Compensation for Bandwidth Costs is Extortion?

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.

Comments

Oh, gotta rant, gotta rant on this one...

[The I Shing]

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.

Re:Oh, gotta rant, gotta rant on this one...

[(54)T-Dub]

Before everyone gets their tin foil in a not, a few quotes from the article to show that there are two sides to every story:

Richard then demanded $300,000 of taxpayer dollars from the county. Richard said the money would offset the huge expense of running the Web site for the 33 months.

This for 3.5 million users per year.

Richard lied to investigators by claiming he sold the domain name to a Virginia company, Hackel said. Hackel said his mistake was placing too much trust in Richard and agreeing to have Richard pay the nominal domain fee. Richard retains authority of the domain name.

Appearently he was holding the domain name until they paid him $300,000

Re:Oh, gotta rant, gotta rant on this one...

[Lizard_King]

3.5 million hits per month

"hits" is such a crappy way to measure bandwidth. Depending on how the site is built and which web traffic monitoring tool you use, a single unique visit to a site can result in hundreds of hits. My shitty site gets in the order of 50-70k hits a month and I know its only my mom.

Re:Oh, gotta rant, gotta rant on this one...

[argmanah]

Read TFA, not skim TFA.

According to the second link in the article, he spent $300,000 of his own money and is not asking for his inventment back. He simply tried to tell the county that, going forward, he couldn't afford to pay for it himself. When they ignored him, he closed up shop to keep from losing more money. They retaliated by arresting him and slapping him with exortion and other charges.

Re:Oh, gotta rant, gotta rant on this one...

[myowntrueself]

"My shitty site gets in the order of 50-70k hits a month and I know its only my mom."

Should've posted the URL here, dude.

Re:Oh, gotta rant, gotta rant on this one...

[Wakkow]

I read both articles, and they contratict each other.. The news article says he demanded $300,000... The other site says that he didn't want that money back. Who do we believe?

Re:Oh, gotta rant, gotta rant on this one...

[argmanah]

For two years, Pat attempted to negotiate a way to pay for the site. For two years, Pat worked without pay. For two years, RunningWolf was not compensated for its server space or its bandwidth costs. For two years Pat spent $300,000 of his own money to host and maintain the site, never asking for nor receiving a profit.

Pat did not ask for payment of any of that investment, but simply explained to the county he could no longer afford to host and maintain the site for free. For 2 years the sheriff refused to negotiate a way to continue paying for the site.

Considering that it is undisputed that this guy donated nearly 3 years of his time to this county before asking for anything, I find it much more likely that his side of the story is more accurate. You don't see greedy/selfish people work selflessly for 3 years with no return on investment.

You do however, see greedy/selfish people willingly leach off of generous people for years, and then sue or otherwise take legal action when those generous people stop.

You seem to be very ready to believe that a guy would be willing to work for you pro bono for 3 years, then suddenly turn and try to extort you by withholding his free service? How am I the one with the tin-foil hat? I have more faith in people than that.

Re:Oh, gotta rant, gotta rant on this one...

[Gr0nk]

My guess is that his lawyer posted this article in order to "slashdot" the new domain - in a tactic to drive up their bandwidth costs to make the $300,000 seem a little more reasonable.

Re:Oh, gotta rant, gotta rant on this one...

[urmensch]

Macomb county is not some podunk area, it is part of metro Detroit

Wow what a site!

[ericspinder]

3.5 million hits per month

www.macombsheriff.com must be one busy site. no wonder he wanted $300,000 dollars. That link is down, so what did he have on the site, lets check. Just in case your wondering the sherrif's office is in Mt. Clemens, MI

Thankyou sir

[Performer Guy]

My knee was jerking furiously until I read your excellent post. I can rest easy now knowing that there's two sides to this story and we have another sensationalized /. article.

Re:Thankyou sir

[Ohreally_factor]

And another highly misleading headline. "Compensation for Bandwidth Costs is Extortion?" is a real twisting of the reported facts, even if the webguy's claims are reasonable (They aren't). His actions certainly are not reasonable.

Re:Thankyou sir

[TwistedGreen]

The way I see it, Slashdot is providing is readers with valuable lessons in critical thinking. At what other news site could you exercise your mind to read between the lines, besides Slashdot?

