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Wikipedia Hasn't Forgiven GoDaddy 190

netbuzz writes "The fact that a month and a half has gone by and Wikipedia still hasn't followed through on Jimmy Wales public threat to remove its domain name registrations from GoDaddy over the latter's early support of SOPA has some concerned that the online encyclopedia may have had a change of heart. After all, GoDaddy did withdraw its backing of the controversial antipiracy legislation, at least publicly. But fear not, SOPA foes, as Wikipedia says its days with GoDaddy are indeed numbered and that number is getting very small."
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Wikipedia Hasn't Forgiven GoDaddy

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  • by MrEricSir ( 398214 ) on Saturday February 11, 2012 @12:55AM (#39003137) Homepage

    Let's also not forget all the other ways GoDaddy sucks:

    • So much up-selling a car dealer would blush
    • Obnoxious TV advertisements that are straight out of Idiocracy
    • Customer service worse than the post office or a bank
    • That whole elephant-killing thing.

    So fuck GoDaddy. There's plenty of registrars with better service that cost less anyway.

    • by stephanruby ( 542433 ) on Saturday February 11, 2012 @02:09AM (#39003343)

      and don't forget also:

      The GoDaddy CEO publicly supports waterboarding [gizmodo.com.au]
      GoDaddy already has an history of shutting down domains without requiring to see a court order
      GoDaddy has a long history of getting its customer servers/accounts hacked and not saying anything about it to its customers
      And during the SOPA exodus, which is still going on, it's been dragging its feet [washingtonpost.com] on domain transfers (a violation of ICANN rules and regulations).
      Hopefully, they'll have their domain name registry privileges taken away by ICANN because of that last one.

      • by SuperTechnoNerd ( 964528 ) on Saturday February 11, 2012 @02:32AM (#39003403)
        Don't forget The GoDaddy CEO shoots elephants in Africa for fun too.. Nice guy.
      • by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 11, 2012 @02:50AM (#39003473)

        LOL.
        After following your link to waterboarding, which then leads to another page 60 links deep proclaiming the GoDaddy CEO supports waterboarding, the only thing it eventually led to is a blog posting by the CEO calling Guantanamo Bay an "important asset" to protect Americans. So yes, I suppose you could say he therefore supports waterboarding, in the same way that if a staff member at Guantanamo Bay was into BDSM, you could say Bob Parson supports BDSM tooly. Or in the same way that you support Open Source, of which Linux is a leading example, which contains components written by Hans Reiser, who was a murderer; and therefore you publicly support murder.

        • or because my Workmate went to school with James McAvoy, who starred in X-Men First Class with Kevin Bacon means that I'm friends with Kevin Bacon!

        • the only thing it eventually led to is a blog posting by the CEO calling Guantanamo Bay an "important asset" to protect Americans

          Thus GD does support waterboarding. I was expecting that to be FUD.

          • by Ihmhi ( 1206036 )

            I dunno, that's kinda like saying a politician supports rape because he thinks prisons are a good idea.

            • I dunno, that's kinda like saying a politician supports rape because he thinks prisons are a good idea.

              Well, it's not like the Guantanamo detainees are waterboarding each other... or... ARE THEY?

            • I dunno, that's kinda like saying a politician supports rape because he thinks prisons are a good idea.

              A politician DOES support rape if he supports the prison-industrial complex. Period, the end.

              Your simile is not sufficiently similar. Gitmo exists to behave in ways that we do not permit in other prisons, and thus, supporting Gitmo is explicitly supporting the behavior that goes on at Gitmo. Logic? You fail it.

              • by afabbro ( 33948 )

                A politician DOES support rape if he supports the prison-industrial complex. Period, the end.

                Or put another way:

                Logic? You fail it.

        • by Onymous Coward ( 97719 ) on Saturday February 11, 2012 @05:05PM (#39007549) Homepage

          Bob Parsons on Guantamo Bay [archive.org]:

          "The interrogation techniques at Gitmo are very mild."

