SOPA-inspired saga ends, as domain-name transfers to MarkMonitor complete
Yesterday we wrote about the Wikimedia Foundation’s first public acknowledgment that it was in the process of moving its roster of domain names, including Wikipedia.org, from GoDaddy to MarkMonitor as Jimmy Wales had promised back in December when GoDaddy was still a supporter of the since failed SOPA anti-piracy bill.
Today comes word from Wikimedia that the transfer was formally completed today. Wikimedia legal counsel Michelle Paulson writes in a blog post:
The transfers were done seamlessly and our sites did not experience any interruption of service or other issues during the procedure.
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. GoDaddy’s initial support of the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), the controversial anti-piracy legislation in the U.S. House of Representatives, reaffirmed our decision to end the relationship.
After exploring numerous alternatives, the Foundation’s legal team decided that MarkMonitor could best provide the comprehensive services that we needed. MarkMonitor is a U.S.-based registrar with an office in San Francisco and has substantial experience managing other high-traffic domains. The company will help the Foundation consolidate and centralize management of all of its domains, will provide services needed to manage a global domain portfolio and will better protect our domains with additional security features.
GoDaddy didn’t have anything to say about Wikimedia’s decision when I asked yesterday, so I’m going to assume that hasn’t changed.
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