Is A Naked Danica Patrick Working To Quell GoDaddy Boycott Efforts?

from the timing-is-everything dept

Well, today was the day originally scheduled as the GoDaddy boycott day, in which people who had registered domains with GoDaddy were going to transfer them out. With GoDaddy officially dropping support for SOPA, there have been some questions about whether or not that boycott will still happen in significant numbers. There have already been some high profile transfers, such as from the Imgur folks, and there are still plenty of people talking about going through with the boycott as planned.

However, GoDaddy seems to be focusing on what’s worked for it in the past: advertising with scantily clad women (and Danica Patrick in particular). Apparently it’s been putting full page ads in the NY Times (and other papers?) with Patrick covered strategically by a sign.

And… the strategy may have worked so far.

While tons of domains transferred out at the end of last week, this week has been a bit of a different story. On Monday, it looks like GoDaddy basically broke even, with 18,401 new registrations and 14,853 transfers in… vs only 8,862 transfers out and 24,120 domains deleted. That netted out to an increase for GoDaddy of 272 domains. Tuesday was even more positive for the company. Even though another 16,662 domains were transferred out and another 27,564 were deleted, there was a big bump in new registrations: 31,574 (perhaps driven by new ads?) and another 15,452 transferred in. Net change? 2,800 in the plus column for GoDaddy. Finally, that same trend continued for Wednesday: an impressive 33,251 new registrations and 17,549 transfers in. That goes against 15,524 transfers out and 30,634 deletions. Net: 4,642 more domains under GoDaddy control.

Left unanswered: is this a lull before a bunch of transfers today? Or has the whole boycott issue subsided?

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Comments on “Is A Naked Danica Patrick Working To Quell GoDaddy Boycott Efforts?”

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105 Comments
Anonymous Coward says:

But GoDaddy has NOT dropped support for SOPA (or PIPA)

All they’ve done is issue a weasel-worded press release that vaguely suggests that they won’t support this version of SOPA…at the moment…maybe.

That’s it.

It’s typical of how GoDaddy handles issues: stonewall, deny, then lie…and wait until the furor dies down to go right back to what they were doing. No doubt some gullible people will fall for it — they always do. But anyone who’s actually been paying attention over the past decade knows that GoDaddy can never be trusted.

bjupton (profile) says:

Re: Re: But GoDaddy has NOT dropped support for SOPA (or PIPA)

Heh… companies are often failing their shareholders too.

Of course, if the top execs have stock or options, then they’ll be happy to goose the stock price short term, even if it is not in the interest of the company long term.

These execs will then be poised to get out with more warning than the public holder would have, as they have first crack at the books.

el_segfaulto (profile) says:

Re: Transferring from GoDaddy

I decided to wait until today to move my side company’s 8 domains (inherited from the last guy). I use 1and1.com for my own domains and will be using them again. I’ve never had any issues and their prices seem to be pretty par for the course. The interface is navigable and from what I’ve heard the customer service is good (I’ve never had to deal with them). I’m definitely not recommending them over anybody else (GoDaddy notwithstanding) but they are an option.

Anonymous Coward says:

NameCheap transfer counter

NameCheap has a coupon code for transfers from GoDaddy, which makes the transfer slightly cheaper, and most important, donates $1 for the EFF.

Why most important? Because they have, on the same page and in their front page, a counter of how much this coupon code already raised for the EFF. Since each transfer raises $1, the counter directly counts the number of domains transfered to them today.

At this moment, it is over 5100 and counting. Will it get to over 9000? And do other registrars have a similar counter?

Spointman (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re: NameCheap transfer counter

2:30pm EST and it’s over $12,000, of which six are mine. =) (Yes, I shifted my six domains over from GoDaddy.)

My guess is it will spike even further towards the evening as those chained to their offices go home and start moving their personal domains.

For what it’s worth, the actual process of moving the domains was surprisingly painless. I’d read some horror stories, and I feared I might run into roadblocks or (as a few people suggested) get actively blocked by GoDaddy, but none of that was the case for me. Less than two hours end to end.

Yankee Infidel (profile) says:

maybe it is time for Danica Patrick to drop GoDaddy as her racing sponsor

This could seriously come back to bite her if she does not drop them. In this politically charged environment, that last thing she needs to be associated with (out of ignorance) is crony capitalism and fascism (by having their main sponsor support SOPA and PIPA).

P.S.: Rich, to each his own, but I would have to say that you may be dead below the waist. 😛

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: maybe it is time for Danica Patrick to drop GoDaddy as her racing sponsor

Godaddy is piling millions of dollars a year into her pockets and into the pockets of the race teams she works with. They get incredible levels of exposure as a result of their deals with her, and her move to NASCAR full time this year just ups to level even more of them.

