Andre Yoskowitz
23 Dec 2011 14:56
Just a day after it was revealed as 1 of the 120 formal supporters of SOPA, Go Daddy has pulled its support from the draconian bill.
The turning point for Go Daddy, which sells domain names, seems to be when Ben Huh, CEO of the Cheezburger networks said he would pull all 1000 of his domains from Go Daddy unless they dropped support for the "free Web cancer that is SOPA."
Cheezburger sites receive 375 million views per month.
Go Daddy has now posted a full statement on their site:
SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. (Dec. 23, 2011) - Go Daddy is no longer supporting SOPA, the "Stop Online Piracy Act" currently working its way through U.S. Congress.
"Fighting online piracy is of the utmost importance, which is why Go Daddy has been working to help craft revisions to this legislation - but we can clearly do better," Warren Adelman, Go Daddy's newly appointed CEO, said. "It's very important that all Internet stakeholders work together on this. Getting it right is worth the wait. Go Daddy will support it when and if the Internet community supports it."
Go Daddy and its General Counsel, Christine Jones, have worked with federal lawmakers for months to help craft revisions to legislation first introduced some three years ago. Jones has fought to express the concerns of the entire Internet community and to improve the bill by proposing changes to key defined terms, limitations on DNS filtering to ensure the integrity of the Internet, more significant consequences for frivolous claims, and specific provisions to protect free speech.
"As a company that is all about innovation, with our own technology and in support of our customers, Go Daddy is rooted in the idea of First Amendment Rights and believes 100 percent that the Internet is a key engine for our new economy," said Adelman.
In changing its position, Go Daddy remains steadfast in its promise to support security and stability of the Internet. In an effort to eliminate any confusion about its reversal on SOPA though, Jones has removed blog postings that had outlined areas of the bill Go Daddy did support.
"Go Daddy has always fought to preserve the intellectual property rights of third parties, and will continue to do so in the future," Jones said.