Last night I finalised the transfer of this domain name away from GoDaddy (to Gandi.net). This follows my decision last year to move my website from a data centre in Orlando, USA to servers in the United Kingdom.
The controversial American law SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) is to blame – GoDaddy not only endorses it, but is exempt from its effects due to the simple fact that it assisted in its creation. PIPA is another controversial act that GoDaddy endorses.
The SOPA law has too much power. In theory, if a person posts something on Facebook which is considered a copyright violation, the DNS servers of Facebook could legally be blocked. Effectively an entire site can be blocked because of the actions of a single user. The only people who benefit from the law are the greedy billionaire multi-nationals, who will happily sue over the download of a pirated £7 album.
We must not allow the internet to fall under the control of bureaucracy, and certainly not under the control of such a power-hungry government as the United States. I prefer not to have my website or domain hosted in a jurisdiction that can legally shut them down without appeal or notice, nor will I do business with any website endorsing such laws.
I encourage others who have domains with GoDaddy to transfer to another registrar. Read on to learn how…
Here are a few Anti-SOPA domain registrars (including where they are based, if that matters to you): Namecheap (USA), Name (USA), Hover (Canada), Dreamhost (USA) and Gandi (France).
Step 1: Unlock your domain(s) on GoDaddy
First you need to unlock your domain at GoDaddy. Go to the Domain Manager, select all of your domains and click the Locking button on the bar above. It may take a few minutes to unlock. You should also double check your Whois details (including email) are correct and remove any Domain Privacy that you have activated.
Step 2: Transfer to new Registrar
Find a new registrar and open an account (if necessary). Find their domain transfer tool or page and enter all of the domains you need to transfer. Fill in the rest of the info they ask for and submit. Tip: Google around for coupon codes for various registrars.
Step 3: Provide Authorisation
Your new registrar will email you asking for an Authorisation Code (usually spelt the American way, “Authorization”). You now need to go back to GoDaddy, select each domain and click the Authorization Code link. The code should arrive in you emails. Copy-Paste it to the new registrar, ensuring that you include all symbols (“, – etc.). Finalise the process.
Step 4: Finalisation
The new registrar will now check the Authorisation Code and request the transfer from GoDaddy. You should be able to approve the transfer yourself. Go to the GoDaddy Domain Manager, hover on the Domains tab and click Transfers. Your domain transfers should be listed here, select them and click Approve/Disapprove to approve them. If you don’t do this, the transfer should automatically be approve within 5 days.
Your transfer should now be complete and you should receive an email from the new registrar.