          (Note from Wikipedia: By May 2011 there had been at least six suicides and hundreds of suicide attempts in GuantÃnamo that are in public knowledge.)

          "Key prisoners at Gitmo still have not talked -- because our interrogation methods are so weak."

          (Are we really going to get into a sincere discussion about the efficacy of torture? What about we pause first at the idea of whether it's ethical?)

          "Given the type of individuals we have incarcerated at Gitmo [guardian.co.uk] (all of them would love to gouge out your eyes-"

          (including children and old men? [guardian.co.uk])

          Bob Parsons is the ugliest face of America. Hateful and uninformed, but pushing to make things work the way he thinks they should. Don't be like Bob. And don't empower him with your money.

    • But.....but.....They have a hot, successful racing chick as their mascot. *Drools*
    • by Slur ( 61510 )

      I went for a Hostgator reseller account. But just till they get too evil.

    • Plus the user interface pages end in "aspx". Which is the mark of the BEAST!
    • Elephant-killing thing? That's a first. Got a link?

    • by drinkypoo ( 153816 ) <drink@hyperlogos.org> on Saturday February 11, 2012 @10:31AM (#39004809) Homepage Journal

      REGISTERING DOMAINS FOR WHICH YOU HAVE SEARCHED ON GODADDY AND THEN PARKING THEM AND DEMANDING YOU PAY MORE THAN DOMAIN REGISTRATION FEES TO GET THEM.

      Sorry about the all caps, but that is far and away the most evil thing GoDaddy has ever done, because as a registrar their job is to register domains, not speculate on them. I hope they all get ass cancer.

      • by tbird81 ( 946205 )

        Is it possible to get them to register/park a whole lot of gibberish domains? They're never going to sell gjioewjr3njk32.com.

  • forgivness (Score:5, Insightful)

    by SuperTechnoNerd ( 964528 ) on Saturday February 11, 2012 @01:00AM (#39003149)
    I have not forgiven my congress critters either. Looking forward to November.
    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by bky1701 ( 979071 )
      So you can vote in the other (potentially worse) corporate candidate? Or do you plan to vote for a third party with little chance of winning? If the first, at least do the due diligence of figuring out if the opposition is more fanatical in support of the things you dislike. This is a step I fear most people do not realize is necessary. If the second, well... have fun being a statistical outlier.
      • Re:forgivness (Score:5, Insightful)

        by EuclideanSilence ( 1968630 ) on Saturday February 11, 2012 @01:31AM (#39003221)

        What the hell is wrong with being a statistical outlier? Elections aren't some horserace that you win by voting for the candidate that gets office, they are won when public opinion changes.

        • Re:forgivness (Score:5, Insightful)

          by artor3 ( 1344997 ) on Saturday February 11, 2012 @01:45AM (#39003263)

          What the hell is wrong with being a statistical outlier? Elections aren't some horserace that you win by voting for the candidate that gets office, they are won when public opinion changes.

          True, but public opinion isn't changed by the fact that 0.2% of the vote went to Generic Third Party #17. Not even a little bit.

          If you want to effect change via voting:
          1) Primary for the best candidate you can find (a lot of people ignore this step, and then go on to bemoan that they only have two choices in the general election)
          2) Vote for the least bad of the two major party nominees at the federal level
          3) Vote for third parties at the local and state level

          Non-federal politics matter a whole lot -- more than federal politics for many aspects of life -- and are easier to influence. Plus the pool of people who get taken seriously at a federal level tends to be drawn from those who have been successful at the lower levels. If you can get a great candidate to be a popular and successful state senator, then he's got a good shot at becoming governor. If you've got a popular and successful independent governor, I know a whole lot of people who'd love to see him become president. It's admittedly a long shot, but it's better than throwing away your vote every cycle in a protest that 99.9% of the populace won't even notice.

