I've recently had my domain suspended without warning. I believe it's unjust and I will outlay the reasons why below if any feels like reading. I am wondering what recourse, if any, I can take with the Web Hosting company.

I was suspended for violating the AUP and apparently causing enough traffic to nearly cause a DOS for other users on the same server. Let me explain what happened.

a) The AUP of this company is ever changing. I have been with them for quite sometime and the AUP I read back then is very different to the AUP they pointed to me today. Is it up to me to constantly check changes in the AUP weekly ?

b) I had a chat script on my site. Note: Not IRC, just a PHP script. Also note, that while it was there, I think it was used 3 times in the last 4 months by two people. Helps me keep in touvh with my family as I am working overseas.

c) I had a webcam setup. It wasn't streaming. I was sending a 2K image and a smaller thumb every 30 secs. In hindsight I guess it was accessively, but hey, they could have told me. Also, this is what they claim nearly caused a DOS. I find it amusing that the Webcam had been setup like this for over 2 months without any complaint.

d) I have lived through many changes in their package offering. When I signed up there was unlimited POP accounts, ASP availability, opportunity to have the host install scripts on my site for me and UNLIMITED BRANDWIDTH. Yes, that was the claim. There were many debates in this forum regarding that so if you want to find out who the host is, you can find it.

e) I was terminated instantly. No warning, no notice. This is a bit tough as it was my main email address, and that of my immediate family. All now who don't have email.

f) I have helped this host by finding better scripts for them to use. I suggested they look at OpenWebMail to replace neomail. They agreed. This isn't a biggie though, I'm just trying to prove that I wasn't a bad client.

g) I have referred two friends to them who have signed up with the provider.

So, to end the sob song, I believe I have been treated quite unfairly. I would be interested to hear from other Web Host providers to see if they feel I did act in a way the merited instant suspension.

Any guidence would be great.

Oh, one last thing, their suspension email was quite friendly "It is suspended and will not be reinstated ever. Don't bother replying to this email because we will ignore." I can't even discuss this with them.

Well I honestly have a hard time feeling sorry for you, you knew the facts about unlimited bandwidth you knew it was a lie you knew that your host was probably on the bad list here, yet you made the decsion to stay with them knowing all the above.

If you are being conned and give your money to a con man anyway who's fault is it that you lose your money?

As far as recourse you have none, if they have in their AUP that they can change it without notice and they do you are the one that made the choice to host under it, so they are within their legal rights to terminate your account if you vilolate their AUP.

Sorry best to find a new host and this time don't go with someone that offers unlimted lies.

Sounds like ReadyHosting.

Regarding your questions -- if the AUP is constantly changing then yes it would be up to you to continue to check it out. However, if that is the case, maybe that is a sign of something not good. Why would they need to change it that frequently?

As for the excessive server usage, unfortunately, they would only know what caused it. It sounds like they won't talk but they should provide proof that you did cause the server to act up.

If it states in their AUP that you can be terminated without notice, then I don't believe they did anything wrong regarding their policy. On a customer service standpoint (of course not knowing their side of the story either) then that is not very professional... in my opinion.

It's sad to hear that this happened and I hope you are able to find a better provider. I myself am not a host but this still seems wrong on their part. Again, I don't know their side and not that they do, but they could have good reasoning. Still strange...

Good luck finding your next host. WHT is a great resource for doing just that.

Yeah, I guess I'm the sucker and I should have realised. Doesn't make me happy though.

It's not ReadyHosting. It is someone else. I won't mention the name here until I give up trying to establish some communication with them. I want to hear their side and see how I managed to nearly cause a DOS.

I guess if I don't get a reply soon I can post their name up here to warn others.

I don't know what recourse you want to take with this company. Even if you are in the right, or they are in the right, I believe their AUP is not acceptable to you at this point.

The only thing you should be doing is collecting your backup (I hope you keep one) and searching through AUP's until you find one that's acceptable and then contacting them directly about your situation, and discussing with them the possibility of you being notified in advance of any similar situations, as part of your hosting agreement. If you go with a host with a good service record, who really does take care of their clients, this shouldn't be a problem. It won't come cheap probably. Good service never is.

If you don't have a backup, I would suggest that you contact these people and see if they will either transfer your data to you, or allow you access long enough to get to it.

No reason to stay with them now.

You can always just find another host, change your DNS, and lose roughly 3 solid days of e-mail, which most will try to resend anyway, move now, or forever regret it (Based on your comments)

You are waiting to try to get in contact with them? Didn't they specifically tell you not to?

Their quote is:

Your LinkSky web account has been suspended for multiple AUP violations. And will not be reinstated.
There will be no appeal in this matter. Any further discussion of this will serve no useful purpose.

I don't have a recent backup of my site so I would like access to it. Anyway, it's been 7 or 8 emails later so I guess they aren't going to.

The host in question is Linksky

LinkSky? Never heard of them!
Pack it up and move on. They already told you what you are not going to get (service or your files back). Get a new web host, change dns, and cut your losses now.

JoeM has posted several times here as a representative of LinkSky. Maybe some more post searches would help somewhat, but I don't know how.

LinkSky / Paragon3 . 1055 West College Ave, Suite #275, Santa Rosa, CA 95401 . 800 218-5118

is listed as their contact info on their site. (707)527 5065 is listed as the WHOIS contact number (Joseph Maas)

He also owns http://www.p3b.com/ so you may be able to contact him there paragon3@P3B.COM or other.

For anyone watching this thread, I am now successfully up on another host.

I thought I would leave you with my final words to LinSky. Email is below:

From: LinkSky Support [mailto:Administrative@LinkSkySupport.com]
Sent: Monday, 21 October 2002 8:03 PM
To: baloo
Subject: Re: A response please
Importance: High


Here is your response.

Your data has been purged from the server.

Thank you.

