October 15, 2004 -- (WEB HOST INDUSTRY REVIEW) -- The Web servers that were seized late last week from Web hosting provider Rackspace Managed Hosting (rackspace.com) were returned to the company on early Wednesday morning, almost a week after they were handed over to US authorities. The servers were housed in Rackspace's London, UK data center and were hosting Web sites for Indymedia (indymedia.org), an independent media organization dedicated to non-corporate news coverage.
Indymedia, formally known as Independent Media Corporation, "once again had access to their servers," Annalie Drusch, spokesperson for Rackspace, told the Web Host Industry Review. However, the media organization has not resumed using them, Drusch said. Rackspace would not comment further on the matter.
Last Thursday, US authorities issued a federal order to Rackspace ordering the company to turn over the servers hosting Indymedia Web sites. Rackspace complied with the request and turned over the requested servers, but did not comment further on the matter, citing a court order.
Earlier this week, it was reported that Swiss and Italian authorities had asked the US to help retrieve the servers. There has been widespread speculation that the seizure was related to posts that were made on an Indymedia Web site that included photographs of two police officers investigating the anti-globlization riots that occurred in 2003 during the G-8 summit.
The seizure of servers caused over 20 of Indymedia's approximately 140 Web sites to go offline. According to a report on Thursday by the New Standard, most of the sites are back up and running, though six remain offline.
