Introducing SOPA, the Stop Online Piracy Act

So Congress had a decent idea, but executed it poorly.  No big deal.  That happens daily.  But this bill hits close to home for all of us in the Internet Marketing world, and that bill is the Stop Online Piracy Act, or SOPA.  Some folks have taken to calling it the Stop Online “Privacy” Act, because that’s what the bill has the potential to do.  It can stop our online privacy.  The point of the bill is to allow people put an end to others stealing their content, such as text, streaming videos, sharing music files.  That’s a good thing.  Intellectual property rights are a big deal to anyone intellectual enough to create something.  They should get paid for intangibles, not have a bunch of dunces share it around.

However, for some reason Congress saw fit to “crush a fly with a crane.”  There is no need to blow apart a lego castle with an atom bomb.  This is where this bill fails and potentially harms people online.  It has “guilty before proven innocent” written all over it.  All someone has to do is claim your site is pirating their content and blam (whap, wom, pow, whatever sound effect you prefer really) your site is frozen.  The bill allows the accuser the right to restrict your advertising (Adsense, Adwords, Media.net, etc.), and the ability to restrict your access to currency shifters (Paypal, AlertPay, MoneyBookers, etc.).  Basically, they can freeze your cash flow and income until it all gets sorted out.  That is why people have a problem with it.

GoDaddy’s First Mistake in the SOPA Battle

GoDaddy made some retarded-ass statement that they supported this bill.  Now, I’ve been with GoDaddy since my first domain about ten years ago.  They used to be owned by a pretty cool dude, Bob Parsons, who founded the company.  Then he sold the business and now is executive chairman (“Here’s a nice spot in the company, now step aside, sir.”).  Now these goofballs decided to publically back this bill, regardless of all the hooplah coming out of the internet marketing community a.k.a. The people who buy all those damn domains!

NameCheap’s Campaign Against SOPA and GoDaddy

The link to GoDaddy’s statement hit the forums and hit Twitter and it was all over.  The internet marketers continued to cast their vote with their wallets.  They started transferring domains away from GoDaddy.  GoDaddy quickly tried to be like “Wait a second, now we see why everyone’s pissed!  We are changing our stance on SOPA.  We hate it, too!  Just don’t transfer your domains, please!”  NameCheap saw an opportunity to capitalize and did.  This was a couple of days ago.  They basically put out their own statement and said “We at NameCheap don’t support SOPA like one of those registrars out there.  Neener Neener Boo Boo.  Oh, and we give you free privacy lol!”  Which is true.  Free privacy is the bomb.  So people started transferring their domains to NameCheap.  NameCheap played it like a bawse.

NameCheap’s MoveYourDomainDay

So then on the forums and Twitter people start making noise like “My domains are in transfer limbo, screw NameCheap!”  NameCheap caught wind of this and made another blog post to the effect of “People, chill… We are pissed too.  Your domains aren’t transferring because GoDaddy is purposefully only sending partial Who Is information!  And this is us putting them on blast in the public eye.”  So GoDaddy apparently was cornered as NameCheap swung its mammoth registar Thor hammer and struck a blow true to the evil overlord.  They decided to have an official MoveYourDomainDay and offer extra cheap transfers with a free year extension on the domain, still with the free privacy.  GoDaddy agreed to stop being assholes.  But then they kept being assholes.

GoDaddy – The Dingleberries of the Domain World

GoDaddy had to quit screwing around with NameCheap’s business, so they started trying to piss off their own customers.  I guess they figured if they made the process of transferring out really convoluted and annoying, some customers would just give up.  So they added a part where you have to scan and present a Photo ID before you can get ahold of your own stuff.  Did I mention they are assholes?

NameCheap 2 – GoDaddy 0 in the SOPA Wars

So this catches us up to the present.  I’m sure there’s going to be more drama for us to :popcorn: at and trollolol about.  But this is the game as it stands at the time of typing.  If something really delicious happens I’ll come back and edit this.

SOPA, GoDaddy, NameCheap, and TrickleCheddar

So where does this leave me?  What am I to do in the midst of this retardation and chaos?  I’m about to scan my driver’s license and transfer my domains to NameCheap.  I wasn’t going to because I’m a nice empathic person who gets a kick out of fighting for the underdog, but then GoDaddy started being doucheroids so screw it.  An extra year on a discounted transfer plus free privacy means I’m in!  It sucks that I’m about to renew all of my domains at one time, but oh well.  One less thing to do next year.  Plus it’ll help me with taxes.  Last minute of the year purchases for the win!

Lesson to be taken here:  Lessen your own expenses when the opportunity arises!  Domains are a significant expense in this business, and privacy can double that expense, that is unless you get it for free from NameCheap!