Protection From Online Eviction?

AOL has been shutting down its free Web services, in some cases with little or no notice to users, and they are not the only ones. This blog post on the coming "datapocalypse" makes the case that those who host Web content should be required to provide notice and access to data for a year, and be held strictly accountable the way landlords are before they can evict a tenant. Some commenters on the post argue that you get what you pay for with free Web services, and that users should be backing up their data anyway. What do you think, should there be required notice and access before online hosts take user data offline for good?

Comments

Nuts

[EdIII]

What has happened here was not eviction. If we are going to use that word correctly, that is.

Evict (evicted, evicting, evicts) - To put out (a tenant, for example) by legal process; expel; Law to recover (property, for example) by a superior claim or legal process.

Tenant - One that pays rent to use or occupy land, a building, or other property owned by another.

Unless those people paid for a web hosting package, they have zero recourse and they cannot be evicted as they never paid a dime for anything. They should not have any either.

I am sure there was some sort of TOS agreed to that it was for free and no guarantees were going to be made to it's avaiabilbity, backups of data were the users responsibility, etc.

This seems to be some sort of insane sense of entitlement by some people. Some delusion that servers, data storage, and bandwidth are free. That once they find their place to squat that "they are owed" something by the people that actually own that space.

Huh?

That's ... ridiculous. "They've gone plaid".

It was a free service and the web hosting providers have every right to do whatever the hell they want. There is no 99.9999% uptime SLA. It's called, "It's free. So sit down, have a coke, and shut the fuck up" SLA.

The argument that there has to be some sort of socialist laws guarantying free and protected web space to the people is just nuts.

Anyone wonder why property investors avoid certain parts of the East Cost US like the plague? It's because they have those laws there that can keep a squatter in a place for 9 months WHILE THEY DON'T PAY A DIME TO THE LANDLORD. Meanwhile, the landlord is paying a mortgage, property taxes, insurance, maintenance, etc.

Those people are parasites.

Re:Nuts

[Tubal-Cain]

I am sure there was some sort of TOS agreed to that it was for free and no guarantees were going to be made to it's availability, backups of data were the users responsibility, etc.

Agreed, although it would be more polite to notify them. After all, it takes virtually no effort on AOL's part.

Re:Nuts

[arth1]

If something has been advertised for free, the payment is still there, it's just zero.
In this case, the users are not squatters, they have been offered a service, and have accepted the service. Whether the payment is $0.00 or $0.01 shouldn't fundamentally change the basic rights.

Whether the users are too demanding is another issue. In the case of data, it can and should be copied, and if you're stupid enough to not have a copy (or, rather, the original) on your own PCs, I think you deserve what you get. However, there are cases where a person should be able to ask for some time, like for instance if they have fallen on hard times or have been burgled, and need time to copy the data off.

I think a livable solution would be a two-weeks notice, and a two-weeks extension for those who ask for it, and also a way for people to pay for getting the data delivered on a CD/DVD or similar (i.e. a stupidity surcharge).

Anyhow, that's just my opinion :-)

Re:Nuts

[b4upoo]

It is not just the east coast that can be punitive in regard to land owners. Squatters can often cost a fortune and take years to evict in many states.
          However I don't feel sorry for these landlords getting stuck at all. Many times they are arrogant and terrorize tenants with illegal actions. For example I know one old creep who refused to repair a septic system with the claim that since a tenant lived there the tenant must pay for the work. The guy knew just how to get revenge and paid to get the sewer system fixed and stopped the rent dead cold. It took close to a year to get him evicted and the loss of legal fees and rent was a stunning lesson to that landlord. And in Florida collecting a judgment can be impossible so the tenant knew full well that he had won the battle.

Re:Nuts

[calmofthestorm]

In general, it's also probably good business practice to notify people, in terms of making them less angry and giving them a chance to back it up if they didn't. But in the end, I'm extremely leery of legal regulation on things that are given away for free. Short of intentionally poisoning food at a soup kitchen I don't see a whole lot of justification.