Re:Thankyou sir

[EpsCylonB]

At what other news site could you exercise your mind to read between the lines, besides Slashdot?

Fox ?

Re:Thankyou sir

[Jerf]

I know Slashdot has never been a place you trust unquestioningly for your news, not that trusting any source unquestionably is a good idea, but is it just me or have the editor's knees been getting a much better workout over the past couple of months?

Based on my understandings of the problem, just looking at the current YRO frontpage, two of the last four stories have blurbs that are just plain wrong ("Courts Overturn FCC - Return of the Monopoly?", "Do You Have A License For Those Facts?" (my debunking and I'm a certified IP wonk). One of the others ("MSN Search Blocking Results For XFree86?") didn't really have enough data to prove or disprove (so it's probably not worth the 868 comments it attracted).

Now this article, where I think the blurb is deceptive enough to constitute being "wrong".

Slashdot editors, you are getting sloppy and going from moderate benefit (at least it provided some reasonably centralized source of information) to positive menace. Please, either spend more time digging into these stories, or stop posting the blurbs. You can disclaim responsibility for the accuracy of the stories until you're blue in the face, but the fact is that posting does constitute some degree of approval, since there is a selection process.

This is an intervention. Please stop damaging our cause. You're marginalizing all of us who are legitimately concerned about the way things are going when you post so much obviously wrong stuff under the guise of "being on our side".

(At least do us the courtesy of starting to shill for the RIAA and MPAA if you don't want to be bothered with improving your accuracy.)

Re:Thankyou sir

[Ralph Wiggam]

And what have we learned today, children?

Do not attempt to scam people who have the power to throw you in jail. The elderly are a much better target.

Thank you and goodnight.

-B

Re:Thankyou sir

[pla]

His actions certainly are not reasonable.

They didn't pay, he shut down the site. Explain the part of that you consider "unreasonable", please?

Whether or not you consider the magnitude of his bill to the county as reasonable, it boils down simply to "he provided a service, sent a bill, bill went unpaid, he stopped providing the service". Nothing more than that.

Theft of service also breaks the law. Key difference, a private individual doesn't have the power to abuse to have people from the country government frivolously arrested.


Also, RTFA (in particular, the second link). He did not send them a bill for $300k... He said his total expenses came out to $300k (not unreasonable, if he actually worked something resembling full-time for 2-3 years... That alone gives $200k+ depending on the going rate in his area for a network admin). He didn't even attempt to recover any of his past expenses on the project. He merely requested they start paying for his services, and when they refused, he stopped providing the service.

If this counts as extortion, it sets a VERY dangerous precedent... A precedent that basically makes slavery legal, by making it a crime to stop performing a voluntary service.

On the bright side, assuming he doesn't end up in prison for a few years, he has a fairly good case for harassment, with monetary damages resulting. He could end up getting considerably more than his $300k (which, again, he did not actually try to bill the county for).

Re:Thankyou sir

[Mr. Piddle]

This is why Slashdot is relatively good journalism, IMO. Even when the submitters and editors are clearly biased, it is only a few comments into the following discussion that things get balanced out. How often do we see on the big cable and broadcast networks retractions and alternatives being shown within minutes? Almost never.

Even for the frequent story about Microsoft or SCO, there'll be at least a few comments among the flames adjusting the facts of the story. Actually, by being so harsh on these companies, for example, we can help the public better understand what is true and what is misrepresented regarding their actions. Hold the feet to the fire, so to speak.

Re:Thankyou sir

[Tanlis]

Richard, a former reserve deputy in the sheriff's marine division, more than three years ago offered to provide the Web site at no cost to the county as an in-kind contribution. Hackel, who enthusiastically supported it, said Richard agreed to operate it in exchange for publicity for his company.

He agreed to host it at no cost. If he waited 2-3 years before asking them to pay, then he is only owed from the point he asked to when he stopped hosting the site. He truly was a fool though to run the site for that long if he expected payment from the beginning. Of course the second link states he tried getting paid during this period of time. Someone isn't telling the truth. So unless the guy has proof he tried to obtain payment on certain dates, he's not going to win.

