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Compensation for Bandwidth Costs is Extortion?

Posted by Cliff on from the now-this-is-ovekill dept.

Tha_Big_Guy23 asks: "According to this article, a man who created a website for his local Sheriff's department is being charged with extortion. This was caused by taking down the website after repeated attempts to get compensation from the county to cover the bandwidth costs. As a result, all his personal computer property, and company computer property was seized and he was jailed." "After being jailed he was charged with extortion, larceny by conversion, using a computer to commit a crime, and obstruction of justice. This website explains in more detail the circumstances surrounding the situation. Has anyone on Slashdot ever had an experience where a client was unwilling to compensate you for either your work, and/or the resources required to do your work?"

While the end result of this situation is a shame, let this situation serve as a warning for those of you who work, without a contract in place. While it is the general hope that people will behave in an honorable manner, sometimes this is just not the case, and contracts exist to protect both parties, when things go sour.

11 of 865 comments (clear)

  1. Oh, gotta rant, gotta rant on this one... by The+I+Shing · · Score: 5, Interesting

    This guy gives website designers a bad name. I'd say he definitely belongs in prison. 3.5 million hits per month? Oh, yeah, right. I get the feeling that this guy was planning to pull this stunt all along, but I bet he wasn't counting on getting arrested. Another clue is the fact that he set the domain name up as his own property so the town would be unable to switch to another server. What a noble thing to do. And then there's his final bill... $300,000?! To offset the "huge expense" of running the website? WHAT huge expense? How much was he paying for hosting? DIdn't want to lose any more money? Why didn't he just set it up on a different server and let the town pay for it themselves? I think this guy wants to the town to pay for the loss he's taken running his business in the first place, and shutting the server down while handing over such a massive bill is, IMHO, extortion, and should be treated as such. I hope they throw the book at him, and throw it at him hard, to serve as a warning to anyone else thinking of pulling a stunt like this. Whew, I'm outta breath. Gotta go lay down for a minute.

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    1. Re:Oh, gotta rant, gotta rant on this one... by Performer+Guy · · Score: 4, Interesting

      On ballance this is blatant abuse of power by the Sherrif's office. The guy paid for the domain and ran if for 3 years for free. What you believe w.r.t. what was said about payment should be decided in a civil court. As it is the Sherrif is using their power to force the issue and screwing a guy who did them a favor for 3 years. The Sherrif is incredibly claiming that they were doing this guy a favor by letting him host their site. No, their site was chicken shit without this guy. He build it into the famous property it became and paid for the frikin domain. They should be ashamed of themselves for doing this to the guy. Now they have all his computer gear impounded and he has to arrange bail and hire a lawyer while faving multiple felony charges.

      This Sherrif's office are scum, no two ways about it.

    2. Re:Oh, gotta rant, gotta rant on this one... by segment · · Score: 4, Interesting

      If he could prove his costs were $9090.90 per month in bandwidth fees, then he has a valid argument bottom line. I have a customer who happens to be a Sgt of the police department where i work, and the guy is a total prick. I'm not saying this as antipolice, I mean it the guy is an asshole. He uses a DS3 and whenever there is a problem with Verizon, he tries to ream anyone in the company to the point of workers feeling threatened. Even knowing VZ is the reason to blame, he still insists on DAMNIT I want my line on now! and mysteriously workers' cars fall victims to tickets for shit we never even knew existed. "Ticketed for degraded Windshield wiper" Hell I would fight too if I can prove it cost me 300k in fees in bandwidth.

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    3. Re:Oh, gotta rant, gotta rant on this one... by dasmegabyte · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Or better yet, talk to your local press (if you have a local press, and if you don't, you should start one, it isn't hard and can be quite lucrative). The whole reason for freedom of the press was to prevent totalitarianism in local justice.

      Example: one of my local PDs was notoriously full of money grubbing racist assholes. Our local paper started trolling through records and LO AND BEHOLD, discovered a number of major improprieties, including overtime pay when people were obviously elsewhere and sexual assault cases against various high ranking officers that had "stalled" in court. Paper started publishing on them, and the guilty officers started disappearing from the force. The remaining guys are sweet as can be, because they know that fucking around with the gray areas will get them canned with no pension.

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  2. Re:Yes, it is extortion by EriDay · · Score: 4, Interesting

    No he didn't take anything away from the sheriff, the web site was his property. If the sheriff valued the web site, he should have had a contract that spelled out ownership. Since he hadn't given any money for the site, how can he claim ownership? It shows that the sheriff valued the site a $0.

    It's the sheriff who unjustly took property away.

  3. Another issue... by TwistedGreen · · Score: 4, Interesting

    putting aside the blatant extortion, since when was "using a computer to commit a crime" a crime? Commiting a crime is bad in itself, but when you use a computer to do it, it's even worse? Does that make sense?

  4. Re:Thankyou sir by cbreaker · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Good response. Gotta love people that actually read an article and get it all wrong.

    The thing is, if this was any other business besides a government one (more specifically a police one), they would have to sue him like anyone else, not immediately seize all his gear. This is the problem with cops in general, they have the power to act and ruin your life, and ask questions later.

    I don't care if this guy DID try to inflate the prices and such, I do not feel as though the police should have the right to do this to him without a court order.

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  5. Re:Thankyou sir by pla · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Someone isn't telling the truth.

    I agree, and didn't mean to imply that he necessarily went about this with the best of intentions (not many people would blow $300k of their own money purely for the benefit of the county government).

    But, I can't see any way that the this can count as outright extortion. Even if he did it for publicity or other non-monetary considerations, without a contract (which both articles make clear as one of the big problems in this situation), he has no obligation to continue providing the service.

    So does the county "owe" him any money? I'd say morally yes, but legally no. But does he need to keep providing the service if they don't pay? Again, no. Not extortion, just basic capitalism. If I stop paying my cable, and my cable company shuts me off for not paying, I'd get laughed out of court if I cried "extortion!". Even lacking a contract (let's say I found the cable live when I moved in, and just started using it), I would get charged with theft of services when the CC noticed, not the other way around.

  6. Re:Thankyou sir by dasmegabyte · · Score: 4, Interesting

    True, true...I frequently play devil's advocate and point out the unpopular counter to the "slashdot" view. And I'm surprised how often I get scores like "50% Insightful, 50% Overrated," due to some Slashdotters trying to suppress facts while others are trying to underscore counterarguments.

    End result? More information from more points of view, and that's better for everybody.

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    Hey freaks: now you're ju
  7. Re:Thankyou sir by number11 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    If I volunteer to do work for you for free, and then send you a bill for it, that is fraud and/or extortion.

    Fraud, maybe. But if I volunteer to do work for you for free, and then later tell you I'm not gonna work for you any more unless you pay me, that's just the breaks. If you don't like it, you don't use my services any more. It wasn't extortion when X-Drive said they weren't gonna be free anymore, and I'd have to pay them if I didn't want them to dump my files. It's not extortion when eFax tells me that I'm gonna have to pay them if I want to keep the fax number they've provided for years for free. How is this different?

    If the sheriff wanted a SLA guarantee, he would have hired a commercial service. He got what he paid for. And if the sheriff wanted to own the domain, he should have gotten a .gov domain, unless he's selling justice he's got no business with a .com TLD anyhow.

    [Insert ignorant redneck sheriff joke here]

  8. 300,000 - so what? by Poligraf · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Have /. crowd heard about art of negotiation?

    Just look at lawyers - sue someone for a 100 million and then settle for 100 thousand.

    Him asking 300,000 is nothing more than starting point. What sucks big time is the sheriff refusing to come up with a reasonable agreement at all.

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