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GoDaddy Caves To Irish Legal Threat
crush writes, "An Irish website RateYourSolicitor.com, which aims to let clients find and rate solicitors (a British Isles flavor of lawyer), has received an Irish High Court injunction to remove defamatory material about one such rated solicitor. The site is hosted by a US provider, gmax.net, which has reportedly been served notice by lawyers acting for the defamed solicitor. According to the article, GoDaddy, as the domain name registrar, has locked access to the site (registration or bugmenot required). (Amusingly, the records are all for a 'John Smith' in the Russian Federation at 'lawyercatcher@lawyer.com'!) An interesting twist to all of this is that according to the Communications Decency Act, an ISP, as a publisher, cannot be held responsible or legally liable for what their clients do. So how can GoDaddy justify this censorship? Or are registrars the weak link in a system that seems like it ought to be robust against censorship?"
Perhaps GoDaddy is blocking them not out of pure censorship, but because this scandal has revealed that one of the domains they manage doesn't have correct WHOIS information, which many registrars require in the TOS?
For this kind of behaviour. This is clearly an excercise in risk management by a company which wishes to conduct busines in europe and uk.
For some reason I found that funny. "You need to register. Or not."
Simply...
Who isn't going to avoid a lawsuit if they can help it?
This seems to be the ONLY example I have found in dealing with
Godaddy of them ACTUALLY TAKING ACTION and responding to something.
Probably because this time, it was THEIR ass on the line, not clients'.
So... they get a gold star for choking and successfully spitting up.
Grats.
http://sourceforge.net/projects/p2pdns
We ostensibly have freedom of speech, and don't legally ban things like hate speech as they do in France, for example. Instead we use our corporations to enforce the same kinds of restrictions against "offensive content" and such.
In this case, GoDaddy's TOS includes this gem:
So any jackass could shut you down by threatening to sue GoDaddy. Niiiice.
"Freedom of the press belongs to those who own one."
[TOS = "Terms of Service", you know -- the huge page of small print that you scroll past in order to click the "I agree" button.]
If this really is censorship (and if it isn't why didn't they just go get a defamation judgement entered in the US and get the site host to take it down?) it would certainly be nice if GoDaddy stood up to it. However, standing up to legal challenges takes a lot of money and when they are only getting 8.95 for your domain they can hardly afford to defend these legal cases.
Frankly you get what you pay for. I'm a happy GoDaddy customer but I if I wanted a registrar who will stand up under legal challenges I don't think it would be unreasonable to switch to a registrar who charges more per domain.
If you liked this thought maybe you would find my blog nice too:
GoDaddy's IPO attempt failed last month, as their Net company continues to lose money. They're spinning as "we didn't want to go public, anyway". But maybe they've got bigger problems.
After all, GoDaddy is owned by a Conservative making his fortune from domain squatting. I expect there's quite a lot going on under the hood. I'm looking forward to his explanation, as are many, many people who registered with GoDaddy who expect due process before sudden shutdown.
--
make install -not war
Seriously, I'm not surprised. It's been a controversial idea in Ireland and there's really not much of an ability to defend your reputation without resorting to tougher measures. There was a lot of similar controversy with ratemyteacher.com when some of the allegations made on the site were troubling. In some cases the site was used to make (false) allegations of sexual and/or physical abuse. Teachers were rightly outraged.
To be fair I think that there are many incompetent and/or unscrupulous lawyers who don't do a good job of representing their clients. Many people I know have had problems in this regard. It's a service but it's also something that allows solicitors to bad mouth their rivals.
the more they over-think the plumbing the easier it is to stop up the pipe
If you violate the terms of your registrar's AUP (acceptable-use policy) then you only have your self to blame, you've broken a contract.
Also, it *sounds* as though the domain was registered with fraudulent information (okay, I guess there *could* be a John Smith in Russia). If this is true it would be a violation of ICANN's policy on domain registration, not GoDaddy's.
It's true no man is an island, but if you take a bunch of dead guys and tie 'em together, they make a good raft.
Registrant:
John Smith
krasnaya ploschad
Moskva 00000
Russian Federation
Registered through: GoDaddy.com, Inc. (http://www.godaddy.com)
Domain Name: RATEYOURSOLICITOR.COM
Created on: 02-Jul-05
Expires on: 02-Jul-10
Last Updated on: 15-Jul-05
Administrative Contact:
Smith, John lawyercatcher@lawyer.com
krasnaya ploschad
Moskva 00000
Russian Federation
714987650
Technical Contact:
Smith, John lawyercatcher@lawyer.com
krasnaya ploschad
Moskva 00000
Russian Federation
714987650
Domain servers in listed order:
PARK13.SECURESERVER.NET
PARK14.SECURESERVER.NET
Registry Status: REGISTRAR-LOCK
Registry Status: clientDeleteProhibited
Registry Status: clientUpdateProhibited
Registry Status: clientTransferProhibited
Registry Status: clientRenewProhibited
The Communications Deceny Act is American law. That doesn't insulate you from the law of the U.K.
