Sharon Hill has been writing about the horrendous experience she has had inflicted upon her by her previous web-hosting provider in the past couple of days…
I spent a harrowing Friday and Saturday moving my Doubtful News site to a new host after a crapload of issues from my existing host
… The final straw came from their horrendous and incompetent response to a bogus copyright complaint by a “psychic” businesswoman who claimed infringement by use of her trademark in our web post. This was regarding a news story that was NOT about her in any way. I didn’t even know she existed. Not only is that not applicable to copyright law (none of us would be able to write about Apple or Microsoft or any name brand), but we didn’t even use her damn trademark in the post. You can read about it here and have a look at what kind of person does this sort of thing.
Blogging as a skeptic means that you can at times draw unwanted attention, and so stuff like the above can jump up and bite you (or should that be byte you) when you least expect it.
Anyway, the good news is that Doubtful News is once again back up and running smoothly. If you have never visited the site before, then why not pop on over and check it out, it is a truly fabulous skeptical resource to have in your RSS feed. – the link is here.
Oh and one other observation she makes is this …
There is no way to tell when you are going to be targeted by mean, vindictive or litigious people. The best you can do is be prepared. And one of the best preparations is to have a network of fine people around you to count on.
Indeed yes, having once been personally sued for $3 Million by some cretinous religious lunatics for an anonymous comment on my blog, I truly can relate to this, and also confirm that a good network really can make a huge difference.