Web Legal Advice Needed

[dwcc]

I have a question, and I am not sure what area of the law this would fall under. We have a Web design company located in Texas. We recently moved our sites to a Web hosting service located in Tennessee. This company made the standard guarantees found with these services, such as 99.97% uptime for the sites and a money back offer if you were not happy. Since moving our sites three months ago, they have all gone offline periodically, mostly at night for several minutes to several hours. We would file a support request, and in the beginning they would fix it right away, but over time it took longer. This was annoying, but the worst was yet to come. Last week our main business site was redirected within their system to a competitor's site. This was done during a critical point in our business, we had been working on a project for two years that would mean a significant income to our business. We had just spent over $6000 in advertising to a specific group. But during the days that they would be coming to our site, our domain had been redirected to the competition. Another one of our sites were also effected. The hosting company claims this was due to two users that "accidently" copied our IP address for their domain. But this error within their system has cost our company over $100,000 in sales from this campaign and our hard work has been flushed. They refuse to accept responsibiity for this error. Is there any recourse that we may have in this matter? I find it very frustrating that our business, which relies on this site, can be dealt such a heavy blow and they expect us just to assume that this just happens. While we fully understand the nature of the Internet, this was a human error within their system, and their failure to properly support our site has cost us greatly. I would appreciate any light that those with knowledge in this area could possible bring to this problem.

Thanks,
Ed

 

[loku]

I believe you have a case against them for damages if you can show two things: that they were negligent and the amount of your loss.

Negligence: generally, businesses are held to the standard of care given by businesses in the same situation. In other words, you must prove that they did not provide the preventive measures that most other Internet hosts would in similar circumstances. Usually, this takes testimony from experts in the field.

As for your loss, you would have to show that your computation of lost sales is based on valid assumptions. Again, this usually takes expert testimony.

In a case like this, especially since there is possibly $100K involved, I definitely suggest you consider hiring a lawyer to represent you, preferably one specializing in Computer, Internet & High Tech law.

 

[dwcc]

I appreciate the advice, and agree that I should find an attorney. I believe we could easily prove both points, and feel that there must be something that could be done. We are in the process of moving our entire operation to another service. The company in question has continued to point fingers in every direction but themselves, and the problems are still there. This even though every time I contact support, they acknowledge the problem, claim to fix it, and nothing happens. In the years we have been online, I have never witnessed such lack of support. Although we can and will recover from this loss, I don't like the idea that this company can simply walk away from such a mistake.

 

[loku]

Incompetent companies like that rarely last long in today's competitive market.

Good luck with the suit.

 

[dwcc]

I have one more question on this topic. Should I get an attorney located in my area or the area the hosting company is located? They are in Nashville, TN and I am in Houston, TX. Since the entire process was done over the Internet, I am not sure what jurisdiction this would fall under. I would like to thank you again for your help in this matter. It is nice to see there are some people in this world that are willing to shed some light for those of us who are not sure what direction to take.

Thanks.

 

[loku]

If their entire business in Texas is done over the Internet, then you probably have to sue in Tennessee. The Texas court would not have jurisdiction over them. Since it would be a Tennessee suit, then you would be best off with a Tennessee lawyer. Here is a link to our listings of attorneys throughout the US.: https://attorneypages.com/.