Legality and even ethics aside, I am sad as this will poke a lot more holes in our series of tubes, and cause many things that I find useful to go missing. I generally download useful websites just in case, but not reliably, and there are always the useful ones I haven't found yet. Broken links suck.

Re:Nuts

[m.ducharme]

You're forgetting something very important: the law does not require that one party pay money for a contract to exist, only that there is some consideration. If AOL is providing a service for free, then you're correct. But if AOL is providing a service in exchange for showing you ads, or data-mining your surfing habits, then you are paying for the service and AOL is bound by the terms of the contract. If those terms include clauses stating that notice has to be given, then AOL has to give notice. If not, then the user is shit out of luck, should have bargained harder.

Courts are very leery of making judgments on the value of the consideration (the price you pay) preferring to let contracting parties work out how much of what is worth the service or good contracted for, so I'm pretty confident that a judge would find that exposure to advertizing or data-mining would constitute sufficient consideration.

Also, in contract law there is the notion of unconscionability, specifically that where one party to the contract is grossly more powerful than the other, the court can make decisions in favour of the less powerful party that would otherwise run afoul of contract law. True bargaining only occurs between equals, and the law has long recognized that.

It's this principle that is the source of the renter's protection laws that you despise so much. Tenants get these protections because they would otherwise be powerless against their landlords, who could impose terms with impunity (pay up, or I'll throw you out on the street! And no, I won't get rid of those cockroaches! Too expensive!). You may not like it when poorer tenants are protected against their landlords, but I bet you don't object so much when you want to return something you bought under warranty. Warranty and consumer protection laws derive from the same principle of law.

And lastly, if the cut-off of service wasn't mentioned at all in the TOS, the customers may have a remedy in tort for damages. The TOS would have to explicitly waive liability on cessation of service to exclude recovery in tort.

(note that of course, I am not a lawyer, this is not advice, blah blah blah.)

Re:Nuts

[slashtivus]

In Wisconsin you are not allowed to evict a tenant between November and March (IIRC). The idea is that people can freeze to death without a home.

The same applies to electricity and gas service, this applies to home-owners as well.

Come April 1st you will be back out on the street, and good luck finding another apartment to rent (most ask for references / some want credit checks too). Also you will most likely get a judgment against you on your record / credit report.

I am not sure what the rules are when a property is sold.

Re:Nuts

[PopeRatzo]

You don't think we pay for Gmail? I hear a little cash register ring every time I see another targeted advert.

2008 was the year that it was discovered that not paying for something does not equal getting it free. Hell, the hysterics over at Wired Magazine had a whole issue about how much money can be made by not charging for stuff. Had a really ugly neon cover, too. I had to tear off the front cover before placing it in the bathroom next to my TV Guide and ashtray.

Re:Nuts

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

IANAL, etc. but I've done a little amateur poking at the relevant laws(rented house turned out to have major plumbing issues that rendered it uninhabitable without repair, landlady wasn't interested in doing anything, I was a poor college student and really didn't feel like doing capital improvements for her). In any case, I learned that there are federal, state, and municipal laws that all apply to the situation. The federal stuff(that I saw, in any case) was fairly minimal, but state and municipal law had a fair bit to say on tenant/landlord stuff.

Because of that, circumstances can differ pretty sharply depending on location. In my case(Chicago, IL) if you gave the landlord due notice of a serious problem, and they didn't respond in due time, you could fix it yourself and deduct the cost from your rent. You could be called upon to prove the legitimacy of the expense, but you were legally protected from any consequences for nonpayment of rent(since, in getting the problem that needed to be fixed fixed, you essentially did pay rent). That was a Chicago thing, though. Other cities may well differ. I would suspect that locations without any history of tenancy(newish suburban developments, say) probably don't have anything of that kind.

You get what you pay for.

[retech]

It's free, so how can anyone complain?

Don't back up? Sucks to be you.

[mcdonald.or]

Anyone who uses a free webhost and doesn't have a backup of the website is completely without my sympathy if the free webhoster decides to delete the site.

