GoAwayDaddy
Here is a policy from GoDaddy, a domain registrar:
QUESTION: Why is GoDaddy.com blocking people in certain countries from accessing its site?
ANSWER: GoDaddy.com actively blocks the following countries from using our services due to U.S. government policies:
Cuba
Iran
Iraq
Libya
North Korea
Sudan
SyriaThe U.S. Department of State has declared the governments of these states to be sponsors of international terrorism
How screwed up is this? Bush’s inaugural address told us we are the purveyors of liberty. That must mean that we want these oppressive governments to fail so that their people can be free. Yet, according to GoDaddy’s interpretation, we are to deny those citizens the instruments of their liberty. As Hoder says:
I wonder whether this is what president Bush considers standing with a nation for their freedom. Who else is using these websites other than mostly secular, freedom-loving Iranian youth?
By the way, in a press release on Jan. 12 GoDaddy boasts: “Go Daddy has found its SSL Certificates reaching into virtually every corner of the globe, with new orders coming daily from Europe, Australia, the MidEast, South America and Japan.” Well, not every corner.
[The link is from the irc for webcred: webcred at irc.freenode.net. See Hoder‘s bloggage.]
Categories: Uncategorized dw
What, you think they’re Haliburton or something? This is just a statement of the government’s legal position, well enforced under Clinton and Bush, that you can’t do business with countries that are designated this way. Microsoft won’t export software to where. Apple won’t sell them computers. GoDaddy is just being franker.
This has been known policy for years. I think it’s a bit outdated, considering that we’re essentially the government in Iraq. Rather embarrassing that. Still, we had this in effect when I worked at Boeing and that was close to 20 years ago.
But folks in these countries can get domains, and hosting, at other countries. And for Dave Winer to reprint Hoder’s declaration that these countries are being denied the internet — Dave, at least, should have known that this was a gross misstatement.
So you think Go Daddy is restrictive ?
I can recommend people stay away from another firm http://www.1and1.com which doesn’t permit you to
use a PO Box address (their customer services
staff once told me this was a registrar rule,
but it was a lie), and also restrict buyers
to those on USA and Canada (which annoyed me
as their domain prices look especially low).
http://faq.1and1.com/general_introduction/6.html