-- Joseph Maas, support management, LinkSky


-----Original Message-----
From: baloo [mailto:xxxxx@xxxxx.xxx]
Sent: Monday, 21 October 2002 7:21 PM
To: 'support@linksky.com'
Subject: A response please


I’d like some sort of response before I end up calling you.

This is regarding the termination of ***********

First things first. I need access to my site to download it. At a very minimum I need to get my 10yo Niece's email addresses which she kept in openwebmail. Is this possible ?

Secondly, and this is more to prove that I feel you acted unreasonably and that I was no where near a "worst case scenario" as you have so boldly declared.

Check your logs for the webchat. They have been rarely accessed in two months. Seriously, I think it was used twice.

Webcam. Those ftp logs you showed. Correct, and in hindsight every 30 seconds is excessive. But lets do some calculations.

2 files every 30 seconds. One 2k file, one 1k file (the thumbnail of the first.

3K every minute
180K every hour
4.32Mb every day
133.92Mb every month

Is that really causing a DOS ? 133.92Mb upload over the space of a month is hardly excessive bandwidth.

Don't you think you pulled the trigger a little too quickly before you took proper aim. If your servers were having problems, and because I had a PHP based chat script (not IRC) and a static 30 second update webcam you decided it was me, then I think you have shot the wrong offender.

Again, all I really need now is access to my data. Be reasonable about this and it will end here.

WOW - nice group of people over there....really charming. :eek:

Wouldn't mind hearing from JoeM about now...

Yeah, no doubt. After deleting your 10 year old neice's webmail contacts, maybe he will for an encore come over and pull the heads off all her barbie dolls.

If he thought your webcam was a DOS attack, then he really is in the wrong line of work.

-WC-

haha their website looks like it was designed by a 6 year old

I've seen HOBBY SITES with better designed pages than their "website" is.

Thats the furthest I've had to scroll for ages for anything.

(And apparantly the "designer" hasn't learned the trick of seperating everything on sub-pages, instead of having a 600 line "page" in each catagory)

From the looks of it, "linksky" must be overselling to high hell with accounts that start at $5 a month

baloo, I know you've said you're on a new host now (and good luck to you - though it sounds like you used up some negative karma with those last folks) but check the consumer laws in your state or province of residence. They may provide you with the ability to get a refund for hosting services paid for and not used.

(And with that statement I just earned the emnity of many of the folks here, I'll bet...)

I don't know their side of the story, but at the very least they sound a bit abrupt. Even if a company has a nightmare customer, sniping at them as their account gets terminated is NOT the way to go.

I've been with a web host that went through changes in their TOS, and each time it happened they mass-mailed all their clients and told us to check it out. Granted, it was once in two years...but still, they did tell everyone that the TOS was changing a month before the changes took effect.

After the way they responded to your emails it's obvious they are full of crap and dont' follow their own mission statement! Check out this BS:

LinkSky Mission Statement -

Our position is simple, we believe in being fair. In our seven years of web mastering we've found that most web sites for small businesses and individuals weigh in at 6 to 12 MB (including web, ftp and e-mail data). With this in mind, we created a single, unique hosting plan that automatically scales both up and down in small and reasonable increments. In doing so, we provide considerably greater value and a service that is inherently more honest. We also made sure that by ANY measurement, our price per performance is second to none.

Our true mission is to continue to be that responsive, consumer oriented haven among web hosting providers.
Management, LinkSky Value Hosting

Originally posted by Monte
Well I honestly have a hard time feeling sorry for you, you knew the facts about unlimited bandwidth you knew it was a lie....

Only for a few weeks did we offer unlimited traffic, i.e. no additional charges for excess data transfer.

Due in part to the response to such an offer in this forum we withdrew this language from our service offering and instituted what is listed today on various pages at LinkSky.com, namely:

--------------------

Data Transfer Allowance
(not throttled)

0 - 60 MB (account size) = 6 GB (monthly transfer)
60 - 120 MB (account size) = 8 GB (monthly transfer)
120 - 2000 MB (account size) = 12 GB (monthly transfer)
(... and so on.)

only $2 per mo for additional transfer

--------------------

For more detail, please see the account scale on the right hand side of many of our pages, as well as the home page: http://www.linksky.com

Please note, we first put out the unlimited traffic jargon only to ease people's minds who have previously fallen into the trap set by some other low cost hosts that set their data transfers extremely low (only 500mb/per mo in some cases), so as to consistute a hidden fee. But, due to the flames coming from this forum on the advent of making such an offer we pulled it.

Another point: We have never to this day even once charged anyone for data transfer, but have only applied the monthly hosting fee total account data size which is typically $4.95 per month.

Thanks,
Joseph Maas, support management, LinkSky

Well, now that you have come here and responded, I'm sure everyone is dying to know...why act like this towards this customer?


Here is your response.

Your data has been purged from the server.

Thank you.

Originally posted by baloo
I've recently had my domain suspended without warning. I believe it's unjust and I will outlay the reasons why below if any feels like reading. I am wondering what recourse, if any, I can take with the Web Hosting company.

I was suspended for violating the AUP and apparently causing enough traffic to nearly cause a DOS for other users on the same server. Let me explain what happened.

a) The AUP of this company is ever changing....


At risk of dignifying this person's post with a response:

We do not profit in any way by kicking accounts off any of our servers. So please ask yourselves why we may have gone to this extreme measure in this case.

Dalben.com was a long term customer at LinkSky Value Host. The fact of the matter is that we would have easily reinstated Mr. Dalben's account if only he would have come to us after the suspension and written something like, "Ooopps sorry. I will remove the web cam, etc. and will examine your AUP for other possible violations on my behalf (and take care of them), if you reinstate my account."

Instead, his response was hostile and argumentative. Informing us there was no way he could have been using that much bandwidth, etc. And threatening to post his arguments to public forums such as this one.... which had the ultimate effect of making his account suspension permanent. Why? Because this kind of posturing can do nothing but put out a signal to the host that the customer does not really care about any Acceptable Use Policy, and that they have no intention of abiding by any form of regulation as long as they think it's okay.

