Last night was an eventful night for torrent sites. GoDaddy, it appears, decided to pull the plug on websites that assist torrent searches, such as MyBitTorrent.com. Not only did they change the DNS information and lock the owners out of their accounts, they also demanded a payment of $50 USD before they would be allowed to access their accounts again to transfer their domain to a different registrar.
No warning was given to the owners of the domains prior to changing the DNS and locking them out of their accounts.
This event was covered by Digg.com and M-ook.com and spread to blogs, causing public pressure to quickly build against GoDaddy. Within about two hours, the public pressure caused GoDaddy to backtrack, reinstate the DNS of the affected sites, and they’re now giving the domain owners the chance to switch registrars without first paying the $50 extortion fee.
Obviously, these events bother me a great deal. We all know that if it wasn’t for the public pressure put against GoDaddy these sites would still be locked out.
Coincidently, Diggnation - digg.com’s popular vidcast - is sponsored by GoDaddy. This puts Digg.com into a very uncomfortable position. How will they react? Will they stick up for their sponsor and (possibly) earn the ire of their community, will they try to ignore this entirely, or will they snub GoDaddy and lose their funding (and possibly appear to officially support illegal activity but earn points with their community)?
Lastly, it puts me into an uncomfortable position. ShadowsInMotion.com was purchased through GoDaddy and while I don’t do anything illegal on my website, it’s GoDaddy’s behavior in this that has me worried. If my website breaks some obscure rule in their ToS will I find myself suddenly presented with a $50 extortion fee (which as far as I’m concerned that’s what it is) and my site suddenly offline?
It’s extremely unlikely that’ll happen, but it’s the fact that they’re willing to do that - and with no warning what so ever - that bothers me the most. I’m going to have to think a great deal over whether or not I want to stay with GoDaddy.
Links for this article:
- Initial Digg.com post covering GoDaddy’s behavior
- Digg.com post follow up, after GoDaddy backtracks
- The M-ook.com article
- Diggnation - Digg.com’s vidcast
- GoDaddy.com
~Mysk
January 13th, 2006 at Jan 13, 06 | 10:21 pm
Thank’s for the support from http://mybittorrent.com & http://m-ook.com
without help from bloggers like you mybittorrent’s would be gone!
Sincerely,
Greg Gumo (a.k.a. TyrantBuilt)
January 14th, 2006 at Jan 14, 06 | 8:18 am
You’re certainly welcome for what little added press I could give the situation, TyrantBuilt.