Le Canard Noir in trouble

Le Canard noir does not have an easy life. First he had a run in with The Society of Homeopaths, then trouble with Dr Joseph Chikelue Obi. Both had threatened him with legal actions for libel and tried to force his Internet service provider to boot him off their servers.

At the time nothing seemed to happen, but Le Canard Noir's ISP, Netcetera, has capitulated to the demands of Obi and is booting him off of its servers with this notice:

Thanks for your comments. We do not wish to be in a position where we could be taken to court, and incur the loss of time and expense that would involve. Consequently Netcetera have decided to suspend the Quackometer website, with reference to our Acceptable Usage Policy, the first part of which is quoted below. The full policy can be found on our website www.netcetera.im/SiteInfo/AUP/

"Acceptable Usage Policy

This policy is subject to change, without alternate notice, so please check regularly for updates. This policy is in addition, and considered part of Netcetera's Terms and Conditions.

Netcetera will be the sole arbiter as to what constitutes a violation of this provision.

1) Web Hosting

1.1) Netcetera reserves the right to suspend or cancel a customer's access to any or all services provided by Netcetera, where Netcetera decides that the account has been inappropriately used. Netcetera reserves the right to refuse service and /or access to its servers to anyone."

We will prevent public access to the site as of noon today 18th February 2008. You will be able to access the content to be able to transfer it to another host if you so wish.

We will hold the content available to you for 30 days, and then we will remove it from our servers.

Pretty lame and yellow-bellied. Especially as everything La Canard Noir posted was fair comment and evidence-based. Oh yes, evidence-based, that must have been the thing that did it. I'm sure La canard Noir will pop up again hosted by somebody less fearful of litigious minds.

I've transfered a couple of my accounts from Netcetera and encourage other people to do similar