SOPA, the Stop Online Piracy Act that has been proposed in the United States as a way to regulate online copyright violations has proved to be very controversial. The Act aims to fight piracy by allowing movie studios and music labels to bring court orders against any site that they believed was hosting pirated material or had links to sites that hosted such material. Many big names on the internet, including Wikipedia and Google, have spoken out openly against the Act. The main issue that was raised was with the wording of the proposed legislation. It is written in such broad terms that it could potentially lead to the shutdown of many websites and servers, changing the face and nature of the internet possibly forever.
GoDaddy, which is one of the largest domain-name registration services and server providers, is one of the technology companies that chose to support the bill. This was in the face of huge public opposition and what eventually became a boycott of their services. On the 29th December, vast numbers of GoDaddy subscribers decided to move their business to other suppliers in protest against their support for the unpopular legislation.
This extremely influential business, which hosts 50 million or more domain names, put itself in the line of fire because of its support for the Act. The consequences were enough to make it sit up and take notice and ultimately led to a public retraction of its original position on SOPA.
Warren Adelman, the CEO of GoDaddy, stated that although the company regarded the struggle against internet piracy as extremely important, it recognised that the Act as it stood required substantial revision.
The statement was a response to a remarkably successful boycott, which had resulted in the removal of 37,000 domain names from GoDaddy’s servers. A Reddit chat board had originally suggested this course of action and it was taken to heart by many GoDaddy subscribers, who voted with their feet and moved to other providers. Numerous sites began collecting pledges from domain owners who stated their intention to leave GoDaddy unless it changed its position on the legislation. Obviously disturbed by this campaign, GoDaddy began placing prominent adverts in the US press to attract new customers.
When it retracted its statement, GoDaddy no doubt expected to stem the tide of disgruntled customers who were leaving. However, it seems from internet chat and forums that many are still determined to shift to other businesses that did not support SOPA. Competitors jumped at the chance to attract disillusioned GoDaddy customers who were looking for new domain hosts.
If SOPA is enacted into law, private companies and the US Justice Department would be able to control content on the internet, effectively shutting down whatever they did not wish to see online. Americans and many other people and businesses in the online community see this as a gross infringement of their rights.
GoDaddy faced consequences for bucking the overriding trend of opposition to SOPA. It has lost both customers and credibility. On the list of 142 companies that supported the introduction of the Act, it was the only internet business and domain-registration organisation that allowed its name to be used. The company now takes a ‘neutral’ stance, but its initial support for such a divisive bill has not been forgotten and its reputational damage could take a long time to repair.
About the Author:
The above article is composed and edited by Eva K. She is associated with many Technologies communities as their freelance writer and adviser. In her free time she writes articles related to high speed internet services, mobile applications, latest news etc.