To put this is different terms; If you get caught robbing a bank, don't try to make the argument, "But officer, I only took $20,000, but the bank has millions!!!!"


A few important points about this case:

Traffic was never the issue with this account. We host hundreds of web accounts that are far more traffic intensive than this one. There is never a problem with such traffic intensive accounts because they abide by the LinkSky acceptable use policy and terms of service.

One of the AUP violations of this former member - This person installed and operated a web-cam.

As anyone that manages a web server knows, two of the most resource intensive items you can put on ANY server is a (badly written) chat-room and a web cam. This former member had both of these services installed and running at his site, thereby disregarding the fact that both items are forbidden by our AUP and, have been since the very early days of our operation.

The combination of these two staggered web services for close to 180 other accounts on the same server, and made it nearly impossible for us to get in there for any maintenance work, nearly constituting a denial of service attack. Indeed, this person had all but taken over the entire server for his own use. So, in the spirit of protecting and preserving access for all other accounts on this same server, we suspended the account (also, after taking a hard look at the server logs, etc.). A few minutes later, the server was returned to a normal state of operation.

(Please note: We are nearing the release of a low bandwidth chat facility at LinkSky that any LinkSky member can use directly in their accounts for no additional fee.)

Please, if you are considering putting up a web cam on your site, no matter which hosting company you are with, please note that this is the kind of item that is best for a dedicated server only, as they serve, i.e. push out, an unrelenting stream of data which can do nothing but backup requests for outbound data for all other accounts served. This is the reason most hosts disallow web cams. So please at the very least, do what this former LinkSky member apparently failed to do, i.e. check the acceptable use policy and abide by it, or find another host who allows such processor intensive tasks to be run around the clock, all year long.

For some advice, if you ARE suspended by any host in such a situation. By all means, don't try to convince your hosting provider that your particular violations could not have dented services that much, etc., as this person did. This kind of argument will only make the suspension perminante.

-----------

Our AUP has changed only approximately 6 times this year, in 2002; Twice to clarify language regarding our policy about USE (spam), and four times to add to the approved/disapproved forum software packages to the list at the bottom. We are about too change it again but only to add the newest version of phpBB to the list of approved forum software.

You can confirm the truth in this matter by keeping an eye on the LinkSky AUP page at:
http://www.linksky.com/DOCS/signupAUP.html

Thank you.
-- Joseph Maas, support management, LinkSky

So basically he didn’t grovel enough for you? I’m soooo sorry master. Give me a break. He’s better off with another host who values his customers and is willing to work with them. Something like “your in violation of the AUP, perhaps you haven’t seen the REVISED edition. Remove the web cam and chat room immediately or your will be terminated”. But hey it’s a free country you got rid of him and he’s no doubt with a better host!

Grovel? Sounds like the service was threatened with bad publicity IF the host didn't renig on their own AUP.

Originally posted by Darph Bobo
Well, now that you have come here and responded, I'm sure everyone is dying to know...why act like this towards this customer?


quote:
------------------------------------------------------------------------

Here is your response.

Your data has been purged from the server.

Thank you.
------------------------------------------------------------------------



The fact is that this response was given after multiple emails were sent to LinkSky tech support arguing why your particular infractions of our AUP should have been okay with us, and requesting that your accounts be reopened at least breifly so you could retrive data. Thus the "Here is your response..." sentence.

Then after you received apparently the kind of response you were looking for, you sent this:

Great stuff guys. Way to run a business.

This email trail is also handy. Nice bit of evidence of your quality of
service. Remind me to refer more of my friends to you.

Nice bit of evidence?

Anyone interested in real evidence about the specific reason why the dalben.com account was suspended can send email to administrative@linksky.com. We will return your email with the specific sections of our acceptable use policy that were violated with a sampling of LinkSky server logs and other truly incriminating evidence regarding this case.

As a final word on this matter (from us at least), I will say that the most common feedback we receive from new accounts has to do with the perceptibly faster/snappier newly setup web pages, faster than they were with the former hosts. One big reason for this is because we DO tightly monitor all servers and we enforce our AUP to take care of any problems stemming from abuse right away. As far as I can tell, the vast majority of our hosted members think that this is a good thing.

Thank you,
-- Joseph Maas, support management, LinkSky

Joseph, nobody is a winner in this situation. Sadly, that is just how things like this work out. That's not to say you are right or wrong. However, one piece of advice I can give is don't share customer information with people looking for the next gossip column. It's not worth it in the long run and looks extremely unprofessional altogether. You've said your part and so has baloo. There should be no need for further arguing regarding a closed issue, at least in my opinion.

Originally posted by markblair
Joseph, nobody is a winner in this situation. Sadly, that is just how things like this work out. That's not to say you are right or wrong. However, one piece of advice I can give is don't share customer information with people looking for the next gossip column. It's not worth it in the long run and looks extremely unprofessional altogether. You've said your part and so has baloo. There should be no need for further arguing regarding a closed issue, at least in my opinion.


Thank you.
Point well made and well taken.

-- Joseph at LinkSky

bahaha what a crock of ****. Get your head out of your arse Joseph.

*chuckles*

I spose you dont allow databasing either, or asp pages? Since they would be more intensive than a webcam or chat software.

Originally posted by greatbeast
I've seen HOBBY SITES with better designed pages than their "website" is.

Thats the furthest I've had to scroll for ages for anything.

(And apparantly the "designer" hasn't learned the trick of seperating everything on sub-pages, instead of having a 600 line "page" in each catagory)

From the looks of it, "linksky" must be overselling to high hell with accounts that start at $5 a month

You assume this from just looking at the prices?

We are not hosting resellers, not middle men. (We did not buy into one of these hosting reseller packages the way a lot of hosts do.) We don't have to mark up prices, on time of already marked up prices. There is no need for us to oversell our servers. LinkSky Value Host is making a reasonable profit. Bottom line. - We are using standard business practices at LinkSky which may not be so standard among host providers, which could be why you have drawn this conclusion.

