Humane Society Dropping GoDaddy As Domain Host

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by Michael dEstries April 1, 2011
Categories: Animals, Internet
Tags: .

The Humane Society of the United States announced today that it was in the process of finding new hosting for the more than 650 domain names it currently has through GoDaddy.com.

The decision comes in the wake of massive outrage over CEO Bob Parsons posting video of himself killing a “problem” elephant in Zimbabwe, a death he says was justified on “humanitarian” grounds.

He shot the elephant at night, and claims it was a “problem elephant,” writes HSUS President Wayne Pacelle. “It happened to be a bull elephant with sizeable tusks, just the type that trophy hunters like to kill. He seems to be a rather obsessive trophy hunter; one other self-produced video on the web shows him wounding and later killing a leopard, and the current edition of Safari Club International‘s magazine shows an array of animal heads mounted on his wall as trophies.”

Pacelle adds that if Parsons is really serious about doing charitable work, he should spend time with philanthropists like Oprah Winfrey and Bill Gates. “Last time I checked, they didn’t leave a trail of animal victims they’ve personally slain at the end of their visit,” he quips.

In addition to other animal lovers dropping GoDaddy, the domain registrar’s competitors have latched onto the controversy – offering slashed prices on new orders and transfers. Two companies, DomainIt.com and NameCheap.com are even offering to donate a portion of sales to animal charities SaveTheElephants.org and WWF.org.

How about you? Thinking about transferring? Word on the street is that it may be harder than it looks – which makes the HSUS move something to watch carefully. Let us know if you’ve had any luck!

 

 

About Michael dEstries

Michael has been blogging since 2005 on issues such as sustainability, renewable energy, philanthropy, and healthy living. He regularly contributes to a slew of publications, as well as consulting with companies looking to make an impact using the web and social media. He lives in Ithaca, NY with his family on an apple farm.

View all posts by Michael dEstries →
  • TW

    This is unacceptable for a CEO to do this. I agree with Wayne, go do some real charity work other than shooting an Endangered Species.

    I had several domains through GoDaddy and immediately transferred them out.
    It’s not that hard and most websites have a help guide that helps you get through it.
    It just sucks cause you have to pay. There are several companies offering transfer discounts right now. It took me about a half hour total time to get mine transferred out.

    I don’t want to give that guy any of my money so he can go film himself shooting and killing things.

    Good luck to all! I hope this takes a knock to the business.

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Danielle-Vance/509210245 Danielle Vance

    We switched over our domain. It’s not an easy process, but it’s something that needs to be done after hearing about his horrible behavior.

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Aimee-Dars-Ellis/513052775 Aimee Dars Ellis

    I have 8 domain names that I switched to NameCheap from GoDaddy. It was easy through NameCheap, but it’s important to not have locks on the domain names or private registrations before starting the process.

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Aimee-Dars-Ellis/513052775 Aimee Dars Ellis

    I have 8 domain names that I switched to NameCheap from GoDaddy. It was easy through NameCheap, but it’s important to not have locks on the domain names or private registrations before starting the process.

  • http://gpsociety.org danielle

    it was easy as pie! here are the instructions i followed: http://mikerotman.tumblr.com/post/4228710476/leavegodaddy

  • http://www.breasthealthonline.org Annette Bricca

    We switched all our domains few years ago from them for other ridiculous actions on their part. I’m so glad we did. It was rather painless – thank you Namecheap who made it easy.

    God bless this poor innocent creature. It just makes me sick. I don’t understand the ‘joy’ anyone gets from removing another beautiful being from the planet. Life is to be treasured. What good does killing it do? It’s like this man is some 5 year old. Still, my 5 year old knew the value and treasure of life at that young age.

    Annette Bricca
    Founder
    BreastHealthOnline.org

  • http://veganza.com ReneeMBM

    Sheesh, I should hope HSUS would switch! Any difficulty would surely be worth it in the long-term. Are there any AR groups who wouldn’t consider switching? I hope not! I hope they’re paying attention.

  • http://www.herwinsvegancafe.com herwin

    what a scumbag, killing animals for sport and this time in the name of “protecting villagers”, wow, the guy is such a selfishless humanitarian.

    luckely for human kind we still have rich people like oprah and Bill gates who are truly humanitarian.

