faith in Hostgator

tpn87 · #1 05-07-2006, 10:11 AM

I had been a happy customer here. I was a refuge from Dreamhost's terrible uptime and reliability. I have gone out of my way with praise about hostgator in my blog and on forums such as Digital Point. But I have to say, I am on my last straw now.

I filed a DMCA complaint with support about another site that is hosted here at HG ( a porn site !). The site is scraping my personal blog's posts and using them on as content on their pornography laden site. My blog is NOT about porn. My blog is about me, technology and my FAMILY (including my infant son).

I have traded several emails with support on this matter, and yet the infringing site is still live, still using my content, still surounded by pornography photos.

Hostgator's unwillingness to correct this problem is deeply troubling. If HG doesn't do the right thing on this, I am leaving.

***GatorBrent*** · #2 05-08-2006, 04:27 AM

What's the ticket number? I'll make sure this is taken care of as that's def not allowed! Dmca's can get tricky with notifying and investigating. If you as a customer are having this problem I can only imagine how many people he's doing this to.

tpn87 · #3 05-08-2006, 07:30 AM

Hello Brent,

It's ticket #YSJ-488490.

Quote:

If you as a customer are having this problem I can only imagine how many people he's doing this to.

The entire site is nothing more than scraped posts and content from other sites. As I expained in my email to support, every page of this site is a potential DMCA complaint waiting to happen to hostgator.

Thanks for looking into this for me.

#4 05-08-2006, 11:24 PM

Tyler,

While I do understand the importance of resolving the issue promptly be aware that in some cases we need to also contact the client involved.

Our preferred method of resolution is to give the client a chance to remove the content rather than simply disabling their site. In this case it could also be another issue entirely such as a technical glitch.

We will however ensure the issue is resolved as promptly as humanly possible.

Thank you for your time.

tpn87 · #5 05-09-2006, 11:19 AM

Hello Dave,

I do understand the need to get both sides of a situation before taking action on a matter like this. However, I dont buy that it could have been a technical glitch. If you investigate this particular situation, you will noticed that all of the deep pages in the offending site are nothing more than feeds being splogged from other sites with the author / byline stripped out and replaced with a fake name. To add insult to injury, the feeds were being presented along side pornography. Not sure how that could be a "glitch"

The thing that troubles me is that support initially took down the site, but then put it back up after the offending site owners said they removed my content. I guess HG took them at their word and didnt check because the fact is it wasn't removed and the site was turned live again, still using my stuff.

I have noticed now that the site is suspended again. For that I am grateful. I can only hope that this time it sticks so I can put this incident to rest and return to being happy Hostgator customer.

Quote:

Originally Posted by GatorDaveM

While I do understand the importance of resolving the issue promptly be aware that in some cases we need to also contact the client involved.

Our preferred method of resolution is to give the client a chance to remove the content rather than simply disabling their site. In this case it could also be another issue entirely such as a technical glitch.

We will however ensure the issue is resolved as promptly as humanly possible.

Thank you for your time.

***GatorBrent*** · #6 05-09-2006, 09:34 PM

If we turn it back on please email me ASAP. He may contact another staff member claiming he's going to remove it to get turned back on. I would delete him now but we do need to provide him backup of his content he didn't steal etc.

May I change this thread to positive? Thanks!

tpn87 · #7 05-10-2006, 10:41 AM

Brent,

Yes, please change this review to positive. Thanks alot for seeing this problem through to a resolution. Like I said in my first post, I have been very happy here at hostgator. Support has always been good and resposive, perhaps this issue fell through the cracks a bit. Also, I understand DMCA issues can be tricky as well. So again, thanks for resolving this for me.

Tyler

Quote:

Originally Posted by GatorBrent

If we turn it back on please email me ASAP. He may contact another staff member claiming he's going to remove it to get turned back on. I would delete him now but we do need to provide him backup of his content he didn't steal etc.

May I change this thread to positive? Thanks!

***GatorBrent*** · #8 05-10-2006, 10:24 PM

Thanks Tyler!!