Move Your Domain Day is an annual observance encouraging owners of
domain name
A domain name is a string that identifies a realm of administrative autonomy, authority or control within the Internet. Domain names are often used to identify services provided through the Internet, such as websites, email services and more. As ...
s to transfer their
domain registration
Domain registration is the process of acquiring a domain name from a domain name registrar.
History
In 1993 the U.S. Department of Commerce, in conjunction with several public and private entities, created InterNIC to maintain a central databa ...
away from
registrars that supported the
Stop Online Piracy Act
The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) was a controversial proposed United States congressional bill to expand the ability of U.S. law enforcement to combat online copyright infringement and online trafficking in counterfeit goods. Introduced on Oc ...
(SOPA). It was first held on 29 December 2011, the idea coming from a post on
Reddit
Reddit (; stylized in all lowercase as reddit) is an American social news aggregation, content rating, and discussion website. Registered users (commonly referred to as "Redditors") submit content to the site such as links, text posts, images ...
as a protest against prominent registrar
GoDaddy
GoDaddy Inc. is an American publicly traded Internet domain registrar and web hosting company headquartered in Tempe, Arizona, and incorporated in Delaware.
, GoDaddy has more than 21 million customers and over 6,600 employees worldwide. The co ...
's support for SOPA.
In 2012, rival registrar
Namecheap
Namecheap is an ICANN-accredited domain name registrar providing domain name registration and web hosting based in Phoenix, Arizona, US. Namecheap is a budget hosting provider with 11 million registered users and 10 million domains.
History
Name ...
began an initiative to make Move Your Domain Day an annual event. Subsequent events were held on 22 January 2013, 5 February 2014, and 27 January 2015. The
Electronic Frontier Foundation
The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is an international non-profit digital rights group based in San Francisco, California. The foundation was formed on 10 July 1990 by John Gilmore, John Perry Barlow and Mitch Kapor to promote Internet ci ...
,
Reddit
Reddit (; stylized in all lowercase as reddit) is an American social news aggregation, content rating, and discussion website. Registered users (commonly referred to as "Redditors") submit content to the site such as links, text posts, images ...
, and domain registrars
Name.com
Name.com is an ICANN accredited domain name registrar and web hosting company based in Denver, Colorado. The company sells DNS domains, web hosting, email services, SSL certificates, and other website products.
History
Name.com was founded in 200 ...
and
Hover have also participated. Namecheap has defined the initiative as "an annual protest and a commemoration of sorts that will continue to shine a light on the
issue of a free and open internet."
Origins
The movement likely originated from a post made on
Reddit
Reddit (; stylized in all lowercase as reddit) is an American social news aggregation, content rating, and discussion website. Registered users (commonly referred to as "Redditors") submit content to the site such as links, text posts, images ...
on 22 December 2011, when a user stated that he would be moving 51 domains away from GoDaddy, and recommended others to do the same. The thread received significant attention from the
Reddit
Reddit (; stylized in all lowercase as reddit) is an American social news aggregation, content rating, and discussion website. Registered users (commonly referred to as "Redditors") submit content to the site such as links, text posts, images ...
community, gaining over 37,000 up votes from users (but also over 32,000 down votes) in favor of the initiative and many comments criticizing GoDaddy's support of the measure. Notable examples of the backlash against GoDaddy include Ben Huh, CEO of the
Cheezburger Network
Ben Huh is a South Korean-American internet entrepreneur and the former CEO of The Cheezburger Network, which at its peak in 2010 received 375 million views a month across its 50 sites.Chard, TheaCheezburger CEO Ben Huh on Surrounding Himself w ...
, who threatened to transfer over one thousand domains away from GoDaddy, and
Wikimedia Foundation
The Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., or Wikimedia for short and abbreviated as WMF, is an American 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization headquartered in San Francisco, California and registered as a charitable foundation under local laws. Best kno ...
, the nonprofit company behind many websites including
Wikipedia
Wikipedia is a multilingual free online encyclopedia written and maintained by a community of volunteers, known as Wikipedians, through open collaboration and using a wiki-based editing system. Wikipedia is the largest and most-read refer ...
, which decided to move all its domains away from GoDaddy. In response to the backlash, numerous domain registrars offered coupons for discounted domain transfers, while also offering to donate a portion of profits to the EFF. GoDaddy itself changed its stance on SOPA in the days prior to 29 December in an attempt to minimize damage.
Reports up to 29 December described GoDaddy as "hemorrhaging" customers. On 25 December 2011 (Christmas Day), GoDaddy lost a net 16,191 domains, mostly as a result of the boycott. However, on 29 December itself, GoDaddy gained a net of 20,748 domains, twice as many as it lost that day, attributed by Techdirt to a number of causes, in particular customers having moved early, and an appeased customer response to their change of position over SOPA.
2013 event
In 2012, Namecheap relaunched the initiative and set the date for the second Move Your Domain Day as 22 January 2013. On that day, Namecheap has announced that domain transfers will be greatly discounted, and between $0.50 and $1.50 per domain transferred will be donated to the Electronic Frontier Foundation (depending on the total number of transfers). In response to this announcement, Shari Steele, the executive director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, stated that "EFF is pleased to join Namecheap in celebrating digital rights within the greater the Internet community. The funds donated from the moveyourdomainday effort will ensure EFF can continue to fight for free expression for Internet users worldwide."
2014 event
On 5 February 2014, each .com, .net, .org, .info and .biz domains is $3.98, up to 50 domain transfer per account, only domain that's not have been transferred out from Namecheap can qualify. Donation were also given to EFF.
See also
*
Black World Wide Web protest
The Turn the Web Black protest, also called the Great Web Blackout, the Turn Your Web Pages Black protest,[Electronic Frontier Foundation
The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is an international non-profit digital rights group based in San Francisco, California. The foundation was formed on 10 July 1990 by John Gilmore, John Perry Barlow and Mitch Kapor to promote Internet ci ...](_blank)
*
Grassroots
A grassroots movement is one that uses the people in a given district, region or community as the basis for a political or economic movement. Grassroots movements and organizations use collective action from the local level to effect change at t ...
*
Internet activism
Internet activism is the use of electronic communication technologies such as social media, e-mail, and podcasts for various forms of activism to enable faster and more effective communication by citizen movements, the delivery of particular infor ...
*
*
Protests against SOPA and PIPA
On January 18, 2012, a series of coordinated protests occurred against two proposed laws in the United States Congress—the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the PROTECT IP Act (PIPA). These followed smaller protests in late 2011. Protests we ...
References
{{reflist
History of the Internet
Internet-based activism
Internet-related activism
Internet censorship
2012 protests
2012 in the United States
Politics and technology
Political controversies in the United States
Annual protests