Overselling?

We fill each server to approximately 65% of full capacity before we put a new server on-line. We can afford to at 65% account load, so we do. It keeps our servers running fast and our members (and we here in LinkSky support) happy.

We are growing at a reasonable and controlled rate. We do no advertising but only rely on word of mouth and our referral and our paid affiliate program.

We have put on-line 8 new servers during the last 12 months.

LinkSky web site design?

Sorry about the scrolling. Making improvements to the site at LinkSky.com takes a back seat to customer support and probably always will. Thus there is little time to toot our own horn as it were, but we do realize that it is very important to have the information contained at LinkSky.com to be as accessible as possible, so we do have a site upgrade in the planning stages.

Thanks for your feedback.
-- Joseph Maas, support management, LinkSky

So, if you leave 35% of resources available on each server, are you saying the client with the chat program and webcam software was using over 35% of the server resources?

Why aren't you locking down you servers so resources cannot be consumed so greatly to effect other clients?

Oh well! Such is life!

I really shouldn't bother, seeing I am already up and running somewhere else, but I need to clarify one thing.

The very first email I received from Linksky after the account was suspended was this

Your LinkSky web account has been suspended for multiple AUP violations. And will not be reinstated.
There will be no appeal in this matter. Any further discussion of this will serve no useful purpose.

now, maybe being Australian my grasp of the American usage of english can be questioned, but what you first sent to me in no way implies that if I said 'sorry' you would reinstate it. It explicity says "Any further discussion will serve no useful purpose"

Anyway, enough for me on this thread. If anyone would like to see the complete email trail, from my 'aggressive and threatening' emails to the final chapter, PM me. But it's really not that exciting.

dont worry, JoeM is just making himself look like more of a wanker anyway :)

Originally posted by hosticle
So, if you leave 35% of resources available on each server, are you saying the client with the chat program and webcam software was using over 35% of the server resources?

Server resources can be divided out in many ways, e.g. disk storage, CPU/processor usage, memory, port usage, etc. The 65% capacity sited, has more to do with disk space but also reflects in all other aspects dealing with request load.

In brief we want to make enough CPU available for peak server load to exceed 65% where necessary. However, any one account that violates our AUP and decides to run a stream of outbound data such as what can come from a web cam or a poorly written chat room, in effect constantly reduces capacity for all other accounts. The reduction comes from pertually bottling up ports, filling ram, dominating CP cycles, etc. all this for even the most robust servers available, as there is no server in the world that is immune to being totally dominated by a single account in this manner.


Originally posted by hosticle

Why aren't you locking down you servers so resources cannot be consumed so greatly to effect other clients?

Oh well! Such is life!

What you are referring to is "throttling bandwidth" which we refuse to do. The last thing we want is to effectively punish successful web sites for being, well, successful. We won't throttle because we do indeed want full server resources to be available for accounts that legitimately needs them. We are a growth oriented hosting service. We want to leave room for any successful hosted enterprise to grow and expand their business. And needless to say, traffic spells success for any on-line venture (at least that I know of.)

We encourage and invite successful on-line ventures as we have plenty of bandwidth and resources to spare. And one reason we do is by enforcing our AUP, keeping abuse of our services to an absolute minimum. Would you have it any other way with your hosting provider? Or would you rather be hosted by a provider that does not enforce their AUP and basically cares not about the quality of the speed and uptime of their services, or who would throttle your traffic if say for instance you spend that grand in advertising one week and end up with a site that only allows a slim percent of your potential visitors?

I can tell you that policies in place that are there to protect uptime and server access speed are not at all in conflict with hosting successful on-line enterprises, just as long as well balanced acceptable use policies are adhered to by the hosted members. It all boils down the this.

Thanks for your questions.
-- Joseph Maas, support management, LinkSky

Originally posted by baloo
I really shouldn't bother, seeing I am already up and running somewhere else, but I need to clarify one thing.

The very first email I received from Linksky after the account was suspended was this

Your LinkSky web account has been suspended for multiple AUP violations. And will not be reinstated.
There will be no appeal in this matter. Any further discussion of this will serve no useful purpose.

now, maybe being Australian my grasp of the American usage of english can be questioned, but what you first sent to me in no way implies that if I said 'sorry' you would reinstate it. It explicity says "Any further discussion will serve no useful purpose"

Anyway, enough for me on this thread. If anyone would like to see the complete email trail, from my 'aggressive and threatening' emails to the final chapter, PM me. But it's really not that exciting.


This may have been the first one you did receive from us, but it was not the first one we sent. There were two other email's before this one sent to various addresses we had on file for you, e.g. your yahoo.com address, etc. Your first line of hostile behavior came simply from noticing that your web account was inaccessable. Your demainds mounted as we attempted to send the notice to one email address after another. Until finally you received the one that you got. (We even replied to your reply-to email address in your email, i.e. non-LinkSky hosted addresses and somehow this did not work, at least at first.

Afterward, after you finally received notice, you sent to us no less than a half dozen emails that stated basically that your violations were not that bad, etc. Clearly you could have used this period of time to cool things down and offer some kind of olive branch as opposed to the contentious BS which you had presented.

Policies or not, there are real live, warm bodies here that are not totally immune from having their responses at least slightly colored in the aftermath of hostile threats.

I think you will one day come to realize that a heavy handed reaction will usually be met with a heavy handed response, from any host, particularly after flagrantly violating agreements set forth in the acceptable use policy of said host.

At this point, I am only responding (against my better judgement), in an attempt to help you with your next hosting provider.

Good luck.

-- Joseph Maas, support management, LinkSky

I wasn't reffering to throttling bandwidth, bandwidth has nothing to do it with you say - im talking about locking resources, such as cpu and ram for members.

