They're asking for the wrath of St. Postel with this.
To co-opt a piece of a public internet standard that was arrived at through the work of lots of people is really beyond the pale.
Godaddy ought to be boycotted over this, simply take all of your business away from them referring to the filing of this patent as your reason for closing your account.
I'm pretty sure that if enough people do it they'll wonder if this is such a good idea.
This besides the obvious fact that they are even able to file this is utter nonsense, they ought to be rejected on the spot and fined for filing a ridiculous patent.
I moved all 60+ of my domains over to namecheap.com after GoDaddy pulled the rug out from under Fydor. See http://www.nodaddy.com for the details and other alternate registrars.
some shocking stories in there, I knew it was bad, I've had a pretty bad experience myself with godaddy long ago, but nothing to compare with what these guys report.
Makes network solutions look like a professional outfit.
Have had no problems with namecheap, dotdnr was good too but they upped their price by 5 bucks (not much but makes you wonder if they would do it again).
A lot of the large domain owners use Moniker or Fabulous for their domains. They both have good prices and good support. Plus they don't lead you through a mine field of extras just to buy a domain.
I personally have had good luck with Moniker. They also have a great API.
When moniker was acquired by oversee.net I was pretty skeptical, but they've been really good about it and so far no glitches because of the takeover.
As long as Monte is in the drivers seat there I'm pretty sure things will be working fine. His attention to detail and the fantastic customer service there are the reason why moniker became that big so fast.
Really, I think the question is more like, "what are the good and cheap alternatives?" GoDaddy is inexpensive, but dealing with their constant up-sells and their various ploys to get more money can be frustrating and annoying.
I host my domains at GoDaddy because it's cheap. I preferred GANDI prior to that because their quality of service was high and their willingness to keep the crap to a minimum was one of their primary objectives. (I still use GANDI's VPS service.)
I would love to find a cheap, good alternative to GoDaddy, but every time I look for one, I come up dry.
Godaddy is not cheap, they seem cheap. Their whole game is to get you in the door with their prices, then they'll try to fleece you every chance they get. Tanstaafl.
About 1.5 years ago, I compiled something to answer this very question. It seems that now there's something new to add to the list for why GoDaddy should not be trusted.
A boycott would only work if there were a concerted effort behind to spread the word as far as possible.
The recent Whole Foods boycott was a good example of how to do it - organizers used the forums section of the Whole Foods website to get the word out and Whole Foods didn't prevent it.
A couple of people changing hosts on HN is not going to amount to a hill of beans and would most likely just inconvenience those people since Godaddy is the cheapest option available (if you use their frequent coupon codes).
I think the majority of godaddy domain purchasers are first time buyers or small businesses that do not know of other domain companies (especially considering godaddy's large advertisement investment).
I think many big time operators / hosting providers use them too because of the price, their inbound transfers are actually sold at a loss (when you take into account all the fees they have to pay).
Most other registrars that do larger volumes will sell you at about $1 over their cost.
I'm starting the process of moving from godaddy over the next week or two. Long overdue, but name reg is a "sticky" business which is why a boycott although a great idea will take consistent pushing.
After some review, it seems namecheap will be an acceptable route. One concern is the recent lawsuit lost by namecheap for private whois info. I hope this doesn't make them legally gun shy. Although the lawsuit results should effect all U.S. based registrars equally. Anyone have recent opinions on namecheap or any others?
Using moniker and very happy with them, not a single glitch since I started there when enom bought out bulkregister (and I decided to preemptively move out instead of waiting until enom and BR system integration).
To co-opt a piece of a public internet standard that was arrived at through the work of lots of people is really beyond the pale.
Godaddy ought to be boycotted over this, simply take all of your business away from them referring to the filing of this patent as your reason for closing your account.
I'm pretty sure that if enough people do it they'll wonder if this is such a good idea.
This besides the obvious fact that they are even able to file this is utter nonsense, they ought to be rejected on the spot and fined for filing a ridiculous patent.