Danica Patrick isn’t stupid enough to bite the hand that feeds her – especially one that feeds her so well.

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: maybe it is time for Danica Patrick to drop GoDaddy as her racing sponsor

“Danica Patrick isn’t stupid enough to bite the hand that feeds her – especially one that feeds her so well.”

And that hand is holding a very small penis, which is covered in godaddy.

You know what godaddy is right? It’s that frothy mixture of lube and fecal matter that is often the result of anal sex.

Eeeewwwww! Danica!

The Mighty Buzzard (profile) says:

Re: Re: maybe it is time for Danica Patrick to drop GoDaddy as her racing sponsor

I wouldn’t put money on that first sentence. In fact, I’d say Nascar fans are slightly more likely than average to tell someone like GoDaddy to GoFuck themselves.

The last, that’s more or less correct because a fair majority of the fans are male.

The second, that’s just you being an asshat.

hothmonster says:

Re: Re: Re: maybe it is time for Danica Patrick to drop GoDaddy as her racing sponsor

your good at this game.

1) From my experience with hardcore Nascar fans (lived in both rural Wisco and rural indiana for some time each) as long as you believe in God toe the GOP line and don’t bring up the ridiculous amount of gas they burn to drive in circles you are ok in their book.

2) yeah, an asshat with biased stereotypical offensive generalizations (see 1)

3) yeah

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re:

If you do not comprehend the difference between a voluntary boycott and a government-mandated blacklist, then you are far too stupid to be on the Internet. Please undertake remedial education sufficient to raise your awareness to at least a minimally acceptable level — it’s getting quite tedious trying to talk down to your abysmal level.

TtfnJohn (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re:4 Re:

(semi-serious) As someone who has a seizure condition I would ask that you not equate us with the non-thinking patterns of Average Joe when he’s in troll mode. Even if that’s 98% of the time. (end — semi serious)

It’s this from of “thinking” that keeps me wondering how Average Joe ever gets more then a FAIL scrawled in bright red across his assignments. Even by law school standards, if one the often expressed opinion that it’s law school people end up with when they fail in every other faculty or major. (I don’t really, but there are times I wonder.)

Getting locked into one line of thought and unable or to get out of it is early onset senility, not a seizure disorder. 😉

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Re:2 Re:

No more than I’d object to the call for a boycott of a businesses because they hold a religious belief I opposed.

This is not simply a matter of individual conscience, it’s a coordinated, orchestrated attack to punish a company for its political view.

Funny, I seem to recall the shrieks of indignation when Amex, Visa, Mastercard and Paypal cut off Wikileaks. So which way do you want it? You freeloaders reek of hypocrisy.

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Re:3 Re:

They were basically ordered to by the government in order to harm Wikileaks and cause they to close down. Government directed action against the wishes of the people they SERVE should not be tolerated. The People expressing their opinions with their wallets is not the same things, as you are well aware.

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Re:4 Re:

They were basically ordered to by the government in order to harm Wikileaks and cause they to close down. Government directed action against the wishes of the people they SERVE should not be tolerated. The People expressing their opinions with their wallets is not the same things, as you are well aware.

No, they were asked. Just like Mozilla was asked to dump mafiaafire. So did you cut up all of your credit cards douchenozzle?

TtfnJohn (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re: Re:

I can see you really had to work hard on wording that. But really “economical harm”???? It’s economic harm, twit.

And it has nothing whatever do to with offshore sites but with the minor fact of censorship and First Amendment rights.

Go it now? I really, really did try to use short words so you’d understand it. And I even gave you a grammar hint for free!

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Re:2 Re:

I can see you really had to work hard on wording that. But really “economical harm”???? It’s economic harm, twit.

Actually dipshit, it’s “to economically harm” not “to economic harm”. Unlike Ars, Techdirt hasn’t managed to figure a way to allow one to correct spelling, punctuation, etc.

And it has nothing whatever do to with offshore sites but with the minor fact of censorship and First Amendment rights.

“whatsoever” would probably have been a better word choice. An update for you. The piracy apologists gaining traction have already abandoned this argument. That happened after the Google lawyer refused to answer whether a site displaying child porn was immunized from takedown by also displaying the King James bible. Stick with “breaks the internet”. It’s working for now. Currently, under existing US law, infringing sites that display substantial infringing content as well as non-infringing content are subject to takedown. SOPA doesn’t even do that. There’s no seizure with SOPA. Foreign criminals still get a better deal.

TtfnJohn (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re:7 Idiot

I’m in the mood for some fun, angry AC.

So, let’s answer your question.