          • Re:forgivness (Score:5, Insightful)

            by epine ( 68316 ) on Saturday February 11, 2012 @03:13AM (#39003517)

            True, but public opinion isn't changed by the fact that 0.2% of the vote went to Generic Third Party #17. Not even a little bit.

            You can't back that up, I don't believe it to begin with, and the argument from continuity suggests it's not even logically possible, not to mention the problem with induction.

            There exists threshold j below which your vote matters not at all in the minds of dullards who believe this. At some point you have to cross the dullard threshhold. Only a non-dullard can move the dullards. But even the non-dullard concedes that there exists k much less than j below which his inductive impetus is wasted. Only a double non-dullard can move the non-dullards. But even a double non-dullard concedes that there exists m much less than k ...

            On a more practical basis, there was a time in the nineties in a Canadian election where the dismal third option failed to clear a threshold I didn't even know about: percentage of popular vote which granted them official party status and the resources which flow from that. All the idiots were saying "don't waste your vote" over votes this party desperately needed to clear this bar.

            The big one in America, of course, is excluding Ralph Nadar (or anyone like him) from the presidential debate. I think that's the worst possible outcome of all, because it grants the asylum complete control over the speaking points. All you have left are two candidates promising the same small opposites. We're left arguing over the colour of the paint rather than whether to adopt a gasoline or diesel engine.

            These throw-away votes don't decide between the donkey and the elephant, but they have a big impact on whether good candidates, or at least strong voices for a different future, bother to show up at all.

            I believe America should outlaw two party debate in presidential elections. There should always be at least a third voice who gets equal time, selected by whatever mechanism proves workable. (This is probably a long term arms race where the incumbents constantly work to scupper whatever worked the time before.)

            In fact, I wouldn't mind having an entire panel of third party voices who collectively get 1/3 of the total debate time. They can have a bidding system among themselves for who gets to cut in on which issues.

            Your rule of thumb is a good one for people who don't wish to think. Not even a little bit.

            • Re:forgivness (Score:4, Informative)

              by artor3 ( 1344997 ) on Saturday February 11, 2012 @03:51AM (#39003597)

              You can't back that up (1), I don't believe it to begin with (2), and the argument from continuity suggests it's not even logically possible (3), not to mention the problem with induction (4).

              1. Yes, I can, through experience and basic knowledge of how people tend to approach politics. I know, I know, "problem of induction". We'll come to that.
              2. Clearly, but your belief is not required for it to be true.
              3. You're misusing the continuity argument. Clearly there exists some threshold at which third party votes matter. In practice, that threshold is far above what we're currently capable of reaching. The continuity argument only applies when you can reach both endpoints.
              4. The "problem" of induction is a philosophical one. Godel's Incompleteness Theorem proves that no numerical system can be both consistent and complete, but that doesn't stop me from using math. Likewise, while the "problem" of induction means that my never having seen the Cubs win a World Series does not make such an event impossible, I'm sure as all hell not gonna bet on them.

              Your recursive stack of "dullards", while cute, misses a key point. It assumes that as you progress in levels (j, k, m, n4, n5, n6...), as your level approaches infinity the threshold will drop to zero. Maybe instead the threshold asymptotically approaches 10%. Below that level, even the infinitely non-dullardly don't care about the third party vote. And before you raise yourself as a counter example, note that we can have also have a class of double-dullards (don't complain about the offensive terminology -- you picked it) who always care.

              In short, you're trying too hard to apply simple mathematical reasoning to a process that is far more complex than you have accounted for. I don't doubt that it is theoretically possible to model human behavior in such a way, but your name's not Hari Seldon, and you're not going to perform a psychohistorical analysis of American voting trends in a Slashdot comment.

            • Whatever method works...
              AND the results are secret FROM the candidates, AND the public, until the debate.

              The third candidate should be a total unknown to both existing parties, and they should enter the lion's cage TOTALLY unharmed.

          • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

            by Anonymous Coward

            Fuck that shit.

            The UK has it's first Green MP a year or so ago because people actually voted for the candidate they wanted, rather than who they thought had a chance of winning.

