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What's your fascinating story?

Fascinating story # 9 - One Hour

by Aneeta Sundararaj

Reprint Rights: Not available

Last Friday, 2^nd of June 2006, I came across this story – it was an entry on a blog with the title ‘Absolute Write is gone’. It was a horrifying read and here’s a gist of what happened:

Absolute Write [AW], a leading site for information on writing and publishing was given one hour’s notice before their web hosting company shut down the website.  Now, how did such a travesty come to be?

 

The reason given for shutting down the website was because AW was accused of sending out spam. Apparently, the scamhunters of AW had posted the email address of an alleged scam literary agent in the AW forum based on a list of 20 worst literary agents. In so doing two things were noted:

·      firstly, such a post was considered illegal under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA); and

·      secondly, because the alleged scam literary agent's email was posted in the forum, she began to receive spam, thereby making AW a spammer.

 

Petrified that the web host would be black listed, the AW website was shut down.

I must say this is quite an ingenious way of turning things around to make AW look like the spammer. The wonders of the human mind never cease to amaze me.

Nevertheless, every tale has two sides and I’m sure that both the alleged scam literary agent and the web hosting company will have their own tales to tell. And, here’s a link to a site which does precisely that: http://sgcordray.com/?p=26.

Personally, I will always hold Absolute Write, Jenna and her staff in high regard. For one, when I self-published The Banana Leaf Men and started my first website (which no longer exists), one of the first opportunities for promotion was a piece I wrote for them; it is entitled 'What An Adventure'. It was the impetus I needed at the time and in the years since, I’ve found the information everyone at AW shares honest and extremely helpful.

Two aspects of this entire episode fascinate me: the first has to do with the alleged one hour time frame and the other is the complaint of spam itself.

Still, I’m not able to attest in any way whatsoever, the veracity of any of the statements made by either party. Hence, whatever I say from now on in this piece will be based on the following fictitious scenario alone:

Imagine this: I’m based in Malaysia and I start a website. I sign-up with the services of a web hosting company in America because their services are touted as great, efficient and so on. One Wednesday morning, I diligently send out my newsletter. That night, I go to sleep, peaceful and happy in the knowledge that people are learning what I care to share about storytelling. I wake up on Thursday morning and when I get to work and switch on the computer, I find that my site’s just not there. When I send an email to the web host, which will now have to be via hotmail or the web form on the host’s site, since I cannot telephone them as their office is closed for the day and I no longer have access to my own email, I receive this reply: While I was asleep, at 1 a.m. Malaysian time, someone in America who was reading the newsletter during his lunch hour, made a complaint about spam. The web host unilaterally decided that I’d breached their terms of service and terminated the site. What horror! What absolute horror!  

From the point of a business based in Malaysia, and indeed in many parts of Asia, this kind of scenario does not bode well.

Perhaps, I can make two suggestions:

First, as much as there is now legal protection provided for those who are receiving spam, there should be action taken against those who indiscriminately make a complaint that they’re receiving spam. The fact is that many who start an internet business find that the website soon becomes their main source of income. If these services are taken away from them with no proper explanation given or time to find another source of income, it is plainly unfair.

One question that I keep pondering over: why bother to go through all that trouble of making a complaint of spam? Is there nothing else for a complainant to do? It’s not as easy as it seems to make a complaint. It would take much time, effort and energy to do so. At the risk of repeating myself, why bother? The thing is, if a company is fraudulent and the people are as nasty as the reader says they are, people will generally find out for themselves. There is no necessity for all this drama … unless that was the intention in the first place.

The second suggestion is that if a web host does decide that it's time to pull the plug, there must at least be a window period of 24 hours notice given to the webmaster. Indeed, if after the plug has been pulled and the webmaster does return with a valid reason for not responding sooner, a web host should make provision for this and consider all matters before taking such draconian measures.

In conclusion, as the owner of a website, if AW’s web hosts did indeed pull the plug on AW within one hour, then I’m appalled by the entire episode and I feel for Jenna, her staff and all at AW [note to self: back up entire website after this piece has been written]. As a writer, I think it’s another example of the politics at play in the global publishing industry as it only ratifies my belief that the sole determinant of success is publicity, even if it’s bad publicity. As an observer based in a far-off nation, I think I’ll sleep a little less now, each time I publish my newsletter.