If the site is important, spend the money for a hosted site, it will probably cost less per month than your internet connection. Besides, most ISPs give you a site with your connection.

Even if you have paid for a site, you should have your own backup. At least one.

Re:No, there shouldn't be

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree with you. This is a poor comparison to landlords. Housing is an essential part of what one needs to survive. Web hosting is not. If one needed web hosting to live, then it would make sense to mandate rules like giving ones tenants fair warning before removing them.

Here we go again...

[dkf]

In the computer room at my college, many years ago, there was the following sign:

Rule 1: Always make a backup.
Rule 2: Always make a backup. (This is a backup of Rule 1)

Just because things are now on Web 2.0 services over the internet doesn't change the fundamental dictum. If you care about the data, it is you who needs backups. If you don't make backups, obviously you don't care (enough)...

Re:Here we go again...

[pondlife]

In the computer room at my college, many years ago, there was the following sign:

Rule 1: Always make a backup.
Rule 2: Always make a backup. (This is a backup of Rule 1)

Just because things are now on Web 2.0 services over the internet doesn't change the fundamental dictum. If you care about the data, it is you who needs backups. If you don't make backups, obviously you don't care (enough)...

What about Rule 0:

Rule 0: the following rules apply only to techies, who are the only people capable of understanding even the basic issues involved

Seriously, if you provide a consumer service of any kind, and you expect the consumers to do anything more than just use the service, you are seriously deluded. People - including, I suspect, many techies - will never do anything more than chat/download/email/surf/whatever.

My bank doesn't tell me to back up my account details in case their internet service goes down, why should anything else be different? Yes, that's a rhetorical question, and of course you and I understand the difference, but why should anyone else?

Anyway, the point is that this is not even a technical issue: it's a business one. How do you persuade people to start paying not only for "free" services (Facebook) but "worthless" invisible ones (a backup of your Facebook data)?

If you can solve that, let us know. Until then, going on about backups is only preaching to the choir. Most of whom have probably had a nasty experience with things going wrong already... :-)

In fairness to AOL...

[Jamamala]

I've had about 4 reminder emails over the past 6 months telling me that AOL pictures will be closing, even though I don't use it - I just happen to have AOL as my ISP (or used to, until they sold everything to Carphone Warehouse / TalkTalk..)

So in that particular case, I got quite a good "eviction" notice in plenty of time, even though I don't occupy the building!

FF extension to save submitted forms?

[internewt]

Something that could help mitigate the consequences of things like this in future is something that I have been looking for for quite a while now.... a FF extension that will automatically save all the contents of all submitted forms.

FF already (mainly annoyingly) saves some of what gets entered into forms, but it won't save this rant, for instance. It'll save every possible typo varient of an email address that you might enter, and offer you the typos until the end of time, but the content you might want again in the future? Oh no.

Has anyone seen an extension like this? Or know of an extension that may have this feaure?

Re:Get outa my house! And leave your potatoes.

[Hatta]

If I invite you as a guest into my house, I can kick you out whenever I want. I don't have to give you 2 weeks notice.

Actually, that's not always the case:

If your houseguest has been living with you for more than 30 days, he would be considered a tenant, and the tenancy could only be terminated by proper written notice. If your houseguest has been a tenant less than one year, you could terminate the tenancy by giving 30 days' written notice, but if he has been living with you more than one year, you would have to give him 60 days' written notice. If your houseguest did not vacate within the notice period, you would have to begin formal eviction procedures.

(http://www.boston.com/realestate/news/articles/2007/12/06/how_to_evict_house_guest_who_refuses_to_pay_rent/)

Re:What renters rights are in other cities/states

[jcr]

The rental market in NYC is one of the most expensive in the world. Your rent control laws create strong disincentives to the owners to maintain the buildings, and drives conversion of rental units to condos. Because of the rent control, renters hang onto apartments even if they've moved out of the city, which restricts the supply and drives up the prices for anyone shopping for an apartment.

You may benefit from robbing your landlord, and you may believe that you're entitled to do so, but don't forget that you're also fucking over everyone else who might want an aparment in NYC.