            If you keep voting for primary Democrat/Republicans, guess what, that's what you'll keep getting!

            • by artor3 ( 1344997 )

              Sure, in a district of 70k people, with three major parties to divide votes between instead of just two. In the US, the average congressional district is nearly ten times that size (~650k), and there are only two major parties.

              And out of curiosity, how much has that one MP been able to do? She's not part of the Tory-Lib Dem coalition government, and while I admit my knowledge of British politics is shaky (having come mostly from being stuck in a hotel that only received the BBC and some weird Japanese cra

              • by madprof ( 4723 )

                She may not actually change the content of any government legislation, or even swing a vote in the House of Commons, but she has a far more powerful voice to espouse her views and challenge the complacent Westminster establishment.
                The best thing is that if she does a half-decent job for her constituents, they might return her at the next election as she's not liable to lose votes due to the ruling party losing popularity.

              • by skegg ( 666571 )

                I'm all for people throwing their vote behind an underdog, if that's who they believe in.
                The federal political landscape has changed in Australia thanks to people voting for a minor party, the Australian Greens.

                Check out this link showing the Greens' progress over the past 15 years: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_Greens#2010_election_onward [wikipedia.org]
                At one point they held no seats ... then they held 2% ... now they're at 13% of the Senate!

                Interestingly, a notable portion of the Greens' votes are "protest vot

            • The UK has a completely different election system in which minor parties are not completely neutered. In the USA the candidate who finishes first wins, even if he only got 30% of the vote. Small parties only have a chance in such a system if there are no big parties.

          • True, but public opinion isn't changed by the fact that 0.2% of the vote went to Generic Third Party #17. Not even a little bit.

            Are you voting in function of what the public opinion is, or are you actually depositing your vote on what you personally believe is the best candidate?

            You don't get any prize in voting on the winning candidate. Voting for a public election isn't a groupon deal. You vote on the candidate you believe is the best candidate for office, and then election officials count your vote. If your candidate doesn't win then tough luck, at least that candidate got your vote and you actually did your job as a citizen.

            Now

            • by artor3 ( 1344997 )

              I cast each and every vote in the manner that I think will best benefit my country. You're telling me that I should ignore what's best for the country and follow my heart, and tough luck if that causes widespread suffering. Not only that, but that to do otherwise means I'm somehow failing in my duty. Noted, and duly ignored. I will continue to work my ass off in every election to maximize benefit to the country, instead of running off after some Hollywood-inspired dream that things would all be perfect

              • by Hatta ( 162192 )

                You're telling me that I should ignore what's best for the country and follow my heart, and tough luck if that causes widespread suffering.

                The fact that you cannot vote for the candidate you believe is best for the country, because that would lead to widespread suffering is an indication that the electoral system is fundamentally broken. By participating in that system you legitimize it and further increase the widespread suffering you fear. If you're not fighting for people who would fix the voting syste

          • True, but public opinion isn't changed by the fact that 0.2% of the vote went to Generic Third Party #17. Not even a little bit.

            I understand that US elections are doomed by that one turn only thing... But even then you are looking at things in an inverted way. It is the pool that must change because of public opinion, not the other way around.

            By the way, are your elections for Congress also not representative? Because that is the most important vote you have (yeah, even at the US).

          • by tomhath ( 637240 )

            If you can get a great candidate to be a popular and successful state senator, then he's got a good shot at becoming

            A state senator moving all the way up to President? Unheard of...oh wait.

          • True, but public opinion isn't changed by the fact that 0.2% of the vote went to Generic Third Party #17.

            Depends on the person. Depends on the time. I don't think the solution is to simply give up.

          • Primary for the best candidate you can find (a lot of people ignore this step, and then go on to bemoan that they only have two choices in the general election)

            In 2008, my preferred candidate was mathematically eliminated before the primaries even got to my state.

