Don’t try to win an argument on someone else’s radio show
While eating lunch at the Wharton Technology Conference in Philadelphia, I received a call from Brian Dunn, a producer of Life Online, Bob Parsons‘ (CEO, GoDaddy) radio show inviting me to be a guest on the show to talk about dotherightthing. Prior to the show, I invited Bob to check out the site and even respond to some of the dotherightthing community’s concerns about its recent activity in taking websites offline for ethical reasons. I was told that GoDaddy had made its official statement on the issue and “closed the books,” on the issue, and given a list of 15 questions that would be asked by Parsons and his staff during the show. Of course, when I spoke about how brilliant, level-headed, and extremely informed dotherightthing users are, Parsons challenged this description by bringing up the users’ criticisms of GoDaddy for using its power to take a site that was “sharing the passwords of children’s Myspace accounts.” The idea that all Myspace users are children is a bit dramatic, but let’s go with it. I got excited by the discussion, as people who know me well are very familiar with, and began to still question whether or not there was still room for concern.
While it is arguable that GoDaddy would have received more negative press had it knowingly ignored its opportunity to prohibit these Myspace users’ passwords from being shared, it is also reasonable to say that GoDaddy used the internet equivalent of a presidential executive order and that people are concerned about the principles considered in the determination of what justifies a site’s removal from the internet. While GoDaddy may have done the right thing by taking down the site, it made internet users and GoDaddy customers concerned by failing to communicate that it would use this power in the future according a strict code of principles or even soliciting the input of internet users to create this set of principles.
About two sentences into my argument, I realized that I was, ironically, about to get censored in a discussion on a topic of ethics in policing information on the internet, as jazz music began to play in my ear, the signal on a radio show that it is time for a break, as I learned.
I’d like to thank Bob Parsons for the opportunity to join him on the show, despite our disagreement, and apologize for quasi-hijacking his show, as my enthusiasm and interest in the discussion grew. While the show might not have been the forum for a spirited discussion about GoDaddy’s role in policing the Internet, I have learned from the experience. People who know me well know that I can be long-winded, passionate, and somewhat argumentative… but I do it with a big smile on my face, due to the respect I have for the people around me. This situation was no different, but on someone else’s show, perhaps I could learn to be a more gentle. I am thankful for this lesson.
You can listen to the show here (fast forward to 42:20 to hear my interview).
February 28th, 2007 at 9:18 pm
my question is WAS IT LEGAL? IS THERE NO RECOURSE? if it is legal, then it seems like a very slippery slope. I mean sure it could be illegal to knowingly host this content, but if you dont know, and are willing to remove it immediatly, then it begs the question WAS WHAT THEY DID LEGAL?
I can admit this, I will never use godaddy.com again.