Originally posted by hosticle
I wasn't reffering to throttling bandwidth, bandwidth has nothing to do it with you say - im talking about locking resources, such as cpu and ram for members.

Okay. Thanks for the suggestion. I will look into this.

-- Joseph Maas, support management, LinkSky

Sorry for the long post!!

I am currently a linksky member, at least I still hope to be after this.

Everyone reacts a little differently to all situations, I can understand how baloo reacted, even if mails were sent to other accounts, I know that I dont read every mail in every account I have everyday so its easy to see that a mail was missed or that one never actually arrived, given that mail systems can sometimes be funny.

I also received a mail from JoeM about "Possible AUP Violations", because I had a PHP/MySQL chat system installed. The general tone of the email from linksky was fine, however I disagreed with some of their claims, for instance that I was hosting a mass download site (15 files and not one hyperlinked on the site). I replied and said it was not my intention to breach the AUP and included details of why I didnt think I had a mass download site. I also removed the links to the PHP/MySQL webchat system. A few emails later and I still have my account. This isnt to say that baloo handled his situation worse than me because if I had of received an email that said my account was cancelled and that no further correspondence would be entered into I would have reacted the same way.

I wonder why there were variations in the 2 instances, if its just because baloo didnt reply and apologise, then I would have to say that this whole thing is just a little bit petty. Maybe each of them were having an equally bad day. But you know what "who cares", at the moment neither party is happy, baloo has no site and Linksky have this thread and whatever bad publicity may be spread around by word of mouth.

I wonder if doing a restore of the site from a backup, and zipping up the data would take an enourmous amount of time. I couldnt see that it would. It may even have prevented a lot of these postings. I am sure that everybody involved would also be a lot happier including baloo's niece.

So why not for the sake of being gentlemen give baloo a copy of his data and call it quits.

Maybe if that was done at the beginning I wouldnt have had to write this bloody long post.

Thanks Vlim

He can't anymore.. the data has been "purged" from the server. That shows COMPLETE INCOMEPTENCE from LinkSky.. the very least you could do is to offer him back his data. but NO, you refused. you replied to him with a cranky and unwelcoming email.

and no, you don't have to further explain yourself. it's become obvious on how you treat your customers already.

Surely there would be a tape backup somewhere, even if it has been purged from the server, it would be strange if they had no tape backups!

They would probably just lie about it, or make some completely lame excuse to avoid returning the data to him. or they'll just be too lazy to look through it.

well that's just an assumption though. we'll see if they would actually bother to rectify their actions and help him out.

Originally posted by vlim
I am currently a linksky member, at least I still hope to be after this.

Everyone reacts a little differently to all situations, I can understand how baloo reacted, even if mails were sent to other accounts, I know that I dont read every mail in every account I have everyday so its easy to see that a mail was missed or that one never actually arrived, given that mail systems can sometimes be funny.

I also received a mail from JoeM about "Possible AUP Violations", because I had a PHP/MySQL chat system installed. The general tone of the email from linksky was fine, however I disagreed with some of their claims, for instance that I was hosting a mass download site...

We never made this claim or statement. To refresh your memory, here is the entire text of the email we sent that you are responding to in this forum:

------------------------
SUBJECT: Note from LinkSky support - Possible AUP violations.
------
Hello,

We are in the process of enabling your wildcard request.

As a reminder, please note:

Putting up a shareware (or similar) download site at LinkSky is forbidden by the LinkSky AUP. We don't mind if the member is a software developer and is offering downloads. And we don't mind if the member puts up a download index that contain download links directed to other, off-server sources (legal software only, no cracked or warez), we do mind if the member is offering general / mass downloads to the public directly from his or her LinkSky account.

Also, putting up a chat facility of any kind, directly in your LinkSky site is forbidden by the LinkSky AUP. The good news here is that as of November, i.e. within 3 weeks we will have free server driven/hosted chatrooms that you can also style anyway you want and put in your site, there will be up to 4 independent chat rooms you can put in your account using our server software. Also, our chat rooms are very fast and smooth, written in "C" on the server side and driven on the client side as a configurable JAVA applet. Please keep your eye on (or subscribe to) the News / Announcement section of the LinkSky form for coming announcements about the new and totally free chat facility coming for LinkSky members.* http://LinkSky.com/forum

Thanks in advance for your understanding and cooperation.

-- Joseph Maas, support management, LinkSky
------------------------
------

What triggered this, was your gaming download page hosted on your site, coupled with a dozen or so large game files in your account in a "files" directory. Clearly all this was under construciton, and we happened to spot it while doing some other work in your account. The email was nothing more than a reminder note that what was in the works in your site may have lead to an AUP violation.

True, technically you were already in violation with the chat-room and all, but the difference between yourself and Mr. Dalben is that at that time your activities did not have any impact on the other accounts, therefore no real damage had been done. Also, another remarkable difference was that you had choosen to work with us to resolve the issue.

Yes of course you are still a LinkSky member, as long as you want to be and as long as you abide by our AUP and continue to work with us when any quesitons are brought up.

All that we ask is that people really actually read the LinkSky TOS and AUP before signing up. There is even a little check box there that says. "By checking the box to the right, you affirm that you have read and you fully agree with all statements, terms and conditions set forth by both the LinkSky AUP and TOS." And also with the words "I agree" right next to the box. As you have, as Mr Dalben did, everyone who signs up must check before moving on to the membership applicaton form.

All that we ask is that our members adhere to this agreement throughout their membership at LinkSky. We don't think this is too much to ask for. Do you?

Also within our AUP is this.

------------
If a LinkSky Hosting account is used to violate the Acceptable Use Policy or our TOS, we reserve the right to terminate your service without notice. We prefer to advise customers of inappropriate behavior and any necessary corrective action, however, flagrant violations of the Acceptable Use Policy will result in immediate termination of service.
------------

So the difference between you and Mr. Dalben is the difference between a simple violation and a flagrant violation. And one that ends up causing damage to our business as well as the other on-line firms and enterprises we host. Nearly shutting down one of our servers with a continuous stream of incoming or outbound data does indeed cause damage, repairable yes, (by disconnecting the offending software and/or account), but damaging, nevertheless.