            Non-federal politics matter a whole lot

            The article is about copyright law, which is exclusively federal. How do non-federal politics matter to copyright? Or are you talking about the option of somehow getting three-fourths of the states to put substantive limits on Congress's power under the copyright clause?

        • by bky1701 ( 979071 )
          You can't win them by going completely unnoticed, either. People need to have the sense to use their vote in a useful way. Blowing it on whatever party suits your fancy on election day is simply irresponsible. Vote in the primaries if you care and feel you are not represented. The fact Ron Paul is still bouncing around, however misguided he might be, shows that it is possible to have an effect on the system that way. Otherwise, suck it up and take the lesser evil, since one of the two will win, and I damn s
      • I know you're projecting cynicism. This issue did engage so many people that over 10 million did something and 100 million were at least impacted. In a country where only 80 million people vote and the difference between winning and losing is often only a few thousand or hundred thousand depending on the office that can sway some significant change. We may see a November surprise.
        • Maybe... OTOH our populace is also terribly apathetic and has almost no long-term political memory. Getting 10 million people to click a link or sign a petition after having the issue thrown in their face all day is a good accomplishment, but how many of those people will a) go to the polls, and b) remember what it was they cared so much about 10 months previously?

          I know it's more of that cynicism, but i'm just not convinced it will be a major factor come election time.

      • "So you can vote in the other (potentially worse) corporate candidate? Or do you plan to vote for a third party with little chance of winning? "

        Thees are all true statements. But it's about shaking up the status quo, and trying to choosing the lesser evil, and sending a message. And if you trying to say you have lost faith in the whole gosh darn system and just stop giving a shit - I can understand your frustration - I share it. But giving up and doing nothing is not going to help.

        "If the first, at lea
        • by bky1701 ( 979071 )
          "But it's about shaking up the status quo, and trying to choosing the lesser evil, and sending a message."

          Then do that in the primary. Do that by supporting third parties in the run up to congressional elections. Don't roll out of bed on election day and think that checking the third box on the ballot means anything thing about your ability to overturn the system. When it comes down to it, nothing short of a massive cultural shift is going to overcome the power of the two party system as a whole, and tha
          • I just donated $50 to Gary Johnson [garyjohnson2012.com], the Libertarian dude. Unlike all of the other idiots, he actually has some ideas that seem to make sense. I will also be voting in the primary. I'm pretty sure he won't get elected, but if he gets enough support and votes, it might shake things up.
      • So you can vote in the other (potentially worse) corporate candidate? Or do you plan to vote for a third party with little chance of winning?

        Are you aware of what happens if you, or anyone, refuses to vote for "the third party with little chance of winning"? I'll tell you what happens: the third party candidate has little chance of winning.

        Think about it.

  • To be fair... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Daetrin ( 576516 ) on Saturday February 11, 2012 @01:09AM (#39003171)
    I expect with a company the size of Wikipedia, particularly one with Wikipedia's web presence, switching your hosting around isn't really something you can do on the turn of a dime.

    On the other side of the coin though (er, so to speak) i wonder if this is really the best tactic. I mean, i couldn't wish for the fallout to land on a more deserving company, but will this affect Wikipedia's bargaining position for similar situations in the future? Threatening to punish people for actions you don't like is just fine (well, assuming you stick to legal methods of course) but if they recant and you follow through on your threats regardless, would the next company you deal with have any reason to recant?
    • Re:To be fair... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by EdIII ( 1114411 ) on Saturday February 11, 2012 @01:26AM (#39003213)

      switching your hosting around isn't really something you can do on the turn of a dime

      Exactly. It does take time, especially for a large organization, to find a suitable replacement for services.

      .....but if they recant and you follow through on your threats regardless, would the next company you deal with have any reason to recant?

      That's not the point. There is no forgiveness for GoDaddy. Absolute Utter Destruction Required. They KNOW better.

      Some actions are not possible to take back. Yes, I will compare it to murder. You just can't take it back. Do I care that the murderer is blubbering in the court room? Nope. Not at all. Fry his ass.