The CD Act protects ISPs from liability for third-party content. Not from content that the ISP creates or publishes itself. You might want to host MySpace. You might not want to own MySpace.
I dealt with godaddy. After Ben and Justin stopped heading up the anti-spam department, their response to phony whois information has become disappointing.
This is not just somebody threatening to sue. This is a solicitor/lawyer threatening to sue. Of course a threat is not a lawsuit, but a lawyer threatening to sue on their own behalf and then filing a lawsuit is more likely than someone who has to pay an attorney $300/hour.
I had an attorney not take my threat of filing a suit seriously, until I provided him with a 7 page complaint the next morning. I had a porn spammer dare me to sue them. Boy he was suprised when I actually sued.
Fight Spammers!
But GD was already on my don't do business with list when they tried to trick me into transferring my own domain to them. Mine is paid through 2008, and they sent several e-mails to the contact address basically implying that to save it I needed to transfer it to them quickly and pay more money. I despise that tactic from any domain registrar of trying to poach customers in this manner.
Having very sexy women in their TV ads isn't enough to make up for the above.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
"British Isles flavor of lawyer" When refering to Ireland please refrain from including it in the British Isles!
Your argument might be valid if they had to defend every domain from legal challenges. But they don't. Nobody does. And by standing up against the few challenges for the many domains they manage along the way, they probably both reduce the likelihood of future challenges (especially if they seek repayment of legal fees afterwards each time they win) and increase their desirability as a registrar which would result in more business.
Think of this like insurance. A lot of people pay small amounts in order that a few large claims can be paid every year. You'd sure be a lot happier when it came time to pay your own claim now, wouldn't you?
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Seem like everytime we hear something like this, some lawyer has degraded the quality of our lives just a little more the previous one.
Check out this excerpt from their Registration Agreement:
It's not exactly a free-speech-friendly contract, is it? You can lose your registration for embarrassing someone. This is why I never moved any of my domains to GoDaddy when I was working for them. You can't count on them to stay out of legal battles that other registrars would ignore. Instead, they'll kill your registration, and expect to be patted on the back for being good citizens.
Sometimes, I think their real problem is that they want everyone to like them.
Proud to be / Smiley-free / Since Nineteen / Ninety-Three
It looks like GoDaddy is going to have to find an Irish solicitor.
If only there was some sort of web-based service to find and compare solicitors...
... for they are subtle and quick to anger.
And, being solicitors, are never far from, er, a solicitor.
Fair play to them for trying though.
Open Source Drum Kit, LPLC deve board - mjhdesigns.com
Freedom from Government censorship isn't worth anything when corporations can make an end run around them and shut you up.
You can't go anywhere now and put out fliers because there's ordninances against it. You can't broadcast online because ISP's shut you down when you say something "objectionable enough".
We need free speech zones on the internet that do not depend on corporations or Government.
--- Grow a pair, liberals... stop letting the Republicans bully you!
Could you please avoid linking to sites that require registration?
I've got a number of domains registered with GoDaddy. Thanks to this, I plan on migrating elsewhere when the terms expire. I hope others do the same.
(Posted anonymously since I don't want them to fuck with me in the meantime, since apparently they feel that they can pull their paying customers' domain registrations at a whim.)
That would be the Republic of Ireland, thanks.
What he can't kill, he has sex on. Trent.
There is a difference betweeen denying service at request, and denying service after a client has been accepted and paid for his services.
No landlord, once the person has signed a lease, is allowed to evict their tenant for things like voting habits, their tendency to protest their favorite political party, their tendency to denounce the company they work for, etc.
If they tried it they could be sued into destitution.
The same thing with wrongful termination. While empolyers have the right to not hire you, once you are hired theyre not allowed to fire you for things like the hobbies you keep in your spare time or your political affiliation.
Finally, and most importantly, with increased power or wealth comes increased responsibility. Webhosting companies, like corporations who dominate a geographic area in terms of employment opportunity, estensibly have power rivaling a government and carrying the same weight.. as such they should be held to the same constitutional standards as the government, otherwise those constitutional guarantees don't mean jack.
VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
The owner of that domain is listed as
John Smith
krasnaya ploschad
Moskva 00000
Russian Federation
714987650
lawyercatcher@lawyer.com
("krasnaya ploschad" is Red Square, the big plaza in front of the Kremlin.)
Ordinarily, faced with obnoxious registrar behavior, you can transfer the domain to another registrar. Given this phony domain registration info, thus domain owner can't do that.
That's the price of phony domain registration info - any trouble, and you lose the domain.
Perhaps slightly off-topic, but which registrars would you guys recommend who have a proven track record of siding with the registrant?
see a Text Widget
Ultimately, you are only guaranteed the Freedom, not the means to utilize it in a convenient manner.
Mod parent up. So few people seem to get this.
