Company says outbound transfers are up due to prior support of controversial bill.
Responding to inquiries from Domain Name Wire and other news outlets, domain name registrar GoDaddy.com has issued a statement about an increase in domain transfer activity due to the company’s prior support of Stop Online Privacy Act (SOPA):
“We have observed a spike in domain name transfers, which are running above normal rates and which we attribute to Go Daddy’s prior support for SOPA, which was reversed,” said Go Daddy CEO Warren Adelman. “Go Daddy opposes SOPA because the legislation has not fulfilled its basic requirement to build a consensus among stake-holders in the technology and Internet communities. Our company regrets the loss of any of our customers, who remain our highest priority, and we hope to repair those relationships and win back their business over time.”
Although the company has not disclosed actual outbound domain transfers due to its prior SOPA support, numbers floating around the web based on nameserver transfers are likely highly inaccurate.
The proposed “transfer day” for customers to move domain names away from the registrar was today. However, the boycott was proposed prior to the company changing its stance on SOPA.
Michael Berkens says
Andrew
If the numbers that have been reported are “highly inaccurate” then why doesn’t Godaddy release some “real numbers”?
Andrew Allemann says
@ Michael Berkens –
It’s not GoDaddy that’s saying those numbers are highly inaccurate. I’m saying going with DailyChanges.com is highly inaccurate. If you just look at that one day I pointed out in my post on DailyChanges, you’ll see most of the nameserver changes were just to a new parking company — not a new registrar.
Andrew Allemann says
…and I’m not oblivious to the fact that the #s may be higher than what’s on daily changes.
Theo says
I am with Michael here.
Where there is smoke, there is fire.
Anyways.
GD is currently under a magnifying glass.
Whatever they release presswise at this point willbe questioned …
Sole Designer says
@Michael
Might be a sign of even more weakness. Doubt they will do that to try and sway minds.
Steve Jones says
They really haven’t handled things too well at pretty much every step of the way in this mess. Granted they’d have lost business the moment it was out that they supported SOPA, but they could have stemmed the damage a lot better.
Andrew Allemann says
@ Steve Jones – will be interesting to see how things pan out. I was actually surprised when they reversed course…might have something to do with their new investors and that Bob Parsons is no longer involved day-to-day.
Steve Jones says
I’m sure their change has 100% to do with their new investors. This is actually the first comment I’ve seen from them where they say they now oppose it – before, it was simply that they no longer supported it.
SL says
No mention of PIPA, just SOPA.
Dave Zan says
Heh, that’s what they’re still trying to figure out. Granted, that’s not necessarily easy.
At this point, the only realistic thing to do is “go with the flow”.