Site taken down by host for "fishing" - claiming damages on them?

Since about two days one of my larger sites was taken down by my web host, only a very short message (with a nice spelling error!) appearing in the account:

All urls of the site only show that the site is temporary closed and access is restricted. Google has already indexed some of it as all the pages happily return http status code 200: OK.

Ofcourse the site has nothing to do with fishing or anything shady for that matter, it is just an informational site with a large forum and adsense ads. I get unrequested new backlinks every day from satisfied visitors. I am starting to think some guy misclicked in an admin app or something.

When I called the helpdesk they tell me to have patience as they research the issue as fishing is very serious yadayada and it was being handled on some department and he couldn't do anything else than apologize to me.

This is all happening after I requested the domain be moved to a better host at the beginning of this month, to which they have never even responded - coincidence?

Unbelievable this is not some guy with a hosting business in his basement but a large and well known host.

What do you guys think? Can I claim the lost income and other longer term damages? I would go to a laywer if I had the budget but I don't. Thanks.

 

it depends on your actual provable losses. If they are less than a few grand depending on your state (5K in california, somewhere between 1-5K in others), you are looking at small claims court.

You would have to prove that it is likely that they maliciously took down your site.

More money than that? You are looking at a much more expensive proposition. Lawyers fees are not always an option in civil suits, it depends on the law that you are using as a basis of your suit.

Small Claims - usually resolved within 120 days. Civil Suit - 120 days before things get started. Delay tactics can get expensive and push resolution out for over a year (and in some cases, multiple years).

At the very least, you should be able to get up and running on a new host within a week. Depending on the dollars, you are probably better off just releasing an angry letter and hoping for some voluntary compensation.

 

I think you are right this is the most likely outcome. Hope they will release the domain soon, been requesting that since the 5th this month already.

If they won't and don't offer some kind of compensation I'll do the small claims court. I am the Netherlands but we have something similair here. I am also considering filing a complaint at ICANN.

Thank you.

 

Not sure this is true. You need to look over your contract with them. You also need to look into whether state law allows an action for negligence. In addition, if they are telling people other than you that are engaging in phishing, which after all is criminal activity, you might have a libel or slander claim, or perhaps a claim for tortious interference, but that all depends on the facts and the local law. If they are telling the world you are a phisher without any factual basis, the damages equation changes, because you may not need the same kinds of direct economic damages to collect from them since the injury principally would be to your reputation.

In terms of direct damages, it would be a heck of an adsense site that generates enough revenue in a couple of days to make even a small claims court case worth the hassle.

It all depends on the facts and the local law, so if you decide this is where you want to invest your passion and your time, you ought to talk to a lawyer. Generally speaking, if a plaintiff's attorney is not interested, that tells you that as an economic matter it is not that promising.

 

Well I do not know if you copied & pasted that - if so, then you should move to another hosting company since they cannot spell correctly.

And you should consult an attorney to see what he / she thinks your damages might be depending on your location

 

Sounds like either some people don't know what phishing is or they don't want to admit that is what they are doing....

 

I know what phishing is, it just infuriates me they take down my site without any kind of explanation except a one sentence message in the control center that "it's phising site (sic)". With two spelling mistakes: missing "a" and phisHing with the missing "h" for the people who miss it. I know I'm nitpicking about their spelling but I'm angry

Yeah sure a phishing site with adsense and a phisher who is concerned about losing a domain and is willing to go to court over it.
Sounds like you have no clue and like kicking people when they are down.

For the people who do care: letters have been written and will be send to the hoster's office giving them a deadline, threatening legal action and that we will be seeking damage compensations. Hope it all works out, will post more later. Thanks for the advice so far, more welcome.