Why pipa and sopa

Three years later, the experts who warned that censorship wouldn't Domain name registrar Namecheap has relaunched Move Your Domain Day , encouraging customers to raise money for online freedom with every domain move. It would have happened slowly at first.

A broken hyperlink here and there. A few Google searches with links leading to nowhere. In the beginning, global users of the web would have barely noticed pieces of the Internet going dark. US-based internet service providers, payment processors and advertisers would be outlawed from doing business with alleged copyright infringers.

Sopa also calls for search engines to remove infringing sites from their results - Pipa does not include this provision. The bills would also outlaw sites from containing information about how to access blocked sites. The bills originally demanded that internet service providers block users from being able to access suspect sites using a technique called Domain Name System DNS blocking. This would effectively make them "disappear" from the internet - and is a process already used in China and Iran.

However, after opponents claimed this could disrupt the internet's underlying architecture, the chief sponsor of each bill agreed to ditch the measure. Once a court order has been served, there are three main tools these bills give the DOJ and copyright holders for blocking websites. Authors of both bills have wavered on their stance when it comes to DNS blocking. The second method of blocking involves mandating that major search engines Google, Bing, Yahoo de-index an accused site from their search results.

And finally, the third way prohibits any site accused of piracy from doing business with other services, such as PayPal or any advertising platform. The same is true for ad networks. That ambiguity alone has many Internet companies concerned.

This is a dangerous precedent, even though the proposed legislation is only trying to de-index sites that commit acts of piracy. Google has already faced legal opposition overseas — for instance, China places restrictions on what content Google can present in search results — and a U.

That may be the case. The companies said the bills could require your Internet provider to block websites that are involved in digital file sharing. And search engines such as Google, Yahoo and Bing could be stopped from linking to them - antithetical, they argue, to the ideal of an open Internet. The White House weighed in on Jan. In a post on the White House website , the U. Chief Technology Officer and two colleagues wrote, "While we believe that online piracy by foreign websites is a serious problem that requires a serious legislative response, we will not support legislation that reduces freedom of expression, increases cybersecurity risk, or undermines the dynamic, innovative global Internet.

Several major websites, including Wikipedia, Reddit and TwitPic, said they would " go dark " on Wednesday to show their opposition to the two bills in Congress.