By summer it was all gone...now shesmovedon. --
Yeah, I used to think like that as well. Free speech doesn't apply to corporations or private web sites and all that.
However, do you really want to live in a place where Freedom of Speech is merely a hypothetical idea rather than a practical truth? Is the US really a better place than China, Russia or any other country when freedom of speech only exists when it doesn't offend anyone? Do you have freedom of speech if anyone can shut down your speech?
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
OpenNIC is an alternative DNS root that does not depend on such corporations. Registering a non-ICANN toplevel domain under an opennic registrar would be good insurance against this kind of thing. Even going strictly with ICANN, registering more than one top level domain under different registrars is good insurance.
You have GoDaddy charging next to nothing for domain names and you expect to get the same service you'd get from a real registrar? C'mon.
Portable versions of Firefox, GIMP, LibreOffice, etc
Be careful about any involvement with GoDaddy.
Also, the owner of GoDaddy is heavily pro-Bush.
What if GoDaddy only charged $5 per year for domains? Or $2? At what point is the domain so cheap that the cost of ANY litigation is not factored in?
It's quite reasonable that for $8.95/month, GoDaddy can't afford your 'insurance', and if you want to participate in 'domain name lawsuit insurance', you'll have to go with a provider who provides it, and charges $14.95/yr, or more.
paintball
The Republic Of Ireland (Eire) is in fact part of the British Isles. The British Isles consists of Great Britain and Ireland. It is not part of the United Kingdom. This confusion seems to come up a lot.
I'd love to move off Godaddy. I have eight domains there. But who else is there?
Yahoo did have a $1.99... but it was a 'one off one only' thing.
Some of the others look very suspicious.
Any other suggestions?
"Your argument might be valid if they had to defend every domain from legal challenges."
No, the argument is valid because they can't afford to contest as many challenges as someone who charges considerably more. Since they have less money they would likley only defend actions that would have an immediate effect of their own profitability. I agree fighting back would deter some challenegers but what if their strategy is to simply cut off customers who cause them legal grief. The number of customers is small but if they fought the complaints against them they would cost more than they are worth in monetary terms.
"Think of this like insurance. A lot of people pay small amounts in order that a few large claims can be paid every year."
Good analogy but it seems to me that one of the reasons GoDaddy is cheap is because their registration fee does NOT include the "samll amount" for "insurance"!
Having said that I would not use price as the primary yardstick, I would look at TOS and track records and pick the cheapest one that met my anti-social needs. GoDaddy would not make it past a cursory look at their TOS, it makes it clear they will pull the plug at the first sign of legal problems from a customers site.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
They were all registered at Network Solutions.
"Avoid employing unlucky people - throw half of the pile of CVs in the bin without reading them." -- David Brent
Heres a link to a very recent discussion board just FILLED with posts from Irish people who think you're wrong. So tis you who is confused. Sorry about that. Maybe a little more education next time, hey?
What he can't kill, he has sex on. Trent.
CustomDesigned posted an actual solution to the problem, that's cause right there for some upward modding.
--- Grow a pair, liberals... stop letting the Republicans bully you!
``We need free speech zones on the internet that do not depend on corporations or Government.''
Tell me you didn't really say that. Free speech zones?!? Free speech zones are a bastardization. They are to free speech as Digital Rights Management is to digital rights. Taken to the extreme, they can boil down to "you're free to say whatever you want - where nobody can hear you".
Please, if you are in favor of free speech, don't pretend free speech zones are anything but evil.
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
Our (excl.) *constitutional guarantee* does not, at present, include right of access to media, or to be free-from-censorship when using services owned by others, since it extends only to our government.
However, our (incl.) *natural rights* (a function of the human condition and/or an "endowment by the creator"), which are distinct from our constitutional guarantees, are grounded in philosophy and not in law - when someone talks about the "right to free speech", they are refering to something that the first amendment of our constitution *recognizes*, not to something it *grants*. The assertion of a right to free speech includes the right to participate fully and equally in the political process - and the right to be heard by anyone who wishes to listen.
It is clear that the current system curtails this fundamental right in significant ways - although, to be fair, even so, the internet still allows people to realize this fundamental right in ways almost unimaginable 40 years ago.
The good and new comes from no quarter where it is looked for, and is always something different from what is expected.
Similarly, ISPs are free to restrict who gets to use their service. [...] I'm not preventing you from blaming free speech - just trying to explain it a bit more.)
There are two concepts of "free speech": what the law actually gives us, and what we, the people, understand the concept to mean. If the concept of "free speech" given to us through laws differs from what we understand the concept to mean, then the problem is with the laws, not with our understanding.
Everybody understands that ISPs currently have a lot of latitude in deciding who to do business with. What we're discussing is whether they actually ought to have that freedom, or whether the legal rules that govern free speech in the US need to be updated.
I'd agree with you that most of the stuff that I've just read there is "unstable". What I am interested in is not the site content, but how GoDaddy folded in the towel immediately and apparently are claiming that they had to do so because of the laws of a foreign nation.