Re:Thankyou sir

[SkunkPussy]

One of the others ("MSN Search Blocking Results For XFree86?") didn't really have enough data to prove or disprove (so it's probably not worth the 868 comments it attracted).

What are you talking about? if you either click on the link in the story, or go to msn.com, type "xfree86" in the box at the top, then click on search, you only get 1 result, which is porn and it warns you about.

If you go to any other search engine there is more than one result and it isnt this nightcrawler business. google has 2.4 million.

tellingly if you search on google for xfree86 nightsurf, you only get 28 results, none of which is the website that msn throws up.

Re:Thankyou sir

[cbreaker]

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.

Re:Thankyou sir

[Glonoinha]

Well the way I read it he didn't 'blow $300k of his own money.' The $300k was in "time, money, and resources". Thus I have a strong feeling that of that $9,000 per month, every month for 33 in a row he is claiming to have spent to total the $300k, a pretty good chunk of it was his self-assigned pay rate of $150 an hour (my guess, no basis in fact) for his own time 'webmastering'.

Did he actually write checks for $9,000 per month is true expenses? Electricity, new hardware, bandwidth charges from his upstream provider? I'm guessing no fscking way.

And according to the first article, yes he did plonk down a bill, a piece of paper saying something to the effect of 'you owe me $300,000'. They told him to get bent, then arrested him.

That said, I think this entire thing is stupid. No farm-team sheriff office needs a web site that has 3.5 million 'hits' a month from 60 countries. And for damn sure no farm-team sheriff office web site is worth $300,000 over three years, traffic or no traffic. Someone is about to earn a few whacks from the clue stick.

Re:Thankyou sir

[number11]

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]

Re:Thankyou sir

[91degrees]

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

It's certainly not extortion. It may be fraud. Depends on the nature of the bill, and the nature of the agreement. If there is a dispute abut the nature of the agreement, (abnd it appears that there is) then it is a civil matter. Not a criminal matter.

The first link (which goes to a somewhat unbiased newspaper) clearly says he asked for $300K.

Don't trust the media to get all the facts right. they tend to make small mistakes, and mishear things, and write what they think happened rather than what actually happened.

Huh?

[El]

Since the site shut down Jan. 1, the sheriff's office set up its own site, www.macomb-sheriff.com. The new site is bare bones compared to the original one, but Hackel said it provide the most important function -- public communication with his office in the form of e-mail.

I see why they needed somebody else to build their web site -- they think they need a web page in order to receive email!

The Guy Made Mistakes All Along

[ausoleil]

First of all, $300,000 is extravagant by any standards. He should have charged his actual costs, after all, he did agree to do the site in exchange for publicity. Thus, the designer should have asked to have the county pay the real cost. I simply cannot imagine the ISP involved was charging that much.

Secondly, the designer should have never shut the site down without sending the county properly served due notice. In other words, registered or certified mails, preferably coming from an attorney.

Finally, the designer should have sued the county, and then through the litigation a settlement would have been obtained -- most likely through binding arbitration.

But, at the same time, to settle a civil disagreement through criminal prosecution seems to be abuse of power at most naked.

Both of the parties should be spanked by their Mamas.

Whack the new guy too

[Doesn't_Comment_Code]

Have you seen their website? http://www.macomb-sheriff.com/

Their new web designer should probably go to jail too.

The Site in Question:

[da3dAlus]

"Welcome to the Springfield Police department web site."
"Press YES if you have committed a crime, and wish to confess. Otherwise, press NO."
[Click]
"You have selected NO, which means you have committed a crime, but do not wish to confess."
"A padywagon is now speeding to your location."
"In the meantime, please look at our online store. You have the right to remain...Fabulous!"

uh, whatever!

[Scudsucker]

They guy was frikkin arrested, his equipment impounded, and he's being threatened with 20 years in jail. For a dispute that should be settled in civil court. Is the guy snow white innocent in the whole affair? Probably not. Is the police department committing a huge abuse of authority? Hell yes!

Re:What exactly is Slashdot?

[ArekRashan]

Wait a second. Slashdot is journalism?

I've been reading ./ for years now, and I always thought that it was a BBS that was extremely popular because it linked to lots of news stories, which gave its members a constant stream of new topics to "discuss".

Slashdot is what happens after journalism.