I am hosting my website, bidiiafrika.com , with hostgator. One of the posting in the forum is about a fake college in Kenya which offer bogus degrees. A user posted experience and narrated how he was conned by the college and many users responded. One of the scam institutions then wrote to my host, hostgator.com saying they want the article be removed because of slander which I dont understand. Now Hostgator has taken my website down until I remove the article which I am not willing to do and I am willing to go full throttle with his forward since this is fighting free speech. Google had the same case with Michelle Obama and CHina. Why didnt google remove the offending picture and leave it to the owner of the blogger account to remove it? I have the same case with a wordpress hosted blog spoiling my name. Wordpress told me they cannot remove offending material but can only ask me to blog about the issue. What is Hostgator doing and where is justice here. The staff is rude and Brent has been more than unhelpful on this. Brent Oxley is teh owner of the Hosting company
But already I have lost business. And I want to know the redress because they brought almost all 5 sites down instead of only the offending website
Because what you are saying is slander, and your host is too lazy to really look into it, so it is just easier for them to take you down...and it is not their job to investigate such claims..if you want to make claims, post them on 3rd party blog sites...No such thing as free speech, you have to take responsibility of what you say these days...
Just say to HG [QUOTE] I will put the article down, then ask for your site access. Save a backup and then really delete all of your site(so your not telling a lie) and then host your site at a host that allow freedom of speech[/QUOTE] Code (markup):
I didnt say anything. Should digital point take responsibility when I complain about a bad service here? SHould Digital point remove claims of fraud and bad service just because someone is threatening them with lawsuit? I really dont think you understand much about free speech and blogs and forums. We have the right to mcomplain about bad service. I have seen people complain even in Huffington post about Google and even Boing Boing. Unless its Iran and CHina controlling the Hostgator hosting
Already I have lost business as I was to liveblog the Ipad launch event. I need advice on how to go about lodging claims of compensation since HostGator took all my sites down including the non offending ones
Unfortunately, not much. Your contract with Hostgator essentially limits their liability to you, whether you personally agree with it or not. Also unfortunately, you'll have to sue if you want to force them to do a whole lot more than what they're willing (if any) to do.
Life isn't fair... you eventually die... but that's life. What's more important to you... continuing business or free speech? In fact, this really isn't about free speech... it's about 1 business not wanting the hassles caused by another. Hire an attorney and go for it or whine your neck in and do as they wish.
Actually, let me teach you something: Your right to free speech disappears when you're doing business with a hosting company, accessing a forum, etc. That is not an all-around guaranteed right. End of story. There is nothing you can do. Abide by their wishes and Terms of Service, or stop crying and find a new host. An attorney cannot do anything in a situation like this and your rights don't exist when utilizing their services. Yes, it's sad - but it's the truth. Besides, all other legal documentation aside, you agreed to their ToS, which clearly states: We reserve the right to refuse service to anyone. Any material that, in our judgment, is obscene, threatening, illegal, or violates our terms of service in any manner may be removed from our servers (or otherwise disabled), with or without notice.
Excellent answer and absolutely correct. You have no right to free speech using someone else's systems. They can dictate what you can and cannot do on systems that belong to them, and if they don't like what you are saying they can remove it at their own discretion. Their liability (if any) will be limited to no more than the monthly hosting fee you pay. It will cost you several times that just for an hour of an attorney's time.
Free speech is not at stake here. Free speech is a liberty for the people to think, say and otherwise express whatever they want, even if it totally opposes the current government and its ideas. You can never claim free speech on a private service provider such as Hostgator. Each hosting company has the right to defend their property (the servers and infrastructure) and reserves the right to take any and all measures in doing so. You can not claim free speech being prevented from Hostgator, they do not have an obligation to host you. You can become one of their customers if you want, by your own free will, but in doing so you also agree to their terms and conditions for doing busines with you. Those terms will surely include their right to suspend service if they feel they risk being involved in some slander suit or similar. They take that measure to protect themselves, their business as well as other customers. The smart thing to do is to apologize to Hostgator, promise to take down the article and to get your account opened up again. Then, as quickly as you can, download all your files and backup any databases, take copies of everything to your harddrive and cancel your Hostgator account. Lesson to learn: Don't host with shitty massmarket hosts unless you only have little shitty, template made, adsense sites. For real sites, pick a real host! They don't usually cost very much more, I know one starting at $9.95/month for a small VPS. I know another host which will even go to court to defend their customers and their rights. Hostgator will never do that for you, so cancel their service and move away quickly. PM me for more info about real hosts and how they will serve you better.
Lot of misinformation in this thread, thought I would post to share my experiences with online libel/slander. As a forum administrator legally you are not responsible for the content that third party users post up as long as you do not edit it. Additionally if you have a good lawyer and are willing to go to court to protect your content from being removed 95% of the time you will be protected under the CDA safe harbor regulations. But, I'm guessing you don't have a lawyer and HostGator didn't want to deal with any legal issues for a small client such as yourself so they decided to err on the side of caution and just comply with the request. edit: my post deals mostly with libel and slander, obviously items such as social security numbers etc, as soon as a third party notifies you to take it down you are liable if you do not.
host gator isn't the BEST hosting but the market they are going after; small clients for shared web hosting makes perfect sense. Just like any of the other big name shared hosting companies, they offer a demanded service at a low cost. What are his alternatives to shared hosting? Sure he can pay hundreds if not thousands of dollars to colo a server but he still is held hostage by the company where the server resides, and they also must comply to legal notices such as DMCA etc
Sure, you can be hostage at certain companies and their policies. That's why it's so important to choose a good and trusted company to start out with. I know of a least one large host who will defend your free speech right in court, with their own laywers, at their own expense, as long as they see that you have a valid case. I don't see why you would choose Hostgator except from them making so much advertising for their service? There are many large hosts out there that let their rumor proceed them, and only take clients on a recommendation basis, with plans starting at $9.95 whic is just a few dollars more than HostGators cheapest plan, so my question is really: Why would you ever take a chance on something as important as your websites for 20-30 USD? It's simply not worth the headache! Pay a little extra and receive so much more! You really need to blame yourself if you don't.