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According to my host, the server company overrode the C drive for the 60+ websites, then finalized the loss by deleting the secondary drive where the website's backups were maintained.
So many things spring to mind here, and not only from the webmasters perspective. There are countless host re-sellers, who don't actually have the servers on-site or even live anywhere the servers. They are dependent on someone else for maintenance. How are they protected?
Web designers should have a local, backed up copy of their site. Do site owners have a legal leg to stand on if their site is "lost" through something they had no control over? How much responsibility belongs to the web site owner? Do all site owners really understand what happens when they launch a site?
This Cre8asiteforums thread, Legal Ramifications When Server Deletes Site Accidently, Now What? presents food for thought.
Comments:
esoomllub
03/01/2007 06:10 pm
The implication here is that they developed it remotely (no local copy). Kind of an idiotic approach (and not possible in the timeframes mentioned), but if true, the evil side of me thinks "who cares". So.. they either spent 1500 hours developing it remotely in 2 days (bah) -- or they are full of crap and have a local copy -- or, their developer has concocted the largest BS story around to cover his failure to deliver.
Exposure Tim
03/01/2007 07:19 pm
Not necessarily, esoomllub: More important to most ecommerce sites is the database which only resides at the host's facilities. That can include orders info, customer records, private data, as well as site content and product info. Many sites are just skin/bones (i.e. template) without the database.
Esoomllub
03/01/2007 09:28 pm
I'll give you that without the database, the site may be a waste... but the way the user wrote their post, they indicated that 1500 hours of work is down the drain... obviously that is coding time since the server was only up for 2 days. And again... this type of work should be done locally (either via an admin or in creating a script), and the script should be run on the server. It is really a waste of time to manually submit database items for 2 straight days. I seriously doubt he had any orders to speak of on the site in the 2 days (those that were in there are a tragic loss). I've been involved with major ecommerce rollouts, and the orders placed on the first day are usually from the site owners and their friends/employees testing the site. This was on a shared host... not Niemann Marcus (his comparison -- not mine) I do feel sorry for the guy if what he indicates is true... I just find the level of crap to truth on forum postings to be quite high. And there are some logic gaps in his comments (with regards to the processes involved with setting up a site that requires 1500 hours to build).
DLPerry
03/01/2007 11:02 pm
Admittedly it's been a while, but as a former employee of a couple of hosting companies - I recall that there was usually some legal-ese disclaimer in the TOS/AUP that pretty much absolves them of responsibility. Of course, 'the server company' is the Datacenter, and the mistake here was likely made by a DC employee. That is actually more common than some may realize - though not always this catastrophic.
David Eaves
03/02/2007 12:12 am
This is shocking and the hosting companies/resellers should be sued/shot, I optimised a site recently and it took me a good 3-4 hours hard graft, individually editing the code in all pages, about two weeks later the hosting company changes servers or some s**t and losses half of the files, the customer had a copy of the site but without the optimisation so I had to re-do the entire thing, complete pain in the ass.
Jeremy
03/02/2007 06:06 am
Which hosting company did this happen with. I definitely want to learn from this situation - I am always looking for a good host.
Paul Buchhorn
03/02/2007 08:40 am
this is a hard misstake. i have allway more than one backup on my local computers
John Winningham
03/02/2007 03:27 pm
Excellent point. I have had instances in the past where hosts have deleted my clients sites, through error or hacking, which is why I always keep a backup. Another important thing with any ecommerce or db driven site is to back up the db. Most clients don't ever think of this, or assume that the host is backing up their database, which may be the case, but having your own current backup makes you sleep better at night if you depend on that database to make a living.
Bobby
09/09/2007 11:22 pm
That totally sucks! You should always keep a backup! I host my web site at <a href="http://www.vistapages.com" rel="nofollow"><b>Vistapages</b></a>, and I accidentally deleted my public_html folder, I was able to easily restore it with the backup tool they provide. I believe all cPanel-based web hosting providers have this tool!
Plowe63
09/06/2011 05:47 pm
i had a website set up and have lost the ability to get it back on line due to host going out of business can anyone help www.ipdesignltd.co.uk was the site