GoDaddy Boycott Fizzles; Twice As Many Domains Transfer In As Out

from the not-sustainable dept

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Yesterday, we noted that it appeared that the "GoDaddy boycott" concept may have been losing steam , thanks to the company's decision to move away from supporting the bill... combined with a new aggressive advertising campaign. Finally, on Thursday morning, the company went a step further: saying it hadn't just stopped supporting SOPA but now directly opposed SOPA . Even though the company notes that it saw "a spike in domain name transfers," it looks like the actual "boycott" day fizzled out. Looking at the results from DailyChanges shows that GoDaddy actually had a stronglyday, netting 20,748 more domains at the end of the day than the beginning. On transfers alone, there were nearlythe number of transfers in as out (27,843 in to 14,492 out) as well as more new registrations than deleted domains (43,304 new registrations compared to 35,907 deletions).This isn't that surprising, really. There was a big burst last week, which is what resulted in GoDaddy changing its stance on the bills. In other words, it seemed like most people jumped to make the move immediately, rather than waiting a week. On top of that, GoDaddy's change in position very likely did ease the concerns of many. And, many made the quite reasonable argument that continuing the boycott after GoDaddy officially changed positions would be counterproductive, since it would discourage other companies from changing their position as well. Of course, a counter argument would be that the goal of the boycott was less about convincing others on the list to change positions as it was to make sure that no other companies decided to support SOPA or any similar future regulations.Either way, it appears that for those who were hoping for a big boycott on Thursday, that didn't happen. I'm sure some SOPA supporters will use this as fodder to suggest the whole effort was a failure, but that's ridiculous. The whole thing still got a large company that was a huge supporter of these terrible bills to switch its position and recognize that it can't run roughshod over the wishes of its customers. It also helped draw more attention to the overall issue, and helped in getting other companies to back away from supporting the bill. It also gotattention among elected officials about how supporting this bill could get the internet activated. It may not be enough to kill the bills yet, but more politicians are aware of the issues. All in all, getting GoDaddy to change its position was a huge victory against SOPA and PIPA, but remains just one battle in a long and still ongoing war.: There are a bunch of comments insisting that this can't be true, and I'm happy to see more data. NameCheap claims that it had 32,000 domains transfer in , and it's true that Daily Changes isn't aproxy for domain transfers -- but it's a pretty good one. Some are suggesting that delays in processing will show more transfers over the next few days. We'll be watching. It's possible that there were a lot more transfers, but just because peopleit to happen, doesn't mean it actually happened.: NameCheap says in the last week they've received around 80,000 transfers

Filed Under: boycott, domains, pipa, protect ip, public, sopa

Companies: godaddy