GoDaddy received a considerable amount of backlash after it announced its support of the 2012 SOPA bill. Once a campaign began to boycott the company's services, GoDaddy reversed its position.
GoDaddy received a considerable amount of backlash after it announced its support of the 2012 SOPA bill. Once a campaign began to boycott the company's services, GoDaddy reversed its position. Reuters/Murad Sezer

Supporting SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) has cost the Domain registrar giant GoDaddy dearly. The Domain registrar has reportedly lost 37,000 domains after the boycott call on it by the Internet community. It lost around 21,000 domains in a single day (Dec. 23), while the previous day saw 15,000 transfers out of it, according to a Venture beat report. This has happened despite the registrar's attempt to control damage by withdrawing its support to SOPA.

GoDaddy had earlier supported the controversial bill and their name had figured in the list of 142 companies that supported the bill. GoDaddy was the only tech-domain registrar in the House Legislature committee list, populated mostly by entertainment companies.

This irked the Internet community, which strongly opposes the legislation, leading to a boycott call on GoDaddy. Feeling the heat from its customers, GoDaddy announced on Dec. 23 that they had withdrawn their support of the current SOPA bill.

But GoDaddy customers are unimpressed and have threatened to continue their protest by transferring more domains out from it.

Many reddit users think that GoDaddy is not really against SOPA and that it is just bowing down to the customer pressure to save business interests.

GoDaddy has just publicly dropped their support of the heinous Stop Online Piracy Act or SOPA. But, they still support the Senate version of SOPA, called PIPA or PROTECT-IP. Don't trust the GoDaddy removal of SOPA support. That's the possible revenue loss talking. Continue until they actually oppose it with money, Sunderkeenin, a redditor, wrote in his comment on the reddit link on the issue.

The boycott, if continued further, will be a serious setback to the company finances as it will lose significant amount of money due to the transfers.