Child porn displayed as photographs and video is universally agreed upon to depict a horrid crime that has caused a child irreparable damage and which may cause similar damage to another child as it may well cause a true pedophile to act out with a child. Regardless of the presence of a picture of the the Bible, you go pick your own translation, the pictures are portraying the commission of an actual crime which removed them, even in the United States from the realm of protected speech and the First Amendment.

THAT said, Google, Bing or Yahoo’s job is to index the Web. Unless and until the search engine is notified or discovers that the site or pages DO contain that their crawlers would continue to index that or those pages. Once they are, though, they voluntarily stop indexing them. Note carefully that there is no government coercion that they do that. They just do. And yes, very broadly speaking that IS censorship but the bulk of the site you describe (poorly) is dedicated to records of a criminal act there is no blocking or the hint of blocking protected speech.

That said you’re still a twit, You just moved on to being a major league one with that.

Further you asked that question of the wrong person when you asked me. So, in the simplest language I can use let me explain why.

I am a survivor of adolescent (child legally) sexual abuse at the hands of my father. Nearly a decade of it. Now let me make something else as clear as I can, jackass, Well over 90% of the sexual abuse of children occurs in family at the hands of a parent or close relative (uncle, aunt) not some pedo in a raincoat flashing outside of a school. The rest of the majority of it happens at the hands of a trusted adult as in coach, teacher, priest, pastor etc.

To add a bit more information to your addled brain let me add that the people I’ve listed above were, in the vast majority of cases abused themselves by parent or trusted adult. Got it? Clear now? If it isn’t then I agree with the AC you answered. You need psychiatric care for that anger of yours that you want to call scorn. At the very least.

The question itself is a trap. It cannot be answered without on one hand, people like you jumping up and down screaming that “hey, you see you agree with censorship” or that “hey, you see you are willing to to index a site that shows the commission of a heinous crime.”

Even worse, you equate, as did the person who first asked it, the commission of a life altering crime on a child with the civil matter of possible, let me repeat, possible copyright infringement. Even if it is criminal infringement there is no way to equate the two in terms of impact. Clear? Or are you and the person who originally asked the question so completely heartless and ignorant that you don’t see that difference? That you repeat that crap here shows that you’re both heartless and ignorant.

To get back to the point of free speech when organizations like the Heritage Foundation (hope I got that right) bring that up and object to SOPA/PIPA on the basis of censorship as well as the dangers they pose to the Web and Internet themselves I’d say that argument is far from over on the basis of their probable slippery slope potentials themselves.

That objection is far from done and far from surrendered to PIPA/SOPA supporters and some of the more extreme trolls and twerps like you. You’re beneath contempt, beneath scorn.

You wanted an answer, there it is. There is a massive difference between the question you ask and copyright infringement. One MAY lose someone some money. The other robs the victim of a life they may have had or life itself as more than half of sexual abuse victims will commit suicide before they’re 25. How dare you.

You’re worse than my father was.

Hephaestus (profile) says:

Re: Re:

The saying “The internet never forgets” comes to mind. Slowly things build up, with each scandal adding a black mark to that permanent record your elementary school teacher told you about. In the case of GoDaddy they have a history of scummy behavior, eventually no amount of “well placed advertisement”s will fix that. Their own actions will have ruined their reputation and doomed them.

Violated (profile) says:

GoDaddy GoBadly

I am only happy that the GoDaddy boycott worked and they have now removed their name from SOPA and PIPA support.

I have also wondered if the boycott should now cease or continue and my conclusion is that it should continue. You should remember what their CEO said in that they are quite happy to support SOPA if the market did.

Clearly our best option is to cause GoDaddy so much pain that they never again dare support such a shit law. They are an Internet company and they should never have welcomed such Internet damage and censorship. They should have realised all the other experts who fled or were banned that something was seriously wrong. And they should have changed their mind before we forced them to.

So there you go. My domains are now at NameCheap and you can do whatever you want.

Scooters (profile) says:

I dare say, GoDaddy, if the company wants my account back, it’s going to take so much more than a nude (not-that-pretty) Danica to get it.

For starters: Mike Masnick in the nude.

I’m not attracted to men, but considering what he’d charge GoDaddy to be in the ad, I’d say that would be worthy of restoring my account (and domain) as “payment made”.

Well, GoDaddy?

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Re: Re:

“perv”, eh? It really speaks volumes about you that you’d take a joke about Mike posing nude in a GoDaddy ad and turn it into “I searched for naked men on the internet for you! Because you clearly like men!” I think someone’s projecting here…

Just having a little fun at Scooter’s (and apparently your) expense. Your fit of pique does little to dispel the stereotypes.

Robert Shaver (profile) says:

Yesterday I registered ...

