Dumping Go Daddy? Rivals offer domain transfer day deals
(CBS) - Go Daddy is unable to shake protesters on the eve of Move Your Domain Day.
Reddit's campaign against Go Daddy has made Dec. 29 the official day that protesters should transfer their websites to a different domain registrar. And rivals are vying to make gains at the company's losses.
Full coverage of SOPA at Tech Talk
SOPA supporters facing boycotts, thanks to Reddit
SOPA opposition from tech heavyweights Google, Facebook
If you're looking to dump Go Daddy, here are the registrars offering deals:
Name is offering 10 percent off transfers for COM, NET, ORG, TV, INFO, IN, US, CO, ME & TEL domains and 40 percent off hosting plans. The regular price for domain transfer starts at $7.39. Use promo code: STOPSOPA.
Namecheap will transfer COM, NET, ORG, BIZ and INFO domains for $6.99 and donate $1 to the Electronic Frontier Foundation with each transfer. The regular price for domain transfers starts at $8.98. Use promo code: SOPASUCKS.
Hover announced via Twitter that it would give a $1 off to domain transfers. Regularly priced at $10, domains transfers will go down to $9 with promo code SOPA.
The controversy surrounding Go Daddy began on Dec. 22, when Reddit user selfprodigy declared on a forum thread that he (or she) would be transferring 51 personal domains to a different registrar to protest Go Daddy's support of the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA).
Go Daddy doesn't exactly have a squeaky clean reputation. Their marketing practices often objectify women and their chief executive officer Bob Parsons was recently in hot water for posting a video of his mission to kill an elephant in Africa.
SOPA is intended to curb the illegal download of copyrighted materials from foreign "rogue" sites, like The Pirate Bay. There is already legislation that provides some protection for copyrighted material, like the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), which requires companies to remove copyrighted content "in good faith."
Worst-case scenarios are being debated. The Electronic Frontier Foundation speculates, "Instead of complying with the DMCA, a copyright owner may now be able to use these new provisions to effectively shut down a site by cutting off access to its domain name, its search engine hits, its ads, and its other financing even if the safe harbors would apply."
