Google, Amazon, Facebook, and Twitter plus many others Go Nuclear

[sycogrim]

The battle against SOPA reached fever pitch just before Christmas when a Reddit-led boycott of Go Daddy over the domain registrar’s support for the controversial legislation led to some 37,000 domains leaving the company for greener, freedom-loving pastures. Go Daddy, meanwhile, is now buried in complaints that it’s improperly blocking domain transfer requests to rival Namecheap.


With debate over SOPA’s future tabled until Congress reconvenes, you might think the issue would have entered a similar lull, but that’s not happened. According to Markham Erickson, head of the NetCoalition trade association, there’s been talk of a so-called “nuclear option,” in which the likes of Google, Amazon, eBay, and Yahoo! would go simultaneously dark to protest the legislation to highlight the fundamental danger the legislation poses to the function of the internet.


There’s been no formal decision on the matter, and the companies in question obviously risk consumer anger and backlash over any suspension of services. There is, however, safety in numbers — and a few simple sentences identifying why the blackout is in place will ensure that the majority of the rage flows in the proper direction.




It’s a trump card that the likes of the MPAA and RIAA have no way of matching. There’s solid technical data behind the tech industry’s claims that implementing SOPA could damage the function of the internet, and plenty of evidence (some of it just weeks old) that copyright holders will abuse existing judicial processes to eliminate content they don’t like. The MPAA and RIAA are willing to talk about jobs lost to piracy in the abstract, but won’t (and can’t) promise that passing SOPA will allow them to hire thousands of Americans or create jobs in a statement they’d be held accountable for fulfilling.


There’s no information yet on when the blackout would occur, but the most likely date right now would be January 23. The Senate is scheduled to debate SOPA on January 24. Speaking in December, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid highlighted the importance of passing the legislation. “This is a bipartisan piece of legislation which is extremely important,” Reid said Saturday. “I repeat, it is bipartisan. I hope we can have a productive couple of days, pass this bill, and move on to other matters.”


Bring on the nukes.

Sauce

All I can say is that shit is gonna hit the fan!!!!

[Nimatek]

Can you imagine 24 hours without any of those services ? A very large percentage of all internet traffic will just cease!

Sure the die-hards will move over to other systems in the downtime but in all honesty there is a reason that so many people around the world have chosen to use the listed companies instead of their counterparts.

The only thing that these companies must remember is that some of their services are paid services. So simply cutting access will have serious repercussions.

[weakest_link]

hmmmm ... interesting, it will be a good time to play those SP games that have piled up though

[sycogrim]

Can you imagine 24 hours without any of those services ? A very large percentage of all internet traffic will just cease!

Sure the die-hards will move over to other systems in the downtime but in all honesty there is a reason that so many people around the world have chosen to use the listed companies instead of their counterparts.

The only thing that these companies must remember is that some of their services are paid services. So simply cutting access will have serious repercussions.

Yeh and you know what that means?!?!?! Those companies will claim damages and loss of business due to that SOPA Bill, because they're making a clear statement to say that if the bill is passed that is technically what will happen to the Interwebz as we know it. I think it's pretty clever though, but at the same time very risky on their parts.

[Weasley]

I hope they do it.

[Magnarmalok]

I support them, there's going to be alot of anger, but most of those services don't have any direct competition (excluding yahoo :P)
America just needs to keep their greedy little hands to themselves and feck off from the other countries : /

[OmegaFenix]

I support them, there's going to be alot of anger, but most of those services don't have any direct competition (excluding yahoo :P)
America just needs to keep their greedy little hands to themselves and feck off from the other countries : /

Whats that? I thought Bing was the only other search engine?

[czc]

I support them, there's going to be alot of anger, but most of those services don't have any direct competition (excluding yahoo :P)
America just needs to keep their greedy little hands to themselves and feck off from the other countries : /

Except that there are other countries that would love this as well.

[czc]

SOPA news - http://lifehacker.com/5873757/stay-o...tools?tag=sopa