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Compensation for Bandwidth Costs is Extortion?

Posted by Cliff on Fri Mar 05, 2004 02:53 PM
from the now-this-is-ovekill dept.
Tha_Big_Guy23 asks: "According to this article, a man who created a website for his local Sheriff's department is being charged with extortion. This was caused by taking down the website after repeated attempts to get compensation from the county to cover the bandwidth costs. As a result, all his personal computer property, and company computer property was seized and he was jailed."
"After being jailed he was charged with extortion, larceny by conversion, using a computer to commit a crime, and obstruction of justice. This website explains in more detail the circumstances surrounding the situation. Has anyone on Slashdot ever had an experience where a client was unwilling to compensate you for either your work, and/or the resources required to do your work?"

While the end result of this situation is a shame, let this situation serve as a warning for those of you who work, without a contract in place. While it is the general hope that people will behave in an honorable manner, sometimes this is just not the case, and contracts exist to protect both parties, when things go sour.
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  • by The I Shing (700142) * on Friday March 05 2004, @02:54PM (#8478179)
    (Last Journal: Friday May 06 2005, @02:21PM)
    This guy gives website designers a bad name. I'd say he definitely belongs in prison. 3.5 million hits per month? Oh, yeah, right. I get the feeling that this guy was planning to pull this stunt all along, but I bet he wasn't counting on getting arrested. Another clue is the fact that he set the domain name up as his own property so the town would be unable to switch to another server. What a noble thing to do. And then there's his final bill... $300,000?! To offset the "huge expense" of running the website? WHAT huge expense? How much was he paying for hosting? DIdn't want to lose any more money? Why didn't he just set it up on a different server and let the town pay for it themselves? I think this guy wants to the town to pay for the loss he's taken running his business in the first place, and shutting the server down while handing over such a massive bill is, IMHO, extortion, and should be treated as such. I hope they throw the book at him, and throw it at him hard, to serve as a warning to anyone else thinking of pulling a stunt like this. Whew, I'm outta breath. Gotta go lay down for a minute.
    • Thankyou sir (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Performer Guy (69820) on Friday March 05 2004, @02:57PM (#8478220)
      My knee was jerking furiously until I read your excellent post. I can rest easy now knowing that there's two sides to this story and we have another sensationalized /. article.
      [ Parent ]
      • Re:Thankyou sir (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Ohreally_factor (593551) on Friday March 05 2004, @03:11PM (#8478418)
        (Last Journal: Sunday November 27 2005, @02:29PM)
        And another highly misleading headline. "Compensation for Bandwidth Costs is Extortion?" is a real twisting of the reported facts, even if the webguy's claims are reasonable (They aren't). His actions certainly are not reasonable.
        [ Parent ]
        • Re:Thankyou sir (Score:5, Insightful)

          The way I see it, Slashdot is providing is readers with valuable lessons in critical thinking. At what other news site could you exercise your mind to read between the lines, besides Slashdot?
          [ Parent ]
        • Re:Thankyou sir (Score:5, Insightful)

          by Jerf (17166) on Friday March 05 2004, @03:35PM (#8478692)
          (Last Journal: Saturday August 18 2001, @11:04AM)
          I know Slashdot has never been a place you trust unquestioningly for your news, not that trusting any source unquestionably is a good idea, but is it just me or have the editor's knees been getting a much better workout over the past couple of months?

          Based on my understandings of the problem, just looking at the current YRO frontpage [slashdot.org], two of the last four stories have blurbs that are just plain wrong ("Courts Overturn FCC - Return of the Monopoly?", "Do You Have A License For Those Facts?" (my debunking [jerf.org] and I'm a certified IP wonk). One of the others ("MSN Search Blocking Results For XFree86?") didn't really have enough data to prove or disprove (so it's probably not worth the 868 comments it attracted).

          Now this article, where I think the blurb is deceptive enough to constitute being "wrong".

          Slashdot editors, you are getting sloppy and going from moderate benefit (at least it provided some reasonably centralized source of information) to positive menace. Please, either spend more time digging into these stories, or stop posting the blurbs. You can disclaim responsibility for the accuracy of the stories until you're blue in the face, but the fact is that posting does constitute some degree of approval, since there is a selection process.

          This is an intervention. Please stop damaging our cause. You're marginalizing all of us who are legitimately concerned about the way things are going when you post so much obviously wrong stuff under the guise of "being on our side".

          (At least do us the courtesy of starting to shill for the RIAA and MPAA if you don't want to be bothered with improving your accuracy.)
          [ Parent ]
          • Re:Thankyou sir (Score:5, Informative)

            by SkunkPussy (85271) on Friday March 05 2004, @04:00PM (#8478959)
            (Last Journal: Monday May 17 2004, @01:05PM)
            One of the others ("MSN Search Blocking Results For XFree86?") didn't really have enough data to prove or disprove (so it's probably not worth the 868 comments it attracted).

            What are you talking about? if you either click on the link in the story, or go to msn.com, type "xfree86" in the box at the top, then click on search, you only get 1 result, which is porn and it warns you about.

            If you go to any other search engine there is more than one result and it isnt this nightcrawler business. google has 2.4 million.

            tellingly if you search on google for xfree86 nightsurf, you only get 28 results, none of which is the website that msn throws up.
            [ Parent ]
          • Re:Thankyou sir by OWJones (Score:3) Friday March 05 2004, @06:03PM
          • Re:Thankyou sir by Tony-A (Score:2) Friday March 05 2004, @06:27PM
          • community metamoderating inital posts by lpq (Score:2) Sunday March 07 2004, @03:11PM
          • 1 reply beneath your current threshold.
        • Re:Thankyou sir (Score:5, Funny)

          by Ralph Wiggam (22354) on Friday March 05 2004, @03:41PM (#8478763)
          (http://www.fufme.com/)
          And what have we learned today, children?

