ToS Violations

Ok, my client keeps putting materials on our server which harvests emails from well know sites like myspace and yahoo. It clearly violates the ToS on both sites.

In addition to that, my client also has completely mirrored a webpage(for god know's what purpose) which is also against their ToS.

My question is, besides terminate their account, what actions can I take against them?

That's about it, I think. The first isn't illegal, just against your ToS. The second could be reported to the original webpage owners. The action taken would depend on them. For you, just terminate the account.

---John Holmes...

But the first violates the ToS on both myspace and yahoo... Isn't that something?

Yeah, I guess so. You could report him to them, but I doubt you could give them any personal information and all they're going to do is ask that you terminate the account.

If you called them up and gave them all of this guys info, I think you'd be in trouble.

---John Holmes...

I think the question is, having been warned (you did, right?), why would you NOT want to terminate his account? At least lock him out until he commits to not doing this anymore.

But I think you're giving him way too much benefit, indeed you are undercutting your own authority over your network. Cut him off.

I haven't been warned. I'm more concerned. I have, however, warned them on three occasions about such actions. I've changed his cpanel and ftp passwords. We're still awaiting fulll payment from this guy and it may end up being a lawsuit, as they've violated our ToS. The reason I've not shutdown the account is, in this lawsuit, we've got reason to beleive we may be able to take over the domain(for reasons not being mentioned here.).
Currently, we're seeking consultation from a lawyer. Then we'll take appropriate action. For now, his administrative access is suspended pending a decision. The site however, remains up.

Moved from the Lounge to Business Help...

You have Terms of Service, he's violated them (after 3 warnings), now it's up to you to follow through on sanctions, whatever they may be.

MySpace, Yahoo, their Terms of Service, their problem, unless he comes to their attention of their own volition, and they decide to take action against him, and you for knowingly not stopping it (assuming they know, you know).

To breach someones ToS makes you liable to the service provider whose ToS are violated, not a grand jury, unless its a felony AFAIK, and even then ...

If you fess him up to the other two, he breached their ToS, not a felony (unless you know it's a felony), you're possibly liable under what's left of any privacy/data protection laws.

Keep us posted on how you think you can wrestle the domain off them, after the outcome. If you've paid for it, and he hasn't paid you (within ToS), it's yours unless he's already in control of the domain, in which case, depending on the dough involved, dunno if I'd be bothered

Do you think it'd be better if I recorded these incidents(already done through chat logs.) then deleted said scripts from the server?

Anyway, they bought the domain and made a site with it before we got to them. We transferred the domain name over to our server. I think they still own it, but we still hold ownership of the data that it's displayed with and scripts that we've made on the server. We have emails from a couple of ISP's that our IP is on their blacklist now because of a mass-mailer script(over 3000 people mailed at the same time) and a warning from our server leaser. We're going after them for damages because of this and opposed to recieving monies for the damages, we hope we can convince them to hand over the domain name. Just awaiting the appointment with a lawyer to see if we've got any case here.

The domain's already been blacklisted, and you're still letting them run, lock the domain if you think you have a chance but if they're the legal owners, your only possibility is through settlement, but I'd prefer the dough myself IMO.

And shut 'em down, site'n'all "Experiencing Technical difficulties" or "Service suspended until further notice" ... nothing that intimates a problem of the nature we're discussing, just non-payment of bills.

The mass mailer, only 3,000 that may have been a legit run with opt-in emails, I wouldn't depend on that. I've been "warned" before for legit mass mailings. You could get rightly screwed for shutting them down without a right to respond, but the fact their account is in arrears you should be clear on that front

The ownership of data is a tricky one, the scripts less so if they haven't been paid for.

Just my 0.02