[benologist]

Because there are two things here:

1) GoDaddy overstepping their bounds and shutting down a website

2) JotForm having inadequate, perhaps even non-existant measures in place to prevent or respond to phishing

Obviously #1 dwarfs #2 significantly but that doesn't make #2 okay.

[sukuriant]

How doesn't it? The argument could be made that GoDaddy would have done that deed anyway, even if (2) hadn't been rectified.

GoDaddy might not have, if those provisions had been in place. Do these sorts of stories with GoDaddy happen often?

[benologist]

GoDaddy's actions don't cancel it out because ignoring or not adequately preparing for phishing was wrong every single day and a foreseeable problem for about a decade now. They had a responsibility to prevent this for their paying users.

Maybe it wouldn't have saved them, but there are a lot of free-x-hosting companies out there that haven't been shut down in spite of abuse.

[sukuriant]

Do you plan for every illegal thing that could happen on your website?

It's easy to not imagine what sort of evil your site could be used for when you're thinking of just the awesome problem you're trying to solve.

[benologist]

This isn't really some unforeseeable edge case that nobody could have reasonably expected to happen - their site lets you build a form, embed it on a page, and they either email or save the form data for you. Not anticipating phishing would be fine if it was 10 years ago.

[drucken]

benologist please stop trying to make it sound as if there is any dependency between your 1 and 2.

How can anyone who has ever used the Internet or has even a basic understanding of the Domain Name System believe that it is a registrar's right or responsibility to take down a domain, especially without notice, and that does nothing to contravene the conditions of owning that domain name?

I wouldn't even say you are beating a dead horse with that dependency. It was never a horse to begin with!

The blame obviously lies squarely with the US federal agencies - you do not see this happen in other developed countries, for example (UK does not count since its a US colony in all but name).

In particular, to be able to shutdown or ruin the reputation of a business at the drop of a hat due to alleged breaking of the law - not even by the business itself - before it has even been processed by the justice system!

Just imagine if this had been a takedown of Google, Microsoft, Apple or Facebook site, all of which easily meet or have met the conditions for alleged infringements of US IP or other laws at some point, if for no other reason than hosting user-generated content...

[benologist]

You misread what I'm saying. Jotform users deserve to be angry about this situation which in the last decade has been successfully avoided by many free-x-hosting companies who actually prepared for obvious problems.

GoDaddy is, regardless, ridiculous.

[scott_s]

benologist please stop trying to make it sound as if there is any dependency between your 1 and 2.

He didn't. In fact, his point was that there is not a dependency between the points - which is what it means that even if 1 is worse than 2, 2 is still a serious problem.

[drusenko]

There's no evidence whatsoever that this was a US govt take-down. Everything we've seen so far indicate that it was GoDaddy's doing.

[anigbrowl]

Welcome to risk management 101. Lesson 1: assume the worst of the general public, and you won't be disappointed.