See all of that gibberish? That is Wikipedia’s WHOIS record – which tells you who owns the domain, when does it expire and where it is hosted, etc. But this serves as proof for one thing – Wikipedia and all of its sister sites are no longer registered with GoDaddy.
“After months of deliberation and a complicated transfer, the Wikimedia Foundation domain portfolio has been successfully transferred from GoDaddy to MarkMonitor,” Michelle Paulson, Legal Counsel for the Wikimedia Foundation said in a blog post.
“As the provider of the 5th most visited web properties in the world, the Foundation cares deeply about who handles our domain names. We had been deliberating a move from GoDaddy for some time — our legal department felt the company was not the best fit for our domain needs — and we began actively seeking other domain management providers in December 2011.”
What killed their support for GoDaddy was its vocal support for the controversial Stop Online Piracy Act – support which it later retracted after a massive backlash with many companies, including the owners of I Can Haz Cheeseburger. However, GoDaddy’s stance has pretty much damaged public trust in the company. In fact, it reportedly attempted to hinder moves by its customers by sending incomplete information – which it denies.
Then we have the numerous other problems with the company – including the company’s founder publishing video of him on a safari hunt in Africa, where he shot an elephant and showed in graphic detail the animal being hacked at for meat by villagers (some wearing GoDaddy hats).
However, despite the backlash and the loss of high-profile customers, GoDaddy still remains the largest domain name registrar.
But that could be because the others aren’t high up in the consumer’s mind set.