Blogcritics: Comments on Scam Toby

Comment by Eric Olsen

Thu, 21 Apr 2005 14:19:04 EDT

I believe the concern is with the extortion angle

Comment by DrPat

Thu, 21 Apr 2005 14:12:14 EDT

Rabbit is good meat, folks, and all this hoorah just shows the basic hypocracy of our pet-vs-meat reaction. I've kept rabbits for meat - the named pair, Ferdinand and Isabella, were sweet friends, whose purpose was to produce a litter every so often. We never named their kids, just slaughtered and skinned them when they were old enough. The breeding pair, on the other hand, lived to a ripe old bunny age, and brought us lots of income while they did. Just like Toby.

Comment by Eric Olsen

Thu, 21 Apr 2005 13:59:11 EDT

thanks Bob, very standup of you to stop by and give us your side of the story.

Comment by Bob Parsons

Thu, 21 Apr 2005 13:54:48 EDT

Dear Jeff, Bob Parsons, President and Founder, of GoDaddy.com here. I can tell you that while there are without a doubt some people upset about the SaveToby.com website, most people either find it amusing or simply don't have an opinion. I suspect the people who are upset about the site are about 5% of those that have taken the time to look at it. You can be sure that I wish I wasn't in the middle of this, but the fact is that I am. We (myself and my general counsel) looked at the website, and while it is unusual to say the least, there simply is nothing about the site that is illegal. There's no cruelty to animals issue --- if there was we would take it down. All the site is about is a guy who says that if he doesn't receive a sum certain by a particular date, he's going to eat a particular rabbit. That's about it. The problem with us stepping up and taking it down is one of then where do we draw the line? We host over 400,000 multi page websites at present, and over 8 million domain names in the Go Daddy Group. There's quite a few that are strange to say the least. I don't have an opinion one way or the other with regard to the SaveToby.com website. However, I'm very comfortable with our opinion to leave the site in place. Thanks, Bob Parsons President and Founder GoDaddy.com

Comment by jadester

Thu, 14 Apr 2005 10:43:45 EDT

hah, after checking snopes, it appears my suspicions were correct...

Comment by jadester

Thu, 14 Apr 2005 10:40:15 EDT

i'll repeat here what i said when one of my mates first alerted me to the save toby site: what a genius! it's a great way to make money. I seriously doubt the guy will ACTUALLY kill his pet if he doesn't raise the money. He'll fake it one way or the other. And he'd already made over $10k when I visited, a number of weeks ago. Wish i'd thought of that...

Comment by El Bicho

Wed, 13 Apr 2005 22:55:15 EDT

You failed to state why it is wrong other than the fact you don't like it. Will you give up your blog if I can find one person who thinks it is "wrong"? Also, you haven't proven that it is bad for business other than your not referring anyone to GoDaddy.com. Before Benning's comments did you actually think it was real? Looks similar to when SNL left the death of a lobster up to viewers' phone calls. I think the kids would say "you've been punk'd."

Comment by MRBenning

Wed, 13 Apr 2005 21:11:50 EDT

I saw this on the news too. Unfortunately, the reporters forgot to check their facts. Look here...

Comment by Jeff Michael

Wed, 13 Apr 2005 20:34:36 EDT

Eh, GoDaddy has every right to pull it.

Comment by KOB

Wed, 13 Apr 2005 20:26:37 EDT

I support GoDaddy's decision not to pull the Web site. I know it's been under pressure to do so, but that would be censorship and once you start there ... however, that said, the people behind this effort should be ashamed of themselves.