Web Hosting Company Criticized for Closing Blog Service Without Notice
The web forums are abuzz with discussions that whether a web hosting company did the right thing to terminate Blogetery, an open source blogging platform that was accused of being used by outlawed al-Qaeda to conduct recruitment process and sharing information including details of American nationals on the hit list of Qaeda.
Many Internet watchdog groups and the service's proprietor believe that the web hosting company took it far away. On Tuesday, The New York Times interviewed Alexander Yusupov, who claimed to be Blogetery's owner and sole employee. Over the weekend, multiple media reported that Blogetery had been closed. It’s learnt that Blogetery had at least 70,000 blogs—figures are matter of dispute as Burst.net and others have given different figures. On Monday, CNET reported that the blogging platform had been eliminated over a FBA discovery that the blogging site was linked with the terror outfit and was used for sharing bomb-making techniques and details of Americans on the hit list of the terror outfits.
Yusupov, who has no criminal case against him, told the Times that executives from Burst.net, Blogetery's Web host, failed to furnish any documentation to prove the FBI's claims. "They just took it down," he said. The termination of the blogging site led to automatic termination of pages of all the users, including those who didn’t touch al Qaeda or such sensitive issues. Joe Marr, Burst.net's chief technology officer, meanwhile tendered no apology or regret over the termination of the services. However, he asserted that an employee goofed when the person originally informed Yusupov and members of the media that the FBI had ordered termination of Blogetery. Marr added that the blogging sit was cut off only because it hosted some objectionable content, which breached its term of conditions.
The move, as expected, irked hundreds of users who were not linked with terror issues. Kurt Opsahl, a staff attorney for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, told the Times: the "tragedy is that thousands of blogs will be taken offline for no good reason."