-jcr

Re:What renters rights are in other cities/states

[ShooterNeo]

I remember the reason for this from economics class. Essentially, when you set a price ceiling on something that is above the equilibrium price for supply and demand, you have no effect on the market equilibrium.

      What rent control DOES do in this case is prevent speculation and rapidly ratcheting up rates. If the price ceiling is slightly above the LONG term equilibrium for rents, it prevents short term speculation and economic manipulation (such as a period of easy credit) from artificially inflating rents and creating a bubble.

How would you do this? Do competent asset analysis, factoring in the incomes and true value of a rental property. Come up with a reasonable 'formula' for a rent control ceiling based on this property value. Set the rent control rate to automatically INCREASE at 1% above the rate of inflation every year.

      Do this competently, and you have put a governor on the free market engine, not blocked it.

Re:Please don't play lawyer

[m.ducharme]

There are actually two elements of unconscionability: Procedural and substantive.

Point taken, and yes, you're right on both counts, there isn't much of an argument about unconscionability to make. I didn't mean that it was a good argument, just a possible argument.

No, the principle is that there are more renters than apartment owners, and therefore politicians pander to the tyranny of the majority (and those who feel sorry for them) while trampling on the property rights of the minority.

I'm not going to just buy this one, sorry. If you're a renter and you don't have any protection from your landlord, you are totally at her mercy. That was the entire basis for the feudal system, remember? Class and rank based on whether you owned the land (or held it in stewardship for someone who did). Politicians should damn well pander to voters, that's the whole point of a democracy, remember?

Dude, first off, stop trying to sound like a lawyer - it's like when a white guy tries to speak urban lingo - he just sounds lame. "A remedy in tort" - LOL.

Of course I sound like a pompous lawyer, I'm a law student. I won't start to write like a normal human again for a few years after I get my call to the bar.

Secondly, obviously the biggest ISP in the world has an indemnity clause in its TOS. More importantly, AOL is based in Virginia - a UCITA state - and its choice of forum and law clauses dictate all disputes are to be litigated there under VA law. So even without an indemnity clause, it's unlikely end users would win a lot of court cases in VA.

I'm not studying in the US, so of course I have no idea what VA is like as a venue, and will bow to your superior knowledge there. And yes, they likely have an indemnity clause. And it probably is well-worded and covers situations like this, but maybe it doesn't. I haven't read the TOS for AOL, and I'm not making assumptions about it.

IAALBNYLATINLA (I Am A Lawyer But Not Your Lawyer And This Is Not Legal Advice). And I have taught business law for ten years, so I am not totally talking out of my arse.

Point taken.

Re:What renters rights are in other cities/states

[rossz]

In Santa Monica, California (affectionately known as Soviet Monica) the rent control laws were so strict that landlords couldn't charge enough to break even. This resulted in a black market where you had to pay a huge bribe up front to get an apartment or rental house. Santa Monica was a favored place for well off young couples to live for about five years so they could save up a down payment for their own house.

This wasn't the worst of it. My mom's boss bought a small house in Santa Monica with the intention of living in it. It was pretty run down so needed a lot of work to make it livable. The rent control board decided that since the house had previously been rented, it would remain a rental unit even though no one had lived in it for several years! He had to hire lawyers and sue Santa Monica just for the right to live in his own hose. In the meantime, they wouldn't issue him the permits needed to repair the building.

I'm fairly certain they've changed the rental laws there by now, but I haven't lived in that area for over 10 years so I'm not positive.

Value of a URL?

[WillAdams]

I've been a paying member of AOL long enough to be considered a "charter" member, and was quite irritated by AOL taking away their web-hosting @ members.aol.com --- I'd had pages up since its inception and had lots of people linking to said pages and files.

While I've gotten everything backed up and moved to a new site and notified everyone I could think of --- that doesn't address print references in journals and printed documentation --- all of which are now out-of-date.

I'd've gladly paid a bit extra, instead, I demanded a refund and cut my plan back to BYOA (bring your own access) --- how can this be good for their bottom line?

William