To be frank, if a member violates our policy to the degree that Mr Dalben did, we are not happy about having to close his or anyone's account, but in order to protect the resources for other members may be forced to do this in these instances. So if the former customer reacts badly because we enforced the AUP according to the terms that they agreed to when they signed up... Well what can I say that has not been said already. He should have read it, he should have kept up his side of the agreement. And in light of the violation and the suspension, the exact thing NOT to do is to argue that the extent of the violation was not that bad, then proceed to launch threats when your argument falls short.

Thank you,
-- Joseph Maas, support management, LinkSky

Originally posted by sanjiv
They would probably just lie about it, or make some completely lame excuse to avoid returning the data to him. or they'll just be too lazy to look through it.

well that's just an assumption though. we'll see if they would actually bother to rectify their actions and help him out.


Someone hit us with multiple, flagrant AUP violations which nearly shuts down one of our servers, and it is up to US to rectify the situation??? He damages our business, albeit for a short period of time (thank god), and it is up to US to help him out???

Brother, I don't know what planet you're from but at LinkSky we have regulations that are written in the spirit of protecting services and keeping our members from essentially stepping on each other's toes. Cross the line in a flagrant manner and the LinkSky member is gone without notice, exactly the way it is writtin in the AUP that Mr. Dalben agreed to when he signed up.

You can pose this persion as a the victum all you want, but he damn near made real victums out of 180 other accounts with his extreme disregard of the LinkSky AUP. Those are the facts.

-- Joseph Maas, support management, LinkSky

From the way it looks, Baloo violated AUP. So, Linksky terminated Baloo's account.

I don't see what Linksky has done wrong.
Any webhost terminates accounts that violate AUP or TOS. If don't, that would risk the other users on the server.

Now please delight me on this, what Linksky has done wrong?

Ouch, My eyes! How could anyone stay on that page long enough to sign up?
Don't worry Baloo, some of us still remember the first post.
but I am still running off to see if our list of banned software includes webcams . . . .

I swore to myself I wasn't going to post again but the little child in me who loves to point fingers and say "No, you did it" is itching to respond in kind.

a) The Webcam was up on my site for about 2 months. Minimum 6 weeks. Nothing had been said before. If that means you had issues with that server for 6 weeks before finding the cause, well, enough said.

b) Thankyou for bringing up my name. I doidn't mind when you used my domain name, not nice, but hey, I used Linksky first, but to start quoting my name ?

OK, that's it, final, not going to say anything else.

Originally posted by vlim
Surely there would be a tape backup somewhere, even if it has been purged from the server, it would be strange if they had no tape backups!

Yes of course there are backups of all of our servers. And dalben's site I am sure is among them. It would only take time to retrieve this information and send it to him. Time which our active / good members (including yourself) have well coorenend off. Time which we DO NOT have for giving a helping hand to flagrent violaters of our AUP who's actions, however brief, has damaged not only our business, but also that of many others who shared the same server Dalben's site was on.

Sorry, we've only got time to be good guys for people that do not overtly launch efforts to hurt us.

Is that reasonable in your opinion?

-- Joseph Maas, support management, LinkSky

I didnt say they did anything wrong and perhaps I am from a different planet when I say perhaps we can help each other even when we've done apparent wrong.

Al I said was there would be an easy way for things to turn bad and that is what has happened, lets not have a he's wrong we're right, lets have a "this is not going to work, heres your data find another host".

I dont really give a crap, I have no problem with linksky either, my time there has been fine.

Maybe I belong in the 60's with free love?

Nope, not reaonsable IMO. he was once your customer, until you shut him off. in good will i strongly believe you should have given him access temporarily to retrieve his data and NOT purge them off the server. what's done is done. how about you guys spend some time getting his data back for him from the tape? it'll give a better impression to your existing cusomters on how you actually treat them. we understand that you're not liable to do so, but like every other host you should be bothered enough to help him out here until he's completely settled in a new host where his needs can be met. its not like he did the DoS attacks. he didn't go and rip off your pipes. so give him a break and help him out here, not dump him and leave him helpless there.

Dude.. take a chill-pill.


I know problems can happen.. but I think suspending.. and keeping it suspended until action on his behalf would have been a better idea!

Dont just delete sites.. I mean in my terms it says I can.. but I dont USUALLY do so as I have what some people like to call a "heart".

If you had of just suspended until further action was taken, noone else would be affected, you wouldnt be having this fight and baloo would be working to rectify the problems.

Plain and simple! :angry:

I am not trying to see who is right and wrong.
Since some people seem to be bashing Linksky, I am simply asking "What has Linksky done wrong?".

Generally, I haven't seen much hosts that handed the suspended client's data back to the user. And Linksky didn't. I don't see that as a reason to bash Linksky. It may sound not fair but it is what it is.

Originally posted by vlim
I didnt say they did anything wrong and perhaps I am from a different planet when I say perhaps we can help each other even when we've done apparent wrong.

Al I said was there would be an easy way for things to turn bad and that is what has happened, lets not have a he's wrong we're right, lets have a "this is not going to work, heres your data find another host".

I dont really give a crap, I have no problem with linksky either, my time there has been fine.

Maybe I belong in the 60's with free love?

Originally posted by baloo
I swore to myself I wasn't going to post again but the little child in me who loves to point fingers and say "No, you did it" is itching to respond in kind.

a) The Webcam was up on my site for about 2 months. Minimum 6 weeks. Nothing had been said before. If that means you had issues with that server for 6 weeks before finding the cause, well, enough said.

b) Thankyou for bringing up my name. I doidn't mind when you used my domain name, not nice, but hey, I used Linksky first, but to start quoting my name ?

