The SOPA saga will continue tomorrow as protestors will begin ceremoniously dumping their GoDaddy accounts. The domain and hosting service has had an inconsistent position on the new Internet regulations, originally supporting the potential rulings and then retracting that statement after threats of members leaving the site.
Apparently the flip-flop won’t be enough to retain all of its users. Tomorrow has been dubbed “Dump GoDaddy Day” and outraged users are ready to boycott the site—not only for its initial support of SOPA but because it hasn’t actually come out as opposed to the new legislation. According to customers, a neutral stance isn’t good enough.
We reported that the idea of Dump GoDaddy began over at Reddit (no surprise there) when a user by the handle “selfprodigy” announced his small business domains would be leaving the site. “I’m suggesting Dec 29th as move your domain away from GoDaddy day because of their support of SOPA. Who’s with me?” And as it usually is, the power of Reddit has been enough to accrue a strong virtual following.
Now GoDaddy has incurred the wrath of the Internet and it may be unstoppable. So why won’t the site just issue a statement opposing SOPA? The new regulations would seemingly hurt its business model by hurting its customers, so it can be mind-boggling why the company has put itself in this position.
Whatever the motivations, GoDaddy is now struggling to get itself out of this situation. The site has been accused of delaying account transfer of users trying to leave, which isn’t really helping its reputation. And in the purest act of irony, some customers are now creating new GoDaddy accounts to register anti-SOPA Websites. The company will take what it can get, however, seeing as it’s feeling some pain from the boycott: between December 22 and December 24 the site lost 37,000 domains.
GoDaddy has never been terribly beloved, however, and this is the final straw for many users who have stuck with the service. Make no mistake, though: the boycott isn’t going to kill GoDaddy. Not in the least. What’s happening here is a Netflix-like debacle, where a big, powerful company that is nearly impossible to take down via a grassroots movement has made a huge mistake—and they’ll pay for it with a severely tarnished reputation.
