Over the weekend, Christine Jones general counsel and corporate secretary of GoDaddy.com wrote a piece that appeared in Politico.com in support of the E-Parasite Bill.
In the piece Ms. Jones write in part:
“”It’s a welcome step in the right direction, and we at GoDaddy.com applaud the leadership in the House Judiciary Committee, the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Intellectual Property, Competition and the Internet and the Senate Judiciary Committee, for taking decisive, bicameral and bipartisan action.””
“”In our view, Internet policy should strive to balance the sometimes competing goals of the global free flow of information (which is clearly critical to U.S. businesses), with enforcement of the rule of law. We don’t see those competing goals as mutually exclusive, but rather, complimentary. In fact, that balance is essential to a flourishing, yet safe, Internet.””
“”Why some members of the Internet ecosystem do not believe it is their responsibility to participate in finding that balance is unclear to us. We’ve found that balance in the past in the child protection and counterfeit pharmaceuticals contexts, for example, where we voluntarily take action against customers whose websites or domain names violate the law. So far, none of our voluntary action has stifled legitimate capitalism online. And neither will robust intellectual property enforcement.””
“”The question should be how, not whether, we develop a notice and takedown regime in a responsible and responsive way.””
“”While increasing demands on intermediaries are less than desirable for all of us, we can’t just turn a blind eye to illegal conduct online.””
TechDirt.com has now ripped into Godaddy.com for supporting the bill saying in part:
“However, the really stunning thing is that Jones doesn’t even seem to understand the bill that she’s supporting. Specifically, she doesn’t seem to recognize not just the compliance costs it puts on GoDaddy
“She also doesn’t seem to realize that under the bill’s broad definitions GoDaddy itself is a “site dedicated to the theft of US property”.
“”That’s because among the definitions of a site that’s “dedicated to the theft of US property” is this: if the site “is marketed by its operator… for use in offering goods or services in a manner that engages in, enables, or facilitates… the sale, distribution, or promotion of goods, services, or materials bearing a counterfeit mark, as that term is defined in section 34(d) of the Lanham Act or section 2320 of title 18, United States Code.” In other words, if you operate a site that enables or facilitates the sale of goods that bear a counterfeit mark… you’re dedicated to theft of US property.”
“So, let’s take a quick wander over to GoDaddy… and, just for fun, let’s see what happens if we try to register the domain Rolex.com. Rolex.com is obviously taken, but… oh wait… what’s this… GoDaddy is recommending that I might want to register these other domains that are perfect for infringing sites.”
If you want to see screenshots of what TechDirt.com found as suggestions for Rolex.com check out the full article here
There is a reason that I don’t keep domains at GD.
It’s the registrar equivalent to WalMart. Yea prices are cheap now, but it’ll cost ya in the long run.
That’s one machine that people need to stop feeding so much.
GoDaddy are full of themselves. We recently filed a false whois complaint with them on a domain name registered with obviously bogus information. They responded by immediately masking the whois with privacy protection and then responding with “we can not do anything because the name is under privacy.”
Remember this is a company that circumvented the drop system instead grabbing the expiring names of their customers and then selling them off on the site of an affiliated company website without revealing the reationship bewteen the sites. They also allowed their employees to bid on GD auctions.
If these guys are infavor of something, it can not be good!
Some guy at GoDaddy called me a few months ago to see why I’ve opted out of their “brokerage” emails (they’re habitual low-ballers and time-wasters). Stuff like the above doesn’t help their cause.
I think the term is biting the hand that feeds you, 99% of the clients have no intention of squatting, and the ones that usually do, are hoop dream newbies…
I am a VIP client of godaddy, and am very shocked about what their counsel is stating here, would call the rep, but they are so well trained at giving brush offs now days…
Gotta love that first suggestion on the screenshot;
“rolex.com is taken, but why not take one of these alternatives”;
EbayRolex.com
Boycott GoDaddy until she renounces this anti-small business position. Embarrassing the whole company.
Goodbye No Daddy. No clients from me, no nothing.
Pulling out what few are left.;
@James
[..]Gotta love that first suggestion on the screenshot
“rolex.com is taken, but why not take one of these alternatives”
EbayRolex.com[..]
lol..no 2 looks tempting too, (RolexYahoo.com) that is if you want Tim Morse and Roy Bostock to come knocking on your front door with an army of attorneys ;)~
http://i.imgur.com/gNVaL.png
Godaddy brings a new and naive consumer to the table – but does nothing to educate them on the unlawful activites they promote – like attempting to hijack (oops transfer) the same domain over and over – sometime for 6-9 months.
At any given moment I have at least one domain a goddady customer is trying to hijack – and I know I am not alone.
The just of this Holier than thou comment by godaddy – is denial.
i can understand where she’s coming from. but i can also see she is relatively ignorant of the inner workings of the system. no sincere interest in the technical stuff on which her company is based.
the technical staff and the legal dept are not talking to each other much, except when there’s a crisis. she’s not really in tune with the “big picture”.
this bill is well-meaning, but it is not well thought out.
there is illegal activity that needs to be stopped. and a lot of it happens via godaddy sites.
but tragetting a communications system that the drafters do not fully understand is going to have effects they could not forsee that go much further than the criminal activity that is getting their attention.
it’s like threatening to shut off telephone service because some criminals somewhere offshore are taking phone orders. not only will the criminals find a workaround if their access is blocked, there will be a profound irreversible effect on everyone else’s use of the system in general. and some companies, who are not the ones pushing for this sort of legislation, will discover they can use the law in a way that was not intended, to shut down legitimate competition.
the whole idea of the internet is resiliency. if one part of it goes dark, the rest of the network makes new connections and routes around the outage.
we should not be discussing the system, and how to control or disable it, we should be discussing the specific criminal acts that are discovered. what are the specific examples? where are they? what exactly are they doing? details.
maybe we’re too often even unable to answer those basic questions. maybe this is sheer desperation.
that would explain why the bill is so poorly thought out.
There is a rumor going around DC that GoDaddy will be one of the three witnesses testifying in favor of E-PARASITE at a House Judiciary hearing on November 16th.
I find their position inexplicable, as my initial reading of the bill is that it is a huge threat to the entire domain industry infrastructure. A complaint from a single trademark holder could cut off payment and ad services to a registrar, parking service provider, secondary marketplace or auction service, or any other website that facilitates services related to domains — without a judge ever being involved up to the point of service termination. That raises very serious due process concerns, to say the least.
If you are appalled at the E-parasite act, write your congressmen and sign the petition at https://wwws.whitehouse.gov/petitions#!/petition/stop-e-parasite-act/SWBYXX55.
Time to boycott the GoDaddy fascists and move our domains and hosting elsewhere.
Politico must be GD-owned and operated. I can’t find this reference on Politico. I wish you had saved a screenshot or linked to the actual source.
“As a caveat, Jones said lawmakers have to give domain name registrars, search engines and payment processors legal cover in future legislation so they don’t face lawsuits for cutting off transactions with infringing sites.”
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0411/52687_Page2.html
That’s the only reference to Christine Jones I could find. I see what she’s going for: liability protection for taking down sites.