Sometimes I wonder what it takes to get information passed on. Do we live in a world where too much information overloads people? Yesterday I posted on my Facebook page a quick teaser about a controversy brewing between Bob Parsons, CEO of GoDaddy and PETA. In sort, Parsons had done an elephant hunt and PETA was upset with that. I told people that followed me on Facebook I would have an article out in Chaotic Fringe 'in a day or two' talking about something interesting I found out. I put in a link to the local article I read on the controversy, which had the video attached to it.

Figuring time was not my friend I finished the article and published CF about two hours later, announcing both of Facebook and Twitter the article.

This afternoon, about a whole day later, I see Huffington post has an article on the issue, which is a summary of the article I forwarded on my Facebook page. (Not the article I wrote for Chaotic Fringe) What has me a bit 'concerned' is I saw a tweet from someone I know who is a Facebook follower and they talk and have a link to the controversy, which goes to another website that has the same information as the Huffington post article.

I'm a little stung because Chaotic Fringe wasn't linked up in the tweet, considering the person had notice of the article almost 24 hours before Huffington post and the other website put it up. I know I'm not the one to break the story because I actually heard about the issue on Tuesday (I posted the first information and the article I wrote on Wednesday) so I'm not claiming exclusivity on this. Where I find myself concerned is the person, who is very active in a lot of causes, didn't apparently the Facebook information sent to them, even though it was labeled as a PETA controversy.

The only thing I can surmise right now is the content of my commentary about the situation might have caused some ill feelings. I didn't come out forcefully condemning Parsons. I really didn't address that part of the issue at all, because I figured that news outlets would cover the bickering squabble between the two. My concern had to do with not seeing anything in the initial report showing the PETA domain name was with GoDaddy and there was no mention they were moving the domain name. I see that the reporting has changed slightly, saying PETA is asking people to move their domain names and it is implied their domain name is with them, but that issue isn't clear.

My main focus on the article I wrote was how tough it is to boycott or ask for people to boycott a company that is so big. I saw on Huffington post there were a little over 600 comments and the few I read kind of suggested they would be willing to move their domain names. I worked for GoDaddy for almost three years and I know the PETA incident, as far as the clamor to move domain names, will amount to little really happening. Parsons has been attacked more by people who hate his sexy Superbowl commercials than who will be upset with the elephant hunt.

Put into perspective, if you imagine 1000 responses to the Huffington post report, and that all of them had 5 domains, and all of vowed to move their domains, and they did, that would be 5000 domains which would translate to the amount of domains GoDaddy sells in 30 minutes. That's 30 minutes 24 hours a day 365 days a year. That's not an exaggerated number, if anything the amount of domains sold in 30 minutes that I give might be too low, but that is an estimate of when I worked there, which was a little over a year ago.

One post I saw on Huffington post made me laugh because it said Parsons was a greedy Republican businessman and questioned his charitable contributions. It pains me to say this but, again I was there, the man gives away money like it's water. Just this month I saw GoDaddy sponsored two events in town. He throws lavish end of the year parties for his employees, giving away almost a million dollars in bonuses. This money doesn't just go to the execs, the regular cogs can get at least $1000 in drawings, if not more. I've seen years when a quarter of the employees, and that's from phone operators to second in command, could get bonuses from $1000 to $10000 or even houses getting their mortgages paid for a year.

Is there a dark side to this? Of course there is. People there are cogs in a machine. They may not say it, they may not think it, but they are. You don't make friends there because someone could be fired for the smallest infraction of the code. The thing is, when the economy is bad and the choices of work is slim, having a job there with all the benefits is a welcome thing. He knows how to reward loyalty, but that loyalty has to be complete. When I was let go from the job it was funny how quickly it was for me to shake off the mind shackles. Here's something that is incredibly telling about getting removed from GoDaddy; when you are gone, if you made any impact, people will talk about you in a whisper. It's like the person is a rebel, a traitor and mentioning their name could bring down the wrath of supervisors. People I knew from GoDaddy, who called me friend, never called me again. The one person who did call me only did so after he was let go, and he was someone who had planned to stay with the company until he retired.

But those are the stories you don't hear because if you talk ill of the company they can bring out 50 people who say it is the best place in the world to work, or Parsons could sponsor a charity event and give away a quarter of a million dollars to a charity. The image will remain clean as long as the money flows.

So while I suspect my response to the Parsons vs PETA issue wasn't what some wanted to hear, it was reality. It wasn't a pessimistic analysis but it showed how difficult it could be to go up against a major corporation and hope to put a real dent in their business. I do feel people should march with their feet, people have to realize their actions may be symbolic and nothing more. Sometimes symbolism is the best weapon we have but we have to understand it is symbolism.