Web-hosting giant GoDaddy said Monday its customers are experiencing website outages, and a supposed member of the hacking group Anonymous has taken “credit” for the problem.
“Hey all, We’re aware of the trouble people are having with our site. We’re working on it,” said GoDaddy on its Twitter page. The company hosts hundreds of thousands of websites, many of them smaller businesses that rely on GoDaddy.
It’s not clear how widespread the problem is; some GoDaddy customers say their websites are fine.
Some initially believed that hacking group Anonymous was behind the takedown of GoDaddy’s servers, but at least one person is saying he or she is behind the effort, claiming Anonymous membership, but saying it is not the group’s doing.
In slightly broken English on Twitter, someone named “Anonymous Own3r” tweeted: “The attack is not coming from Anonymous coletive, the attack it’s coming only from me.”
Several angry responses followed: “Duuude? This attack affects not only corporations but also ppl who support your ideology. whats the rationale?” tweeted Miguel Govea. Kyle Scott, who has a sports blog, said on Twitter, “So you’re all about openness and freedom yet you take down thousands of independent websites that help with that cause?”
We are reaching out to GoDaddy, but so far, the company is not addressing the source of the problem. The company has been under fire politically before, last year when Netizens were angered by GoDaddy’s initial support for a controversial online piracy bill known as the Stop Online Piracy Act. GoDaddy changed it stance to oppose the bill, which ultimately was killed.