      That is what it really comes down too. A deterrent. When we partially hang GoDaddy, cut off their balls, disembowel them, chop of their head, and distribute the remaining portions of their body on spikes to the far reaches of the Internet it will stand as warning to all companies to not support laws that threaten the base functionality of the Internet and a free and open network.

      Their cries for mercy fall on deaf ears and hardened resolve.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Except Godaddy didn't really recant.

    • Re:To be fair... (Score:5, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 11, 2012 @01:43AM (#39003251)

      As far as I'm aware, Wikipedia does not depend on GoDaddy for anything other than domain registrar services. They don't use them for DNS. They don't use them for hosting of any kind. So actually, yes, they literally can switch to another registrar on the turn of a dime. I've seen it done with corporate sites fielding millions of page views a month, and downtime should be precisely zero. Nothing changes aside from the registrar name in the whois info.

  • they are waiting till their next billing cycle, news at 11

  • by alex_guy_CA ( 748887 ) <alex@NoSPAm.schoenfeldt.com> on Saturday February 11, 2012 @01:50AM (#39003283) Homepage
    I called up hover.com. Spoke with someone on the phone, gave her my godaddy login info. She did all of the work for me. I'm done with godaddy, and I can't think that there is any possible way it could have been easier.
  • by Animats ( 122034 ) on Saturday February 11, 2012 @01:52AM (#39003289) Homepage

    And this costs GoDaddy what, $2.95? It's just domain registration. Wikipedia isn't hosted by GoDaddy.

    There's a hierarchy of registrars. At the top is MarkMonitor, which registers domains like "ford.com". If you have to ask how much their registration costs, you can't afford it. This is where you register a "must stay up" domain. If anything goes wrong with a MarkMonitor registration, alarms go off and teams of DNS admins and lawyers swing into action.

    Network Solutions is a reasonable registrar for corporate domains. They have "amazon.com", for example. If something goes wrong, you can usually get them ont he phone and get them to do something.

    Much further down is GoDaddy. But they're not the bottom. Below GoDaddy are the bulk registrars, like Enom. That's where you register junk domains for link farms, domaining, and other dubious activities. At the bottom are the registrars in the ICANN list that don't even have valid contact information. It's not clear what they're doing, but it's probably not good.

    • by FreakyGreenLeaky ( 1536953 ) on Saturday February 11, 2012 @03:17AM (#39003531)

      It costs them reputation.

    • by Jay L ( 74152 )

      Network Solutions is, in fact, a horrible registrar for corporate domains. This winter we changed our DNS from NetSol to Amazon Route 53. When NetSol repoints domains, it *immediately* starts serving generic "parking page" A records from the old DNS server. Combine this with the fact that many ISPs ignore the SOA TTL record, and you have a domain that's down for over a day for your customers at BellSouth, Cox, RCN, and probably others. We did get them on the phone, and was told "that's the way it works".

  • by ukemike ( 956477 ) on Saturday February 11, 2012 @02:17AM (#39003375) Homepage
    Have you ever tried to switch from GoDaddy? I'm sure they're just having difficultly figuring out HOW to unregister from GoDaddy. It took me about 5 tries over the course of three months and I only had one domain to deal with.
  • And nor have I. I've transferred all of my domains and cancelled all services I had through them. This was not without great expense, but fuck them. I would rather give my money to someone that doesn't want to act as a cop.
  • People don't seem to get that for a seriously popular site that must not go down, it's just not the same class of phenomenon as picking a registrar more or less at random (the same process by which people ended up on GoDaddy in the first place) to move your blog's DNS to. It's literally taken weeks to make absolutely sure that the transition damn well will go smoothly. This on top of, like, the actual work the WMF is supposed to do. AIUI, there should be an announcement next week or so.

    • by Richy_T ( 111409 )

      Even with that, it's still not a big issue. Just with a company like that, I'm sure there's a bunch of bureaucracy to go through and other things that are higher priority.

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