[Read: GoDaddy Faces Boycott Threat From SOPA Opponents]
GoDaddy says that it supported SOPA in an attempt to stamp out piracy but now says it can’t support SOPA in its current form. Warren Adelman, the new CEO of GoDaddy, stressed that the company listened to the Internet community, saying, “It’s very important that all Internet stakeholders work together on this. Getting it right is worth the wait. GoDaddy will support it when and if the Internet community supports it.”
The company stressed that while it has worked with lawmakers in support of SOPA, GoDaddy’s chief counsel, Christine Jones, has fought some of SOPA’s more controversial clauses. “Go Daddy has always fought to preserve the intellectual property rights of third parties” Jones says in the company’s release, “and will continue to do so in the future.”
An open letter to Congress (PDF) written by luminaries of the Internet, such as Vint Cerf (co-designer of TCP/IP) and Robert W. Taylor (founder of ARPAnet) among others, implores Congress to back off and squash both SOPA, and its sibling PIPA legislation. The letter states, “If enacted, either of these bills will create an environment of tremendous fear and uncertainty for technological innovation, and seriously harm the credibility of the United States in its role as a steward of key Internet infrastructure.”
In addition to its reversal of support of the bill, GoDaddy has removed its previous blog posts explaining the company’s support of SOPA in order to avoid confusion. It remains to be seen if this will be enough to lure back clients like Ben Huh of Cheezburger.com and Paul Graham of Y Combinator who had threatened to Boycott due to GoDaddy’s Support of SOPA.
(IDG News Service John Ribeiro and PCWorld contributor Tony Bradley contributed to this report.)