Yesterday I registered a new domain name for a client. She had searched, the day before, for her-name.com on GoDaddy, which reported it was available. Yesterday using hover.com it was no longer available.

I had heard that it is common practice for a domain registrars to put a 30-day hold on any domain names that you search for on their site if you don’t buy it right then. It costs them nothing but prevents you from buying it elsewhere.

We went back to GoDaddy and did another search. The offered to charge us $21 to put it on back-order. When it comes available we would be permitted to participate in an auction for it.

In the end my client bought her-name.net from Hover.

But the moral of the story is to never search for available domain names on registrar’s web sites unless you intend to buy it right then. Perhaps there is an independent whois to use … I don’t know about that.

Perhaps one of the readers here might know more about this.

akp (profile) says:

The reason...

Transfers out of GoDaddy are down because they’re now requiring *written* authorization of transfers. That has slowed the exodus, (and I hope everyone has reported it to ICANN) but I doubt it will stop everyone in the long run.

In addition, there are tons of people (like me) who’s domains aren’t even eligible for transfer for a month or two. As soon as I’m able, I’m still transferring away.

GoDaddy is artificially slowing transfers out, causing their numbers to look better. Time will tell.

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: The reason...

Can you provide a pointer to a (linkable) source for the statement that GoDaddy is now requiring written authorization for transfers?

It wouldn’t surprise: GoDaddy is pure sleaze, top-to-bottom, so this would be perfectly consistent with everything they’ve ever done. But just because it fits their established behavior pattern doesn’t mean it’s true, so I’d like to see this confirmed.

Hans says:

Net plus incoming

I keep seeing reference to the net increase in GoDaddy controlled domains, as if the number of outgoing domains doesn’t mean anything. So doesn’t it still mean they lost a bunch of business they otherwise would have had?

And one wonders if it’s possible for them to fake the appearance of incoming domains, by shuffling domains around from elsewhere…

Clearly, if they’re contacting customers to ask them to come back, they’re concerned about the loss and are willing to expend resources to recover.

Anonymous Coward says:

I think all women should protest against go daddy for sexual exploitation of women. Danica Patrick is a disgrace to all business women with talent. Apparently she doesn’t have enough faith or self respect to let her track record be her legacy. Fluff is just fluff. She should just go hang out at the Mustang Ranch to make a buck instead of making all women look like sex objects.

Christopher Bingham (profile) says:

EFF Donations above $61k at Namecheap this morning

I moved my nine domain names last night to Namecheap at about 7pm, when the number was at around $21k. This morning, after doing the last confirmation link, the number was over $61k.

Moving to namecheap was really easy, their registration process and website is FAR easier to use, without the aggressive and slightly confusing ad gauntlet you have to go through with Godaddy and by purchasing last night, I donated $9 to EFF. Namecheap also adds your remaining time with Godaddy to your renewal time – so there is no $$ loss.

At around $10 a name, it appears pretty clear that at the very least, the boycott cost Godaddy around $600k in one day. Maybe that’s chicken feed, but it would get my attention. Because it’s not just this year – it’s every year thereafter. It’s a small pain to move my registration, but it’s a pain, so unless you do something to really make me want to move, I’ll probably stick with Namecheap for years to come.

backtoblack says:

Like the ads, but my domains are leaving

I think the ads are cute, amusing, etc… and we all know SEX SELLS,period.

I’ve seen tons of posts about degrading, yadda yadda yadda…

WHAT EVER!

These women signed up, knew what they were going to do, and got PAID. So if they are fine with it to get paid, why impose YOUR MORALITY on MY MORALITY or LACK THEREOF. Trust me these ads are TAME compared to those in most of the EU, UK, and Japan. TAME! G rated!

Oh.. its because its women, its wrong, but if it was Regina Parsons and there were men in the ads, its ok? Right? Spare me! While those ads would be repulsive to ad viewers (no I didn’t say they should not produce air them, if they think they won’t waste their ad $$, but I would clikc away!), and hence regardless of who male/female owns the company you won’t see them.

BUT… in re SOPA… Your lips are moving godaddy, your LYING! Just like lawyers and salesmen/women, LIARS ONE AND ALL.

Sorry I am voting with my domains, and the PR Blitz, and other items are just lip service to quell the march…

Nope, my domains are leaving, no I don’t have a bunch, probably won’t notice, so be it… but I am not going to stay someplace which is just paying me lip service.

As for the ads, they are like some other companies, I like the ads but would never purchase the product (and I had my domains at godaddy long before the ads), example: crapple. idiot pod|phone|other device brings new music to light that I wouldn’t know about where I immediately go to download a nice MP3, not from idiotunes and not used on an idiotdevice.


1311393600 – Back to Black…Blaaack….Blaaaack….

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