Managed Hosting Solutions

[soky]

"Read it and weep:"

I say; $300,000??? Whew! What was this guy thinking?

Yup... I'm on the Sheriff's side on this one... if he didn't have a paper napkin with the signature of the Sheriff or at least the executive judge on it... he should have cut bait long before the warrant was sworn.

[DigitalSkyline]

Obviously both sides are a little screwed in their reasoning. The web guy is stuck in the 90's dot bomb mentality (where a domain might be worth that 300k lol). And the Sheriff along with not their not wanting to play ball, and pay their due, with his abuse of power, arresting the man and seizing his computers etc.

Without a contract, the web guy was under no obligation to continue servicing the web site (which he owned, btw!). At the same time, any orgainization that places all of their email etc., on some other entities web site, and promoting it, is asking for trouble. It's like they all signed up for a hotmail, then oops, hotmail decides to charge... at that point they can either pay or loose their service.

However, my point is, this is what can happen when you have no contract. Both side loose in the end.

More on the web guy's position:
http://www.ozoneasylum.com/Forum5/HTML/000240.html

[mresell]

The reason contracts ARE so important it to remove 99% of ambiguity. If you do work w/o a contract or written terms you leave the whole world open for interpretation. Obviously, everything people pay for doesn't require a contract, but clarification of terms in writing is important. It becomes a he said/she said thing. It really does protect you and them. People can really say, but so much when they have signed a written document that is pretty clear. That isn't to say things don't happen, but it really makes a difference. I have had a few flaky people get scared off by a contract, but those are the people who usually want to take advantage of you. I know I want things given to me in writing because people try to get over on you.