Godaddy suspended my hosting due to Google custom search results

[tattoos]

So a funny thing happened to me yesterday </sarcasm>

I awoke to an Email that went something like...

"We are writing to inform you that we have received a complaint alleging that copyright infringement is taking place on your site (removed).com.
It appears that the website contains material being copied, reproduced, or otherwise displayed without the consent of the owner/copyright holder...

...In order to reactivate the site in question we will need you to provide the following information in a single email response:

A. An electronic signature. (This can be a scanned copy of your
physical signature, or as simple as typing your full name.)
B. Identification of the material in question.
C. A statement, under penalty of perjury, that the material has
either been removed or promptly will be removed."

I responded giving the required assurances and to Godaddy's "credit", the site was up and running within about an hour or so. I received another email from them saying...

"Thank you for your email. We have re-activated the services associated with your site. Please keep in mind reactivations require some time to take full effect.

The account will be reviewed within the next 72 hours to confirm the content in question has been removed, as indicated by your content removal statement. Please be sure to remove the content by that time to avoid additional action being taken."

^^^ My bold
It turns out the complaint came from a company acting on behalf of Microsoft. They provided Godaddy with three URL's which were somehow meant to prove that my site contained the offending material that they claimed. Well Godaddy fell for it hook line and sinker.
These URL's were actually search results that the complainant must have generated themselves by using the Google custom search engine on my site to search for these specific terms/files.

After the site was back up and running I again replied to Godaddy's email and pointed out that the links are generated via a Google custom search engine and are not actually contained on my site. I also said that if they do a search on my site, then check the source code of the results page, they would see that my site does not generate or contain any links, Google does via way of my CSE.

I explained to them that I had added a filter to the custom search engine in question to try and filter the links that point to the three alleged files and also that the links point to files hosted on a file storage site which I do not own. (these files have also been removed by the file storage host)

I went on to say that as I have no control over what people upload to file storage sites and no control what URL's Google chooses to index and display in their search results, that I could not guarantee that a similar situation won't arise in the future.

I said all I can do is hope that instead of the complainants demanding sites like mine (that display Google's search results) be taken offline, they instead contact Google and get the results removed from Google's index, which would also remove the results from all custom search engines on the web.

Still haven't heard back :\

At this stage I'm unsure how the review of my site will go, if they go to the URL's given by the complainant they will still see links in the results. Maybe not to the offending files in question but will godaddy be able to tell the difference? I would like to think so but after yesterdays unfortunate incident, I have my doubts.

If you have a site hosted by Godaddy and that site has a Google CSE on it that searches the whole internet, then this could also happen to you. All the complainant has to do is go to your site, do a search for EG: site:mediafire.com Microsoft then copy the results page URL and use that URL to shut down your site! :?:

Until this happened, Godaddy have been faultless as a host and I have always recommended them, but now I don't think I have any choice but to try and find another host, hopefully one that will at least use common sense and not suspend my hosting because I choose to display Google search results on my site.

Does anybody have any recommendations?

Cheers
James

 

[Theo]

This is a load of BS from Microsoft (in this case). I can't recall the exact incident but Google supposedly *is* filtering results about bit-torrents and the like (which equals to censorship).

 

[tattoos]

This is a load of BS from Microsoft (in this case). I can't recall the exact incident but Google supposedly *is* filtering results about bit-torrents and the like (which equals to censorship).

Yeah I agree, but to be fair on Microsoft, they were just trying to protect their IP.
The company they hired to do that should not have targeted my site.
Godaddy should know better than to shut down sites for displaying Google's search results.

They probably didn't even look at the site, if they had of, it only would have taken a few seconds to realize what was going on.

For all I know, the company that complained to Godaddy might not even work for Microsoft. Seems their based in France and the site domain is registered to an individual, not a company.

Anyway, I guess my next move is to try and find a host that will exercise some sort of due diligence prior to shutting down a site.

Cheers
James