Neo-Nazi website 'The Daily Stormer' still up after GoDaddy, Google rejections

Kaila White and Rachel Sandler | USA TODAY Network

Show Caption Hide Caption GoDaddy & Google ban hate-filled Neo-Nazi site Both GoDaddy & Google have announced they will not host the Neo-Nazi site 'The Daily Stormer.' The decision comes after the site used sexist and obscene language to describe 32-year-old Heather Heyer.

SAN FRANCISCO — Neo-Nazi website The Daily Stormer attempted to switch its domain registration to Google after GoDaddy booted the site over an article on deadly protests at a white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Va.

The switch, first reported by Reuters, was visible via a public records search on Whois, which displays domain registration information. But hours later, Google's press office said in a statement to USA TODAY that the website violates its terms of service and has since been removed.

Yet The Daily Stormer remained online Monday despite the controversy. GoDaddy, which is the largest Internet domain-name seller in the world, announced Sunday evening it will no longer provide service to The Daily Stormer.

The company (GDDY), which is based in Scottsdale, Ariz., has drawn criticism for months for its willingness to provide a domain name for a website "dedicated to spreading anti-Semitism, neo-Nazism, and white nationalism," according to the Southern Poverty Law Center.

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The move comes after The Daily Stormer published an article Sunday using sexist and obscene language to demean Heather Heyer, the 32-year-old woman who was killed when a car driven by an alleged white supremacist drove into a crowd of counter-protesters after the Charlottesville, Va., rally.

After someone tweeted a reference to the article asking GoDaddy to remove it and ban the site, GoDaddy replied, "We informed The Daily Stormer that they have 24 hours to move the domain to another provider, as they have violated our terms of service."

We informed The Daily Stormer that they have 24 hours to move the domain to another provider, as they have violated our terms of service. — GoDaddy (@GoDaddy) August 14, 2017

GoDaddy corporate spokesman Dan Race confirmed the action in an email to The Arizona Republic, which like USA TODAY is a part of the USA TODAY Network.

The site was formed in 2013 and contains a variety of content under headlines such as "Race War" and "Jewish Problem." The homepage depicts a white video game character punching a black character.

"GoDaddy does not condone content that advocates expressions of hate, racism, bigotry," said Ben Butler, director of GoDaddy's digital crimes unit. "However, we generally do not take action on complaints that would constitute censorship of content and that represents the exercise of freedom of speech and expression on the Internet.

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"While we detest the sentiment of such sites, we support a free and open Internet and, similar to the principles of free speech, that sometimes means allowing such tasteless, ignorant content," he said.

He said the recent content on The Daily Stormer crossed the line by encouraging violence.

Domain-name registry services allow people to access the site's content by linking the www.dailystormer.com address to the actual computer hosting the content. GoDaddy did not host the company's information on its services.

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A domain-registry search tool on Monday showed the services were transferred to Google, which also said the site violated its terms of service and removed it. It was not clear Monday afternoon what company was hosting the site.

Previously, the company served "as the domain name registrar for The Daily Stormer, through its subsidiary Domains by Proxy, as it has throughout the site’s four-year history," according to the investigative news website, Reveal.

Daily Stormer's producer Andrew Anglin posted a message Monday that ignored the rebuke from GoDaddy and instead blamed a brief disruption on the site as the work of the international computer-hacking group Anonymous.

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Anonymous, which has no formal leadership structure but does have Twitter accounts associated with it, tweeted Monday that it was unaware of any of its followers hacking the site. The tweet suggested Anglin was faking the hack of his site.

"This is likely to be the derps from dailystormer engaging in a silly troll to woo their clueless base," the Anonymous tweet said. "If we're proven wrong, so be it."

Contributing: Ryan Randazzo, The Arizona Republic. Follow Kaila White and Rachel Sandler on Twitter: @kailawhite and @rachsandl