The Jotform.com domain was returned today. The only problem is that the feds still aren’t saying what caused the suspension in the first place.
You may remember yesterday when we reported that Jotform.com was suspended by the federal government for apparently no reason. When the Jotform team attempted to contact the Secret Service as to why their Web site had been taken down, they were told that the government was too busy to look into it.
It’s a good thing then that the Jotform.com domain was returned today. The business can keep operating under their original domain and everything can go back to normal.
Hold on there, not everything can go back to normal just yet. Techdirt requested comment from the Secret Service as to why Jotform.com was taken down. What a great response they got:
“We are aware of the incident and we’re reviewing it internally to make sure all the proper procedures and protocols were followed.”
In response to this, a post went up on Hacker News that details what U.S. Web sites can do to protect themselves from the overreaching arm of the U.S. government.
Today’s sysadmin todo list:
0. Get corporate membership with EFF.
1. Identify all applications with user-generated content.
2. Move all associated domains to a non-US based registrar.
3. Migrate DNS, web serving and other critical services to non-US based servers.
4. Migrate yourself to a non-US controlled country.
I’m sorry for US sites and users. Your government is hell-bent on turning the internet into a read-only device like TV, easily regulated and controlled. The population will be required to sit quietly and keep their eyes glued on the screen so they don’t miss the ads, with any infringers deemed terrorists and pedophiles and thus deserving of summary punishment by DHS squads.
Hopefully the internet will route around the damaged segment, and the rest of us can continue to enjoy the amazing interactivity it has brought our society.
Is it a little extreme? Yes, but it highlights what is slowly becoming reality in the U.S.
The United States keeps on saying that it wants to help startups and small companies succeed, but you can see with the example of Jotform that the government can take whatever they want when they want.
Are you a small business owner who uses the Internet? What do you think about the Jotform debacle? Will you be moving your business? Let us know in the comments.