Today is December 29th, and if you follow issues relating to freedom of speech on the internet, you might recall it’s also the day Reddit users set aside to officially be “Dump GoDaddy Day.”
If you missed it, GoDaddy became the outcast of the internet earlier this month by allowing itself to be the sole tech company on a list of more than 150 supporters of the controversial Stop Online Piracy Act, also known as SOPA. Alongside companies like 3M, Marvel, Disney and Estee Lauder, GoDaddy perplexingly threw down for laws that would most definitely curb their business to no small degree- but the internet didn’t take it lying down. A thread on Reddit declared that today should be Dump GoDaddy Day, and immediately, users across the web began transferring away from the web host.
As of the most recent counts, GoDaddy lost more than 72,000 registrations from when the initial call went out to abandon the company, and earlier this week. For their part, GoDaddy has withdrawn its support for SOPA , albeit blandly, but it seems web users have not been moved by the position reversal. The user behind the initial post on Reddit calling for action, user SelfProdigy, also stood behind his actions- explaining in an interview that GoDaddy’s form-letter response after a query about their SOPA support led to the post and subsequent action. He explains:
“My heart was broken. I’ve used them for years. I didn’t like the generic letter they sent back to me so I posted a call to boycott. I didn’t know it would catch on the way it did.”
Are you one of the many who ditched GoDaddy for supporting SOPA? Did their change of heart change yours?