OK, that's it, final, not going to say anything else.


So you violated our AUP for months, SO IT'S OKAY THEN? It that your logic? I suppose I should not be surprised, because this HAS been your logic all along.

No we don't police everyone's account. We do however look for a reason if/when one of our servers seem inordinately bogged down, which is how we came across your violations.

I can also tell you that the server was perceptibly slower for approximately the amount of time that you admint your violations were in place. Not until last Saturday, did the situation come to a head that nearly spelled DoS for the entire server.

So in spite of this you continue to argue that your particular violations were not that bad? JEEEEZUDS MAN!!! Did you think the LinkSky AUP was there just for yucks?

I suggest you might want to check into getting your own dedicated server. Clearly, pretending your host's server is your own and just endeavoring to breach violations of set agreements will get you into this sort of trouble every time. But then again, even with your own dedicated unit, there will be agreements will need to be made with the colo facility and/or the telcom provider of your bandwidth where your disregard for these agreements, your uncooperative attitude and your out and out belligerence will get you shut down every time.

So be it. All I can express is my major relief that you are off our service for good, where you can do no more harm to us other than launching these public rants. If you don't have anything better to do with your time, I truly feel sorry for you.

'nuff said.

Back to work.
-- Joseph Maas, support management, LinkSky

Putting up a shareware (or similar) download site at LinkSky is forbidden by the LinkSky AUP. We don't mind if the member is a software developer and is offering downloads. And we don't mind if the member puts up a download index that contain download links directed to other, off-server sources (legal software only, no cracked or warez), we do mind if the member is offering general / mass downloads to the public directly from his or her LinkSky account.

I did not really want to involve myself in this post....
.....but your AUP is not really very clear.

You say putting shareware on a LinkSky account is NOT allowed, however you are able to if you develop the software yourself??

Maybe It is just me who finds this confusing, but if I can find this confusing (And I have written, legal AUP's which have been accepted by solicitors and Consumer rights associations) then maybe your customers may find them confusing.

I have read your terms regarding WebCams (And it just says WebCams) So web cams are not allowed. You do not give any further information.
Automatically uploading a 3K image every 30 seconds is not a violation of your AUP. Correct me if I am wrong?

Regards

Originally posted by faculty
Dude.. take a chill-pill.


I know problems can happen.. but I think suspending.. and keeping it suspended until action on his behalf would have been a better idea!


Indeed, this was our first approach, that was met with flimsy justafications about why the violations were not that bad.

Clearly, there was no way we were going to re-open an account for such a person that was in a total state of belligerence and not even once in any correspondence recognizing the fact that we EVEN HAVE an Acceptable Use Policy, let alone the fact that he agreed to, then proceeded to violate in multiple ways.

I am sure you will agree that it takes both parties, willing and cooperative to resolve a conflict such as this. Certainly not one of them making threats to air the issue in a public forum if the other does not roll and nullify a past agreement which both parties made, i.e. the LinkSky AUP.

-- Joseph Maas, support management, LinkSky

It actually says "we do mind if the member is offering general/mass downloads". If I can read that, then so should you. I agree that some AUP's are difficult to read, but so is most legal documents.

If you make a misstake, say "I'm sorry" and if you had problems with the AUP say "I didn't really understand, thank you for explaining, I will stop the vilotation/go somewhere else".

If a mail says "further discussions are pointless" and you're sure it's the first mail you've recieved, then write back and say "I'm sorry but I have just recieved this mail, and I'm not sure what the problem is, please explain it to me". Then I'm sure you'll get an answer, maybe even including the previuos mails you didn't get.

With spamcops, filters, bad connections, typos and so on, it's possible one party have been trying to contact the other party for over a month before a mail gets through.

Originally posted by jgriff64


I did not really want to involve myself in this post....
.....but your AUP is not really very clear.

You say putting shareware on a LinkSky account is NOT allowed, however you are able to if you develop the software yourself?? and you are ok to offer general/mass downloads directly from a LinkSky account???

Maybe It is just me who finds this confusing, but if I can find this confusing (And I have written, legal AUP's which have been accepted by solicitors and Consumer rights associations) then maybe your customers may find them confusing.

I have read your terms regarding WebCams (And it just says WebCams) So web cams are not allowed. You do not give any further information.
Automatically uploading a 3K image every 30 seconds is not a violation of your AUP. Correct me if I am wrong?

Regards

That's not a quote of our AUP, it's a quote from a letter we wrote to our customer. A kind of off the cuff, attempt at least of a clarification. You can see the complte AUP in question here:
http://www.linksky.com/DOCS/signupAUP.html

I think, as with any legal matter, you have to get at the basic common, horse sence of the legal document. Which is this:

When the aup states stuff like:

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In brief - We do not allow sites that are in the business of distributing large amounts of data for download. Examples of sites which we do not allow are as follows:

Warez, spamware, shareware, freeware, repositories of stock photography, music & video files, etc. Again, our servers are NOT to be used for the mass distribution of software.

...
Our intent is to preserve bandwidth for sites that have a wide, general audience, and to keep our servers up and running smoothly far into the foreseeable future. In short, we refuse to have our servers taken over by any special interest group.

...
Network Performance

LinkSky Hosting accounts operate on shared resources. Excessive use or abuse of these shared network resources by one customer may have a negative impact on all other customers. Misuse of network resources in a manner which impairs network performance is prohibited by this policy and may result in termination of your account.
----------

Clearly we are talking about masses of downloads and or requests for downloads, ala a tucows.com or a download.com etc.

I know, that most of us posting here realize what is not appropriate for a shared hosting environment, that can generally only work on a dedicated server (like web-cams). But there are some who would try to put up services who do not realize this. And that is the reason for our AUP, i.e. to get this stuff in black & white as much as possible.

If there is a software developer who needs to put up his or her product(s) for limited distribution, or even wide distribution that does not end up negatively impacting the server, the so be it, we do not mind.

