{"id":658,"date":"2017-11-30T23:27:01","date_gmt":"2017-11-30T23:27:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gt-host.com\/wpen\/?p=658"},"modified":"2017-11-30T23:27:01","modified_gmt":"2017-11-30T23:27:01","slug":"yahoo-small-business-customers-take-web-host-to-court","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gt-host.com\/wpen\/2017\/11\/30\/yahoo-small-business-customers-take-web-host-to-court\/","title":{"rendered":"Yahoo Small Business Customers Take Web Host to Court"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"border: 0px; font-family: 'Open Sans', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; margin: 0px 0px 1.625em; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #3f3f3f; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: #ffffff; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-color: initial;\">A class-action suit has been filed against\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/smallbusiness.yahoo.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Yahoo Small Business<\/a>\u00a0and its parent company Aabaco by a customer who alleges that the company took down his website, which it hosted, without notice or warning, while continuing to charge him for hosting it.<\/p>\n<p style=\"border: 0px; font-family: 'Open Sans', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; margin: 0px 0px 1.625em; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #3f3f3f; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: #ffffff; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-color: initial;\">Photographer Ronald Meyer filed\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/regmedia.co.uk\/2017\/04\/17\/meyervyahoo.pdf\">the charges<\/a>\u00a0(PDF via\u00a0<em>The Register<\/em>) in a Northern California District Court last week, and is demanding a jury trial seeking damages and \u201cdeclaratory relief.\u201d The total amount Meyer is seeking is not specified, but the filing alleges \u201cthe amount in controversy exceeds\u201d $5 million.<\/p>\n<p style=\"border: 0px; font-family: 'Open Sans', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; margin: 0px 0px 1.625em; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #3f3f3f; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: #ffffff; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-color: initial;\">Yahoo Small Business has yet to respond to the allegations.<\/p>\n<div id=\"gpt-mrec_content\" class=\"in-content\" style=\"border: 0px; font-family: 'Open Sans', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; margin: 0px 20px 20px 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; clear: left; float: left; color: #3f3f3f; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: #ffffff; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-color: initial;\"><\/div>\n<p style=\"border: 0px; font-family: 'Open Sans', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; margin: 0px 0px 1.625em; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #3f3f3f; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: #ffffff; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-color: initial;\"><strong>See also:\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.thewhir.com\/web-hosting-news\/oracle-settles-lawsuit-with-former-cloud-finance-manager\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Oracle to Settle Lawsuit with Former Cloud Finance Manager<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"border: 0px; font-family: 'Open Sans', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; margin: 0px 0px 1.625em; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #3f3f3f; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: #ffffff; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-color: initial;\">\u201cDefendants\u2019 Terms of Service governs the relationship between Defendants and customers who pay for Web Hosting,\u201d the complaint reads. \u201cThe general relationship is straightforward; money in exchange for services. Unfortunately, however, many customers are paying Defendants for Web Hosting and are not receiving it. When this is brought to Defendants\u2019 attention, nothing is done. Moreover, many customers attempt to cancel the Web Hosting according to the Terms of Service but are unable to.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"border: 0px; font-family: 'Open Sans', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; margin: 0px 0px 1.625em; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #3f3f3f; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: #ffffff; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-color: initial;\">Meyer purchased a $9.95 per month website hosting plan from Yahoo sometime around 1998 to advertise and sell his photography and children\u2019s books, according to the filing, and in October 2016 discovered that his associated email accounts were not working. He subsequently discovered his other hosting services had been terminated, and was unable to reactivate them after several phone calls to the company.<\/p>\n<p style=\"border: 0px; font-family: 'Open Sans', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; margin: 0px 0px 1.625em; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #3f3f3f; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: #ffffff; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-color: initial;\">The complaint also points out that customers with deactivated accounts cannot cancel their service online, and alleges widespread reports of similar experiences by internet users.<\/p>\n<p style=\"border: 0px; font-family: 'Open Sans', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; margin: 0px 0px 1.625em; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #3f3f3f; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: #ffffff; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-color: initial;\">Earlier this month Rackspace asked a Texas court to\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.thewhir.com\/web-hosting-news\/rackspace-urges-texas-court-to-throw-out-lawsuit-from-former-customer\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">throw out a lawsuit<\/a>\u00a0from one of its former customers, alleging a rather different set of circumstances from the plaintiff.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A class-action suit has been filed against\u00a0Yahoo Small Business\u00a0and its parent company Aabaco by a customer who alleges that the company took down his website, which it hosted, without notice or warning, while continuing to charge him for hosting it. Photographer Ronald Meyer filed\u00a0the charges\u00a0(PDF via\u00a0The Register) in a Northern California District Court last week, and is demanding a jury trial seeking damages and \u201cdeclaratory [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":659,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[18],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gt-host.com\/wpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/658"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gt-host.com\/wpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gt-host.com\/wpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gt-host.com\/wpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gt-host.com\/wpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=658"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gt-host.com\/wpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/658\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":660,"href":"https:\/\/gt-host.com\/wpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/658\/revisions\/660"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gt-host.com\/wpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/659"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gt-host.com\/wpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=658"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gt-host.com\/wpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=658"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gt-host.com\/wpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=658"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}