Don't change your customer's review rating

[Kris Siegel]

Please change my review back to neutral. While HostGator was mostly solid for me, there were many things that prevented me from giving it a positive review.

My review was originally neutral. I'm not sure what moderator changed it but please change it back. Don't be deceitful.

[gwyneth]

Wow, I think it's at least a little obnoxious when they ask to change some reviews, but this was a lot obnoxious! Talk about lost credibility...

[PassiveGoal]

It's actually illegal to change your post, not only deceitful. I have never seen that happen before, it's pretty serious.

[calum]

They actually changed one of mine from neutral to positive which I gave them permission to do, but they sales changed the title from something like:

"Support Response Times Very Long"

To

"Support Getting Better"

Without my permission, I didn't say anything, but I did think it was wrong.

[Adorkable]

Originally Posted by PassiveGoal

It's actually illegal to change your post

What, or perhaps who, did you get that idea from?

[striddy]

Originally Posted by PassiveGoal

It's actually illegal to change your post

Which law school did you learn this from?

[regentronique]

Here in Canada, it is illegal to modify a document without specificaly writing that it has been altered and the author of the document must be advised of the modification and the reason for it. This is the law.

Whatever it is a book, a contract, a simple letter and even a forum post. It would be a document falsification and you can be sued for this. You can take away a post completely, this is something else, but not modify the title or content without telling about it.

Ask a Canadian lawyer if you do not believe me.

As a reference for civil law Quebec, Canada: C.C.Q. Article 35
As a reference for criminal law Canada: C-46, article 321, 368 and 397


For the United States i would believe that there is a similar protection against documents alteration/falsification.

[gwyneth]

Here in the U.S., it's the copyright holder (who may or may not be the writer) who has such power. That would be HG.

More immediately, though I don't remember the wording, when we clicked "I agree" to join the forum, there was almost certainly something forfeiting rights to what we post. Or giving HG editing authority. Or something.

[Adorkable]

Originally Posted by gwyneth

Or giving HG editing authority.

Yep...

http://img292.imageshack.us/img292/9306/32370788fx3.png

[regentronique]

Originally Posted by gwyneth

Here in the U.S., it's the copyright holder (who may or may not be the writer) who has such power. That would be HG.

More immediately, though I don't remember the wording, when we clicked "I agree" to join the forum, there was almost certainly something forfeiting rights to what we post. Or giving HG editing authority. Or something.

This is the text :
==========================================
Forum Rules
Registration to this forum is free! We do insist that you abide by the rules and policies detailed below. If you agree to the terms, please check the 'I agree' checkbox and press the 'Register' button below. If you would like to cancel the registration, click here to return to the forums index.

Although the administrators and moderators of HostGator Peer Support Forums will attempt to keep all objectionable messages off this forum, it is impossible for us to review all messages. All messages express the views of the author, and neither the owners of HostGator Peer Support Forums, nor Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd. (developers of vBulletin) will be held responsible for the content of any message.

By agreeing to these rules, you warrant that you will not post any messages that are obscene, vulgar, sexually-oriented, hateful, threatening, or otherwise violative of any laws.

The owners of HostGator Peer Support Forums reserve the right to remove, edit, move or close any thread for any reason.

I have read, and agree to abide by the HostGator Peer Support Forums rules.
==========================================

The part that i have put in red italics is the only part that is important here. No copyright forfeiting, no property cession, nothing. When we "agree" we are accepting that HostGator can "remove, edit, move or close any thread for any reason". We are still the owner of the text we write here, with International rights protecting any countries law regarding copyright and property of the document.

The only problem will be if someone alter/modify any content without advising the author that they did, making other people believe that the author did it himself. This would be considered falsification in many countries and could be interpreted as a criminal act, mostly if it can bring to an organisation any advantages for doing so.

Even "giving HG editing authority", do not release them from the obligation to mention clearly that THEY have edited the post.

[PassiveGoal]

Originally Posted by Adorkable

What, or perhaps who, did you get that idea from?

Originally Posted by striddy

Which law school did you learn this from?

Read up on the law. You can't go around changing what someone wrote without their explicit permission unless it violates a law. I didn't write that someone would bother going to court over this (almost never going to happen in a case like this one) but the fact that it is against the law remains.

[gwyneth]

Originally Posted by PassiveGoal

Read up on the law. You can't go around changing what someone wrote without their explicit permission unless it violates a law.

Agreeing to the forum TOS gives explicit permission to HG to edit.

[striddy]

Originally Posted by PassiveGoal

but the fact that it is against the law remains.

Sorry old chum, but you already agreed to it.

[PassiveGoal]

The post is still represented as the work of the original author. Some people write that 'by signing this you agree to give up all rights etc' but anyone who has studied Contract Law knows that this is often BS because a contract does not supersede the legal rights of an individual.

[Kris Siegel]

I don't want to argue over whether this is legal or not; I just want my rating corrected as I think it's deceitful.

Also, fyi, ToS and other agreements you agree to when you sign up for any service is rarely held up completely by the courts. I remember someone agreeing to a ToS that prevented her from suing a company. The court proceedings still went through and that part of the company's ToS was tossed out. I can't remember which case it was though but the point is, whether this is legal or not, the ToS doesn't protect HostGator from everything it says it does.

Originally Posted by PassiveGoal

a contract does not supersede the legal rights of an individual.

This is correct and the reason why most anti-competitive agreements as well as software agreements get tossed out (either completely or partially) during court proceedings.

[Adorkable]

So this is all because they changed the icon next to a thread from a "|" to a "+"

Heh.

[skeetr]

pretty much - YES

[alemcherry]

Originally Posted by Adorkable

So this is all because they changed the icon next to a thread from a "|" to a "+"

Heh.

Does it sound silly? Not for me

Yeah, this thread has gone little too far into leagl issues without having any response to the original issue from the staff.

Hi,

I just saw this thread, and I'll get your review changed back. I don't believe whoever changed it was trying to be deceitful, but that's not really the point. I apologize for the issue, and will get it changed for you momentarily.

[Kris Siegel]

Thank you.