Netcetera - Spineless Tosspots. Quackometer Under Fire Part II

A couple of weeks ago I wrote about a charlatan ex doctor who had been struck off by the GMC, threatening to claim millions of pounds in damages from Netcetera, for hosting The Quackometer. The Quackometer had written some truths about Dr Joseph Chikelue Obi and he made some groundless threats, and you can read all about it in my earlier post, Quackometer Under Fire.

On Monday, the writer of the Quackometer, known as Le Canard Noir (LCN), was given about twenty minutes notice by the Spineless Tosspots called Netcetera that they would be pulling the plug on the Quackometer, and other pages by the writer. All because a real life genuine quack and charlatan threatened to sue the spineless tosspots.

LCN received the following email from David Boswell, of Netcetera -

Thanks for your comments. We do not wish to be in a position where we could be taken to court, and incur the loss of time and expense that would involve. Consequently Netcetera have decided to suspend the Quackometer website, with reference to our Acceptable Usage Policy, the first part of which is quoted below. The full policy can be found on our website www.netcetera.im/SiteInfo/AUP/

“Acceptable Usage Policy

This policy is subject to change, without alternate notice, so please check regularly for updates. This policy is in addition, and considered part of Netcetera’s Terms and Conditions.
Netcetera will be the sole arbiter as to what constitutes a violation of this provision.

1) Web Hosting
1.1) Netcetera reserves the right to suspend or cancel a customer’s access to any or all services provided by Netcetera, where Netcetera decides that the account has been inappropriately used. Netcetera reserves the right to refuse service and /or access to its servers to anyone.”

We will prevent public access to the site as of noon today 18th February 2008. You will be able to access the content to be able to transfer it to another host if you so wish.

We will hold the content available to you for 30 days, and then we will remove it from our servers.

Regards

Lessons to be learned from this?

Don’t use Netcetera as your host if you can avoid it. Some companies enforce their “we’ll take your site off the internet if a total schmuck frightens us” policy.

Other people commenting about this include Rupert Goodwins at ZDnet , Gimpy , jdc , coracle , shpalman , Holford Watch , Apathy Sketchpad , Letting Off Steam , The James Randi Educational Foundation Forum (long one that), BPSDB.org , Dr. Aust and finally (at the moment) Dr.T .

You already know not to trust Dr. Obi, right?