  • JessyS

    Maybe Wayne P. and all the other well-fed, well-rested westerners, with health insurance, vacation time, cars, nice living quarters, heat and A/C, plenty of clothes should spend a while in that part of Africa, share the hunger, thirst and work their fingers to the bone to survive … I bet they would sing a different tune when their crop gets distroyed and they face even more hunger. Oh, would they join the hundreds of villagers in carving a piece of meat out of this animal, so they had something to eat?

    Anybody who knows the situation down there is disgusted by the hypocracy displayed here and elsewhere.
    It shows just how ‘humane’ some people are – or shall I say human hating?

    • http://www.herwinsvegancafe.com herwin

      if you are so disgusted why not start with posting under your own name ?
      first of all, the image of Africa as a povert stricken region inhabited by people who constantly live on the edge on starvation, is, well, a very western image.
      It’s more complicated and more simple at the same time, than that.

      to stick to the point, if their is a conflict between the original animals and the people in a any region, killing is regarded the last option.

      There is no hypocrosy here. take a look at trouble making bears here in america. sometimes park rangers try to learn them tobe scared from people and so avoid future contact, if that doesn’t work, relocation is done, and only after when all fails, with a frustrated feeling the bear might be killed, and not by sports hunters but by straight forwarded park rangers who kill the bear without pleasure and certainly not posting

      all in all, its distasteful and unfair to make this a rich westerners versus poor africans kinda thing.ten bucks say you ain’t living in Africa and you are only interested in promoting hunting exotic animals.
      shame on you.

      • JessyS

        Dear,
        my name is Jessy – do you have a problem with that?
        No, I do not live in Africa, but I have friends who live there and friends who work there on a regular basis.

        I fail to see what bears in the U.S. have to do with this situation of elephant bulls destroying the crop of desperate villagers, who are so hungry that they fight over its meat.
        Have you ever been that hungry?
        Have you ever clawed your way to food?
        Have you ever lived without heat, A/C, supermarket etc?

        Nuff said.

        and no, I don’t promote hunting of ‘exotic’ animal in the sense you imply.
        However, I fully support hunting animals for food.
        I also fully support helping people survive.

      • http://www.herwinsvegancafe.com herwin

        honey,

        i am so glad you don’t promote hunting exotic animals.

      • georgina

        Jessy, the problem with Parson is that he killed the elephant for trophy and not to help the “villagers” as he calls them. If the elephant turned into food for the Zimbabweans well, it is just not a good thing to have access to that amount of meat and let it go to waste, but speaking of hypocrisy, Parson would be the biggest hypocrite because he is not admitting that what he did was deliberate and did not intend to help protect crops. There are ways to help protect crops from elephants that do not involve killing an them, specially if they have large tusks. It would be very ingenious to believe what he is saying.

  • hokey

    From the comments here, I see a good number of twits out there. Efforts to help the status of the African elephant have been haphazard at best, often showing no knowledge of how they use their habitat. Existing preserves and parks often contain land that is not suitable for elephants, and thee are precious few where migration paths have been preserved between areas that are within the desired range of elephants.

    The effort that Mr. Parsons joined has as a goal to help people protect their crops from elephants. The killing of the elephants is not the priority of this group, but rather a last ditch effort. A number of other tactics are used first to try to discourage the elephants from the area.

    I, for one, am considering moving my own domain names to GoDaddy to counter the HSUS move of their domain names and those of their nitwit followers that will actually follow in the outward migration.

  • http://www.ItsSimplyZen.com Kristin

    We have closed our accounts with them today and have transferred our domains. Well worth the time and perhaps a bit of extra expense. We have also encourage all of our customers to close out any business they have with them.

    What a scum!

  • http://www.dragonmischief.com Patrish

    Yup, transferred mine today to namecheap.com. It takes a bit of time and effort but it was my small statement to say I won’t support this company.

    What a con artist he is. Common sense tells you it was all planned. – the right gun, ammo, lights, equipment, etc. license, etc. If’ the animal had to be killed then their rangers could do that. This was just a big game hunter trying to make up for his little dick!

knut
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