It has only garnered a minor piece of mainstream action over on ReadWriteWeb, but there was a domain server that was taken down by the hosting company, BurstNET, reportedly at the request of a law enforcement agency:
“(Blogetery) was terminated by request of law enforcement officials, due to material hosted on the server. We are limited as to the details we can provide to you, but note that this was a critical matter and the only available option to us was to immediately deactivate the server.” – (Taken from Web Hosting discussion thread)
At first glance, this story appears very disconcerting for those concerned for the First Amendment amid the recent talk of an Internet “kill switch” to be implemented by Congress. However, a quick glance at the discussion thread shows the opinions of some that it must have been a very serious case for the mystery law enforcement agency to take down the entire server and give no information to the guy behind the domain. Apparently he has yet to receive a straight answer from BurstNET as to exactly why the server was taken down, leading some to speculate about everything from pirated movie and video links to child pornography. The bottom line, which seems to be the general consensus, is that the guy running the WordPress MU setup and offering free blog hosting is ultimately responsible for all of the content on his domain.
While I can certainly sympathize with the majority of folks who were doubtless innocent users of the Blogetery service, I would definitely hate to be in the shoes of the guy running the site. For now, your First Amendment rights are intact. But if you decide to write a blog, you’ll be better off sticking with a service you recognize, like Blogger.com or WordPress.com.
