Life imitated art, or at least a
series of Super Bowl ads, when Internet domain name company Go Daddy had a representative testify before a Congressional subcommittee Thursday on Internet security.
To be more exact, Go Daddy
spoke on the critical need for a continued relationship between the U.S. Department of Commerce National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) and the Internet Corporation for
Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), according to a company release issued Thursday. Huh?
The company caused a furor with a 2005 Super Bowl ad featuring the buxom Go Daddy Girl suffering a
wardrobe malfunction when appearing before a Congressional panel on censorship to explain what she would be doing in a proposed ad. After Fox pulled a second airing of the commercial, GoDaddy became a
cause célèbre and parlayed the controversy into wider publicity and a continuing ad campaign.
In a 2006 press release, the company identified itself as "the advertiser censored in
last year's Super Bowl commercial controversy."
The company's Super Bowl ad this year featured foxy racecar driver Danica Patrick as its new spokeswoman testifying at a "Major League
Enhancement Hearing," admitting she "enhanced" her image with a domain name and a Web site from Go Daddy.com.
The spot ends abruptly with a cleavage-heavy co-panelist who appears to be about
to go topless. (An extended version of the ad posted online shows her and other well-endowed witnesses tearing open their blouses to reveal ... Go Daddy T-shirts.)
No such spontaneity was in
store at Thursday's hearing. An uneventful video of the session (which features empty chairs half the time) showed its real Go Daddy Girl -- General Counsel and Corporate Secretary Christine N. Jones
-- testifying before the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Communications, Technology and the Internet, about maintaining NTIA oversight of ICANN, the nonprofit group that administers the
domain name system.
This wasn't the first trip to Capitol Hill by Go Daddy, which says that last year is helped pass two new federal laws -- one protecting children from online sexual
predators -- and another providing Web companies with tools to take illegitimate Internet pharmacies offline.
And during Thursday's appearance, Ms. Jones kept her sober suit jacket buttoned
up.