If on the other hand someone in the the process of putting up several large gameboy (game cube?) programs for mass distribution from his or her LinkSky site, then.... well I trust you can see the difference here? Yes?

But please note, this particular incident from which this quote was pulled (corrospondance involving another incident) was with one of our members who decided to work with us to clear the issue that had come up. There was no suspension of his account, just a discussion via email and the resulting fair and even resolution of the matter.

On the other hand it was quite the opposit with dalben.com the owner of which started this thread by airing his grievance with us in this forum which is obviously a follow-through and realization of threats that had been formerly posed by this individual.

I just wish there was a way to screen out these types before accepting them as members. But alas, all we have to rely upon is the promise that they make when agreeing to our AUP and TOS before signing.

-- Joseph Maas, support management, LinkSky

To me this just sounds like bad communication on both parts. I dont think you should threaten the host with public forums and stuff but i also think they should have let you download your data. JoeM has a point there about the webcam. But i also think that should have been discussed with you also. I think at points you both were rude to eachother causing this mishap. Well good luck to both you on your future ventures.

oh man I shouldn't. Not addressing Linksky at this point, our business is over and seems that's the best for both of us.

But to clarify my 'threat to go public'.

It was my thrid email to them asking about the status of my site and I hadn't received a response. Apparently they were trying to send me one but it didn't get through.

My last email stated(with typo included):

Come on, down for about an hour now. I expect some status back from you. When will it be up. Do I need to add a post on the forums to gat some answers ?

While it is not implicit in what I say, I was referring to LinkSky's own forums. I have seen other users enquire about such matters in their forum and LS always asked to revert to email. I started on email and only after what I saw as 3 emails unreplied, did I ask if I need to post in their forums to get their attention.

I'm not the type of wanker to flame in forums over a disgruntled issue. Check the start of the thread and I implicitly did not mention the company until I got fed up with only ever receiving the one response that I pasted. At that point I felt it was all over, 2 days after the suspension, so I mentioned their name.

Anyway, enough said.

Originally posted by baloo
oh man I shouldn't. Not addressing Linksky at this point, our business is over and seems that's the best for both of us.

But to clarify my 'threat to go public'.

It was my thrid email to them asking about the status of my site and I hadn't received a response. Apparently they were trying to send me one but it didn't get through.

My last email stated(with typo included):

Come on, down for about an hour now. I expect some status back from you. When will it be up. Do I need to add a post on the forums to gat some answers ?...


Perhaps you forgot about this one (as one for-instance), sent to us by yourself - Monday, 21 October 2002 8:03 PM

"This email trail is also handy. Nice bit of evidence of your quality of
service."

There are several other instances of similar language, threats veiled and not so veiled, but this is between you and me and doing no one here any good, so I will spare posting all of your correspondence in this place unless you absolutely insist.

Did you think that we would not also keep such an email trail handy?

-- JM

Joe, I don't want to continue this, but if you insist in twisting the order of things then yeah, I will reply.

I did send you that, right after I got your "Here's your response, your account has been purged". Of course I was bouncing off walls at this stage.

Evidence ? Yeah, I used it to show the two friends I referred to you and have sites hosted at Linksky. I feel a sense of obligation to my friends.

Originally posted by baloo
Joe, I don't want to continue this, but if you insist in twisting the order of things then yeah, I will reply.

I did send you that, right after I got your "Here's your response, your account has been purged". Of course I was bouncing off walls at this stage.

Evidence ? Yeah, I used it to show the two friends I referred to you and have sites hosted at Linksky. I feel a sense of obligation to my friends.

... as well as obviously everyone here, and to what ends? What did you think you would accomplish by airing your dirty laundry here?

Good luck to the next hosting service that decides to do business with you, they'll need loads of it because obviously you will not give a damn for any acceptable use policy you are presented with as you ever-so-clearly demonstrated with us. Perhaps this is where we should forward all of your correspondence along with the server logs and other files that illustrate your AUP violations, i.e. to your new host, out of our particular sense of community obligation.

How about that?

-- JM

MODS: Please lock this thread.

Originally posted by Samuel
Grovel? Sounds like the service was threatened with bad publicity IF the host didn't renig on their own AUP.

Threatened? He didn’t even want to name Linksky at first because he wanted to work it out with them. He acknowledged he violated their AUP (which had changed-I don’t know if Linksky sent out notices to their customers or not). I know, I know it’s his responsibility to check the AUP but I would also think the host should send notice to all customers that changes have been made. They ignored his emails and when they answered him they were curt and rude (from the email that was cut and pasted on this thread). If you have bad customer service then don’t be shocked if you end up with bad publicity. So many hosting companies have such contempt towards their customers or potential customers that it’s amazing the way they treat them. Like it or not most small sites have webmasters that are inexperienced. Your are the supposed web hosting experts maybe this guy didn’t know that web cams were such a drain (I didn’t know that until now). Especially since Linkskys own site markets to “personal” and “hobby” sites yet when a customer makes a mistake instead of working with them to solve the problem they terminate them and hide behind the AUP without even returning the customers emails or answering his questions. Then they bitch (generalizing here) because their rude practices end up being exposed on a board like WHT? I’m glad there is a place like WHT where bad host can be exposed. There is more to being a good host then offering good uptime. Customer service is also very important. If you dish out bad customer service then don’t be surprised if your customer dishes out bad publicity on the boards. As I said before host companies have every right to be jerks and terminate anyone for violating their AUP no matter how innocent the violation. That’s their prerogative. I’m not a host but I would think I would give the customer a chance unless it was something illegal like warez site, child porn stuff like that. Bad customer service/practices=bad publicity.

What we have here is a clear demonstration of a breakdown of communication between host and customer. Nothing more, nothing less.

No matter how long this thread goes on for, no matter what justifications JoeM and baloo may offer, that is the only point that will be demonstrated.

I can only recommend both people can use the experience to learn from.

Brian