webs.com black out-5th day

Rolling into the 5^th day of the webs.com black-out, with no resolution from the webs.com team.  They are still claiming it’s an issue with ISP providers.  Ignoring every other possibility and not taking responsibility.

For most users this is frustrating to say the least.  They create a website with webs.com to conduct business or for non-profit organizations.  With the websites not being able to be viewed this causes a huge problem for the users who have invested time and money into creating and promoting their websites.

After looking deeper into webs.com company.  I have discovered that they have 19 pending complaints with the Better Business Bureau.  They have had similar “crashes” in the past in which case they have gone from “freewebs.com” to just simply “webs.com”.  There have also been reported cases of copyrights infringement charges, however I’m still waiting confirmation on that.

When I asked the Official Representatives hosting the “help forum” for the users of webs.com on what was being done on the issue from the part of webs.com. CT who is an employee of webs.com stated this:

“If I may Caroline just get an official statement from webs.com so that I can forward it along as well to others who are looking into this issue. I mean what I’m looking for is a formal statement on what exactly webs.com is doing other than advising it’s users on this forum to contact their ISP.
Is what I asked in the forum.

I did not get a response from Caroline, however CT said this:
The official statements are the updates Cec.
Cheers”

Now I take that as a “no comment” statement from the part of webs.com.

On the first day of the issue.  The Official Representatives of webs.com had asked the users of the forum to post their IP addresses, along with ISP users.  To help them eliminate some causes of the blackouts.  Users obviously were co-operative in trying to resolve the issue and did in fact provide this information to webs.com on the public forum.  It was never mentioned by any representative of webs.com that this information provided by the users would be posted at the top of the forum for public view. 

Today however, on day 4 of the black-out.  There was an up-roar in the forum as users realized that their IP addresses and private information about computer software was still posted at the very top of the forum.  Where the Official Representatives had been instructing all users to view for updates on the situation.  It took many pleas from the users in question, along with threats to legal action before the information was finally removed. 

In my opinion this is very bad practice for a company who professes to “be one of the top 150 best sites in the world.  With 20 million users and 50 million websites”. (from Official Representative at webs.com forum: Caroline)

On their website they also advertise “…the best tools, easy-of-use, innovation and reliability.” 

This is an issue that has gone past the scope of the public forum used by the webs.com representatives.  It should be addressed higher up in their corporation.  As previously mentioned this has affected small business owners and non-profit organizations.  Here is an example of one non-profit organization:

• “Severely Autism people cannot access the procedures you are advising. AT&T is my carrier. My website is down or blocked. I am losing Autism livelihood to support my independent special needs because of this. I do not use telephones. I cannot follow your procedures. I rely on webs.com to get this straightened out. AT&T & DHS cannot claim telecom immunity against an ADA / Sec. 504 discrimination lack of access claim, & they have a duty to fix it upoon webs.com contacting them and telling them webs.com is speaking for its disabled, blind, deaf, severely Autistic and other disbaled customers. So, pls. do something to get this fixed or have your legal team write an access letter to AT&T & DHS. DHS has its own C.F.R. that prohibits it from discriminating against disabled Americans & our access. So this makes no sense and is not okay to just leave our websites down / blocked for days, and tell us we have to fix it - webs.com is the one with the legal duty to get it fixed. That is the Autism disability access requirements of federal laws. Thx. Also, if AT&T is doing this, it is a Sherman Act restraiint of trade. If they are attacking webs.com, it is affecting severely Autism people with websites. They don't just get to restrain trade because they are big.  Mary Katherine May”

This is one example with over 400 others on the public forum experience the same issue.  Webs.com is not a company I want to be associated with if it does not care about it’s community.