GoDaddy Indian sites lost
By Bala Shah

GoDaddy is the world’s most successful website registration company.  GoDaddy owner and CEO, Bob Parson, stirred a hornet’s nest when he publicly bragged on his blog about killing an elephant

On April 6, 2010, my colleague Asha had reported on how GoDaddy lost about 20,433 websites after enraged animal lover users withdrew their business from GoDaddy and took it to business rival NameCheap. (Article republished below).

I was intrigued about how many of the 20,433 websites that walked out of GoDaddy were from Asia and specifically from India.  Elephants are revered in many parts of Asia.  But would we be indifferent to an American tech CEO killing an elephant in Africa?  I contacted NameCheap and asked them for approximate figures on websites from Asia and India that switched from GoDaddy to NameCheap.  A NameCheap spokesperson told me: “We did get a number of sign-ups to NameCheap from India and Asia. I would give a rough estimate of 15% originating from India and Asian countries.”

(Techgoss had published the following on April 6, 2011)

Hunter loses 20K sites
By Asha

In the politically correct world of 2011, it is bad business for any company’s CEO, especially a technology business, to publicly brag about killing an elephant. 

On April 2, 2011,  I had written about how the CEO of the world’s most successful domain registration company GoDaddy, Bob Parson, blogged and posted a video of him killing an elephant.  And a GoDaddy rival NameCheap saw this as a business opportunity.  NameCheap had launched a hugely successful offer to website owners to switch from GoDaddy to NameCheap. NameCheap had also promised everyone that they would donate $1 for every website that switched from GoDaddy to NameCheap.  The donation would go to help save elephants. (Article republished below)

Guess what it cost the GoDaddy boss in terms of lost business for killing an elephant? NameCheap has just published the statistics that 20,433 websites were pulled out of GoDaddy. And that meant a donation of $20,433 to help save the elephants.

“
As you know, this past weekend has been a very busy one for us at Namecheap. We recently ran a campaign to raise money for the endangered elephants in Africa. The promotion, in the form of a coupon code, would donate $1 per domain transferred to Namecheap to Save the Elephants.

After 5 full days of the promotion, we’re happy to announce that we have collectively raised $20,433 for the elephants in Africa. We couldn’t have done it without you, so thank you all so much for your support.
“

(Techgoss had published the following on April 2, 2011)

Tech CEO kills elephant
By Asha

In the politically correct world of 2011, it is bad business for any company’s CEO, especially a technology business, to publicly brag about killing an elephant. 

When the CEO of the world’s most successful domain registration company GoDaddy, Bob Parson, blogged and posted a video of him killing an elephant, it created a huge public outcry.  Thousands of people wrote in criticizing a rich American who paid money to kill an elephant in developing Africa.  As a form of protest, hundreds of people have dumped GoDaddy as their domain registration company.

And a GoDaddy rival NameCheap saw this as a business opportunity.  NameCheap has launched a hugely successful offer to website owners to switch from GoDaddy to NameCheap.

“
It’s not often that we would disagree publicly with a competitor, but we at Namecheap are very disturbed by this video of a competitor killing an elephant for sport (Warning: Very Graphic!).

We’ve decided to throw our support behind our Elephant friends by offering domain transfers at a price where we actually lose money.

Show your protest by saying BYEBYEGD again and transfer your domains to Namecheap for $4.99 for the next 24 hours through 11:59pm EST on 3/31/11 (limit 10 per user, valid for all com/ net/ org domains): Update: This coupon has been extended and will run through 11:59pm EST on 4/1/11.  Update 4/1: This coupon is so successful that we’ve extended yet again! The coupon will now expire 11:59pm EST on 4/2/11.

On top of that, we’ll donate $1 for each transfer to Save The Elephants
“