DNW Interview: GoDaddy CEO Warren Adelman discusses firm’s stance on SOPA
Fresh GoDaddy CEO explains his firm’s reversal of support for SOPA.
GoDaddy just pulled its support of Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), a bill designed to protect intellectual property.
The reversal came following a call for a boycott of GoDaddy since of its support hit a fevered pitch yesterday. Although GoDaddy has supported SOPA from the beginning, its name was included in a list of supporters that was published this stretch.
Warren Adelman, who became CEO of GoDaddy upon the closing of an investment by KKR, Silver Lake and Technology Crossover Ventures last Friday, told Reglike he was able to take a step back and evaluate the firm’s support of SOPA.
“I’ve been in this role as CEO for exactly a week,” he stated. “I had the luxury of coming in and looking at this from that vantage point and make this decision.”
Adelman was president and COO of the firm ahead of stepping into the CEO role.
The uproar from clients and the media over the past twenty-four hours helped shape his opinion.
“We’ve heard from our clients and it’s clear there’s no consensus in the internet community” supporting the bill, he stated. “We also don’t think the bill is ready in its current form.”
Adelman stated the firm won’t step back from taking an active role in internet legislation. The firm has backed previous legislation for shutting down rogue internet pharmacies. It has also worked to protect children on the internet.
The firm didn’t see an abnormal number of outbound domain name transfers yesterday, he stated. But Adelman stated the firm “acted quickly” since of client feedback regarding the firm’s stance on SOPA.
