RE: RateMyCop.com

About: slashdot | godaddy silences ratemycop.com

I think this is more interesting (than 9512 ) useful & perhaps should be considered as useful information to read before purchasing product from godaddy.com .
Apparently godaddy shut down a website RateMyCop.com which created the opportunity for citizens to write feedback on cops they encounter in life situations. Wired apparently had the parent article. As usual the slashdot comments provide most of the interest for this subject & at one point degenerated into the first amendment & legality of anonymous posters. In particular one of the comments referenced this ruling by SCOTUS about anonymous electioneering fliers. Apparently libel & slander on the Internet is still subject to civil lawsuits.

Under selective spending principles (& in the selective spending tagroom ) I would select against godaddy.com for not conducting business in the manner I am aligned with. If the information turns out to need further clarification, I will post such later.

Comments

Mark de LA says

This from one of the slashdotters also tracks other godaddy articles.

Seth says
Hmm do you know if Godaddy reinstated RateMyCop.com or whether the owners moved it? In any case i doubt whether there is any hosting company that will not (at least temporarily) cave in to "the authorities". You may be hard pressed to reliably avoid such a service sessation regardless of where you host your shady sites.

Mark de LA says

seth 2008-03-13 10:41:24 9518

Hmm do you know if Godaddy reinstated RateMyCop.com or whether the owners moved it? In any case i doubt whether there is any hosting company that will not (at least temporarily) cave in to "the authorities". You may be hard pressed to reliably avoid such a service sessation regardless of where you host your shady sites.

It was mostly the shady explanations for the sessation that got to me. They should be up again on a different hosting company by Tuesday says the article.

Seth says

M 2008-03-13 10:48:22 9518

It was mostly the shady explanations for the sessation that got to me.

Oh, what were their "shady explanations" in particular? And are these direct quotes from godaddy?

Mark de LA says

Well, from the linked Wired article:

source: ...

March 12, 2008 | 19:40:00 PM GoDaddy Breaks Its Silence. The company insists the RateMyCop.com takedown had nothing to do with the content of the site.

"The site's operator has publicly disclosed the concerns were over bandwidth," spokeswoman Elizabeth Driscoll writes in an e-mail "More accurately, GoDaddy's concerns were about how the RateMyCop site was far exceeding the amount of server usage for which it had contracted."

I asked for clarification, and Driscoll agreed with Sesto that RateMyCop.com hadn't exceeded its monthly bandwidth allotment. But the spike in popularity that followed the police backlash resulted in far more simultaneous connections than GoDaddy can handle under the low-budget shared hosting plan Sesto signed up for.

There's no hard contractual limit on the number of connections a customer can receive at once, but Driscoll says GoDaddy pulled the plug under a broad provision of its terms-of-service that lets it "remove your website temporarily or permanently from its virtual dedicated servers if GoDaddy is the recipient of activities that threaten the stability of its network."

"Basically, he was paying for compact car, when he really needed a semi-truck," Driscoll writes. "The customer was not willing to work with our staff to resolve the issue."

Sesto refutes that last part, and says GoDaddy didn't contact him before cutting off the site.

...

Seth says

So what we have above is the site owner interperting the transaction and providing the so called quotes from godaddy. I would truly like to hear godaddy's side from godaddy. Otherwise it looks to me that this is just the site owner capatilizing on the contraversy.

Mark de LA says

I think that if you bother to read all of the websites mentioned that you will agree. Otherwise, who cares? It's my interpretation & my selective spending that I exercise. You didn't really read all the material, IMHO.

Mark de LA says

When I originally posted this item it was because I had mixed emotions about a website that provided, perhaps anonymous input on the police. Next after digging into the matter I found the notion of anonymous sourcing & the first amendment intriguing - these might be at play for the UnhackTheBrain group. I will admit that I am less paranoid of the police than I am of criminals although reading through the slasdotters I get almost the opposite. This website (fbi) promotes anonymous blogging so the latter concerns are a lot more interesting than the behavior of godaddy.com. I would expect that any future web host at least have the nicety of a conversation with the proprietors of fastblogit before bringing the site down. My first impression was this is another WikiLeaks.org problem.

Mark de LA says

seth 2008-03-13 16:16:46 9518

.... a better truth (barf) , it is important to at least find the original source of a message - and not propogate sloppily projected third and fourth repititions of what may well be melicious rumor mongering.

..(emphasis mine) .. access to the original source of the message, if disclosed, makes the message NOT anonymous any longer .... Then again, as possibly in the case in question, what do you do with a corporation that lies to it's customers to protect it's own ass? As a practical matter, news organizations usually have more than one source for important stories;

The site RateMyCop.com is back online for now. Judging from a quick perusal it is a snoozer! Mostly he/she said .. she/he said!

Seth says
Well i accept anonymous sources as a fact of life - especially with the advent of the Internet. It's a two sided coin - on the one side it allows a true message to get out there without fear of consequences. On the other side it allows a false message to cause damage without fear of consequences. Like life you must accept the good with the bad. Eliminating anonymous sources - or severly discourageing them - would have far more deleterious effects than accepting them. This is why, should we want to persue a better truth, it is important to at least find the original source of a message - and not propogate sloppily projected third and fourth repititions of what may well be melicious rumor mongering.

Seth says

My term the original source of a message obviously refers to where the meme originated. That has nothing to do with whether it is "anonymous" or not. Usually the original source is not anonymous but rather is a named reporter or commentator.

Mark de LA says

seth 2008-03-14 03:27:05 9518

It might be a more clear if you didn't use the term meme. In reporting a source is usually somebody who knows about the subject being reported on. A lot of times a source will not want to be named, particularly if he is a whistleblower. Your use of the term original source is confusing. Is it the reporter who scoops a particular story or the first person to expose something to the public, or something else?

Seth says
Look all i'm saying is that when repeating messages you get from the Internet it is best to quote (in context) the first person who published the information on the net and show in the fbi source the url. That enhances the accuracy of the message, speeds your readers research, and minimizes signal degradation.

Mark de LA says

I did, both slashdot & their comments & Wired who unearthed the story. There may be more, but I don't have an algorithm to pick up the head of an entagled string - do you?

RE: RateMyCop.com

About: slashdot | godaddy silences ratemycop.com

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