by it? Being in business for so many years with tons of customers and cash made them blunt I guess. Anyways the fear of losing customers and business it the only thing that made them reverse their decision. Here is the PR sent by Godaddy CEO to major PR sites.

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,” said Go Daddy CEO Warren Adelman. “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. Our company regrets the loss of any of our customers, who remain our highest priority, and we hope to repair those relationships and win back their business over time.

Read more @ Techcrunch: Burned By Fleeing Customers, GoDaddy No Longer Just ‘Doesn’t Support’ But Actually “OPPOSES” SOPA | TechCrunch

Well damn, now I have to go and transfer some domains. LOL Oh well.

Already buying in Namecheap, soon I'll be away from godaddy, peace of mind

NameCheap is the WORST company PERIOD.

They have STOLEN, yes STOLEN my domains. Now I have to sue them.

They have the worst Customer Service I have encountered in over 15 years online.

So good luck to you.

GoDaddy has 24/7 Tech Support. And they actually take care of problems when you have them.

Go ahead and try to get someone on the Phone with NameCheap.

Good luck with that.

GoDaddy is a real business. NameCheap is a front.

Go ahead and transfer to NameCheap and pay the price later on when you need help.

SOPA has nothing to do with GoDaddy it doesn't make a damn bit of difference if they support it or not. They mean nothing to Congress.

If you want to vent do it with your Vote.

SOPA is nothing compared to NDAA.

If you want to be pissed off about something you should be pissed off that the United States Government can now detain you with out a charge and hold you indefinitely with not right to trail... none. Basically they can imprison you and throw away the key.

That makes SOPA look like nothing.

Don't get me wrong, I'm very against SOPA... but there are much more pressing matters than SOPA.

Just transferred all my domains to Namecheap from Shi.tdaddy yesterday. Will never use their service again.

So you think NameCheap is so great?

On Black Friday of 2011, Namecheap offered a 99 cent sale every few hours. But when we went to check out we were charged $29.00 and not $3 for three domain names. Namecheap rtefuses to give ANY of our money back nor REFUND us.

Do not use NAMECHEAP they are crooks.

Now that Godaddy doesn't support SOPA anymore they're trying to rebuild their business by running a special promotion where you can register a domain name for $1. I wonder how many domains will be registered since they already lost over 40, 000 to the SOPA debacle.

Im so glad this is backfiring on GoDaddy, no one should support SOPA.

Yep, the whole SOPA thing stinks to high heaven - I'm getting rid of my GoDaddy domains (or at least, are trying to limit future exposure by reducing them).

SOPA | Name.com -

Name.com has been my preferred registrar for many years (no connection to me), and they have (beautifully) given their opinion on SOPA.

Caleb

I'm very surprised about godaddy supporting SOPA. 1and1 has spoken against it and trying to get people to petition. I know people here have had bad experiences with 1and1, I use them for all my domains.

Godaddy is like the itchy annoying sore on your back you cannot reach LOL.

I have my own host now in Melbourne and I can pick up the phone get it answered, and the guy the other end knows me like a brother.

Now that is what I call service and a real domain, hosting provider.