(WEB HOST INDUSTRY REVIEW) — As part of its response to a libel lawsuit filed by IT consulting company Apex Technology Group, a New Jersey judge ordered hosting and domain providers to take down three websites opposing the H-1B work visa last week, according to a lengthy article published in Computerworld on Monday.
Hosting and domain providers Go Daddy, Network Solutions, Comcast Cable and DiscountASP.Net were ordered by Middlesex County Superior Court Judge James Hurley to disable the sites ITgrunt.com, Endh1b.com and Guestworkerfraud.com. Social network Facebook was also ordered to disable ITgrunt’s Facebook page.
The lawsuit by Apex involves the posting of a company employment agreement on Docstoc.com, though the document has since been removed. Posts linking to and criticizing the document have been posted on a variety of websites, claiming generally, according to the ComputerWorld report, that certain terms of the contract would make it difficult for an employee to leave the company.
Apex claims the allegations made in the posts are false and defamatory, and that they are hurting the company’s business. It claims three consultants have refused to report for employment as a result of the posts. The company is also seeking contact information for the user who posted the comment without legal permission.
ComputerWorld quotes Patrick Papalia, an attorney for Apex, who says the company has identified the employee who posted the original comment, but that the issue has grown to involve other threatening and racist comments aimed at Apex officials, along with allegations that the company is ingaged in illegal activities – which Papalia says is untrue.
As is fairly common practice for service providers receiving this kind of court order, each of the service providers mentioned in the article complied by taking down or suspending the sites.
DiscountASP.Net, quoted in the ComputerWorld article, says it disabled the Endh1b.com site after receiving the order from the New Jersey Superior Court. Though the order asked that the site be “immediately shut down… until further order of this court,” says DiscountASP.Net, it did not request any account information.
GoDaddy says its standard procedure is to comply with court orders. The company suspended hosting for ITgrunt.com, and placed the domain for that site and Endh1b.com – which is registered, but not hosted, with Go Daddy – on registrar lock due to the pending litigation.
An issue of particular interest – and one is also referenced in the ComputerWorld article – is the fact that a New Jersey judge would issue orders to take down sites hosted outside of the state, by companies that operate outside of the state.
While a takedown order in a libel case is hardly surprising, the case raises similar questions of jurisdiction as the 2008 attempt by a Kentucky court to seize the domain names of a list of Internet gambling websites.
