Godaddy Very Unfriendly Towards Vbulletin Forums

[Scorpio]

fyi, for people out there,

Warning - Beware of Godaddy Hosting Services - Copyright Dispute - Server Suspended

Warning to VBulletin Forum Owners – Beware of Godaddy Hosting Services

Godaddy Very Unfriendly Towards Vbulletin Forums (Public Forums)

A few days back, we received a message from GoDaddy that there was some ‘Copyright Dispute on our Dedicated Server’ and our server was abruptly taken down for more than 24 hours.

Our Dedicated Server runs an active VB forum with thousands of members. We sent a response to Godaddy that the forum is moderated by ‘Voluntary Moderators’; it is still impossible to review each and every message/post/thread or confirm the validity of information posted. We do not vouch for or warrant the accuracy, completeness or usefulness of any message, and are not responsible for the contents of any message. The messages express the views of the author of the message, and not the views of this forum or any entity associated with this forum. It has been clearly mentioned on the ‘Terms & Conditions’ section of the website/forum.

Our lawyer further advised us to ask for the legal copyright information from the complainant in regard to the claim, but it was found that the information was never copyrighted. On further scrutiny, our moderators also found out that this “MEMBER” has been sending “Private Messages” to other members of our forum that she will get this forum/website banned and removed from the internet.

We sent this message to Godaddy’ “No public forum can run on the internet if anonymous member/s keep sending complaints that have no substance or validity. Anyone can lodge a complaint against a website. However, that does not mean that a complainant is submitting true information. The other party also needs to be heard before taking action. This abrupt action by Godaddy Hosting Staff does not instill any confidence in Godaddy’s Hosting services.

We asked the following questions to Godaddy Copyright team but there was no response from their hosting, legal or support team.

1) If there is any objectionable content or possible infringement on a website, shouldn’t Godaddy send a warning email to the customer and seek due explanation before suspending the account?

2) In our case, what sort of legal proof did the complainant provide with regard to her complaint? Did the complainant send any copyright poof/validation from a Copyright office that the content in question is actually owned by her? (Anyone can buy and setup a domain and a hosting account, use the content from another website/source and then claim that the content on his/her website is copyrighted. Would Godaddy start suspending all its customers’ accounts if we started sending complaints in a similar manner? There are a lot of competitor sites that we dislike and would love to see them removed from the Internet to increase our business and for other possible reasons.

3) If a server/hosting account is suspended, shouldn’t there be a 24 hrs customer support to resolve the issue? (One of your Copyright staff suspends the account and then the poor customer has to wait for more than 24 hours for a response or further action? How fair is this?

4) Does Godaddy enjoy the flexibility to suspend any hosting account based on an email complaint where the identity of the complainant is not even verified?

5) A dedicated server can host several domains/websites. Why should a dedicated server be suspended if there is a complaint with regard to one of the domains hosted on that dedicated server?

6) Does GoDaddy have a “Compensation Policy” against server downtime and related consequential expenses of the customer; in case Godaddy finds out that the complaint was not valid and that the complainant had no legal grounds to make that complaint?

7) GoDaddy instills no faith or trust in its customers but relies more on information/email sent from a public email ID/person and takes instant action against its customer without divulging into the details? Why so?

Based on our 10 years of experience, we have realized that Godaddy behaves like an ill prepared persecutor and does not know how to treat its valued and ethically upright customers. You may be doing good business but will certainly suffer in the long run if this attitude continues.

Regrettably, we decided to move away from Godaddy and shift all our domains and hosting accounts to another provider.

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[Strawboss]

You can be sure that this will be used at some point in the future to stifle free speech - simply cut off various forums ability to obtain hosting services. Similar to how they attacked Wikileaks by cutting off their ability to raise money.

When corporations possess all the power - its easy to get them to submit through threat of legal action and monetary reprisals. The love of money is the root of all evil...

[WhyKnow]

Was this posted by one person saying they will get Godaddy on the blacklist? I don't use them but it could go both ways...
Actually I might use them, I have to check at work, not comp savvy.

[Scorpio]

No, it was a owner of a vbulletin forum who used godaddy for hosting,

godaddy shut them down for a period, all with no prior notifications/fact checking/etc.

shut his forum down!

fyi, we do not use godaddy for hosting

Scorp