          Do not attempt to scam people who have the power to throw you in jail. The elderly are a much better target.

          Thank you and goodnight.

          -B
          [ Parent ]
        • Re:Thankyou sir (Score:5, Informative)

          by pla (258480) on Friday March 05 2004, @03:43PM (#8478785)
          (Last Journal: Monday April 03 2006, @07:23PM)
          His actions certainly are not reasonable.

          They didn't pay, he shut down the site. Explain the part of that you consider "unreasonable", please?

          Whether or not you consider the magnitude of his bill to the county as reasonable, it boils down simply to "he provided a service, sent a bill, bill went unpaid, he stopped providing the service". Nothing more than that.

          Theft of service also breaks the law. Key difference, a private individual doesn't have the power to abuse to have people from the country government frivolously arrested.


          Also, RTFA (in particular, the second link). He did not send them a bill for $300k... He said his total expenses came out to $300k (not unreasonable, if he actually worked something resembling full-time for 2-3 years... That alone gives $200k+ depending on the going rate in his area for a network admin). He didn't even attempt to recover any of his past expenses on the project. He merely requested they start paying for his services, and when they refused, he stopped providing the service.

          If this counts as extortion, it sets a VERY dangerous precedent... A precedent that basically makes slavery legal, by making it a crime to stop performing a voluntary service.

          On the bright side, assuming he doesn't end up in prison for a few years, he has a fairly good case for harassment, with monetary damages resulting. He could end up getting considerably more than his $300k (which, again, he did not actually try to bill the county for).
          [ Parent ]
          • Re:Thankyou sir (Score:5, Insightful)

            by Tanlis (304135) on Friday March 05 2004, @03:57PM (#8478921)
            Richard, a former reserve deputy in the sheriff's marine division, more than three years ago offered to provide the Web site at no cost to the county as an in-kind contribution. Hackel, who enthusiastically supported it, said Richard agreed to operate it in exchange for publicity for his company.
            He agreed to host it at no cost. If he waited 2-3 years before asking them to pay, then he is only owed from the point he asked to when he stopped hosting the site. He truly was a fool though to run the site for that long if he expected payment from the beginning. Of course the second link states he tried getting paid during this period of time. Someone isn't telling the truth. So unless the guy has proof he tried to obtain payment on certain dates, he's not going to win.
            [ Parent ]
            • Re:Thankyou sir (Score:5, Interesting)

              by pla (258480) on Friday March 05 2004, @04:10PM (#8479071)
              (Last Journal: Monday April 03 2006, @07:23PM)
              Someone isn't telling the truth.

              I agree, and didn't mean to imply that he necessarily went about this with the best of intentions (not many people would blow $300k of their own money purely for the benefit of the county government).

              But, I can't see any way that the this can count as outright extortion. Even if he did it for publicity or other non-monetary considerations, without a contract (which both articles make clear as one of the big problems in this situation), he has no obligation to continue providing the service.

              So does the county "owe" him any money? I'd say morally yes, but legally no. But does he need to keep providing the service if they don't pay? Again, no. Not extortion, just basic capitalism. If I stop paying my cable, and my cable company shuts me off for not paying, I'd get laughed out of court if I cried "extortion!". Even lacking a contract (let's say I found the cable live when I moved in, and just started using it), I would get charged with theft of services when the CC noticed, not the other way around.
              [ Parent ]
              • Re:Thankyou sir by Tanlis (Score:1) Friday March 05 2004, @04:27PM
              • Re:Thankyou sir (Score:5, Insightful)

                by Glonoinha (587375) on Friday March 05 2004, @04:38PM (#8479368)
                (Last Journal: Saturday October 01 2005, @10:40AM)
                Well the way I read it he didn't 'blow $300k of his own money.' The $300k was in "time, money, and resources". Thus I have a strong feeling that of that $9,000 per month, every month for 33 in a row he is claiming to have spent to total the $300k, a pretty good chunk of it was his self-assigned pay rate of $150 an hour (my guess, no basis in fact) for his own time 'webmastering'.

                Did he actually write checks for $9,000 per month is true expenses? Electricity, new hardware, bandwidth charges from his upstream provider? I'm guessing no fscking way.

                And according to the first article, yes he did plonk down a bill, a piece of paper saying something to the effect of 'you owe me $300,000'. They told him to get bent, then arrested him.

                That said, I think this entire thing is stupid. No farm-team sheriff office needs a web site that has 3.5 million 'hits' a month from 60 countries. And for damn sure no farm-team sheriff office web site is worth $300,000 over three years, traffic or no traffic. Someone is about to earn a few whacks from the clue stick.
                [ Parent ]
              • Re:Thankyou sir by 91degrees (Score:1) Friday March 05 2004, @05:03PM
              • Do the math by sosume (Score:2) Friday March 05 2004, @06:20PM
              • Re:Thankyou sir by Cromac (Score:2) Friday March 05 2004, @06:52PM
              • Re:Do the math by dirty (Score:1) Friday March 05 2004, @10:20PM
              • Re:Thankyou sir by Anonymous Coward (Score:1) Saturday March 06 2004, @12:55AM
              • Re:Thankyou sir by instarx (Score:3) Saturday March 06 2004, @04:36AM
              • Re:Do the math by BlueCup (Score:1) Sunday March 07 2004, @06:39PM
              • 1 reply beneath your current threshold.
            • Agreements arn't idefinite by DABANSHEE (Score:2) Saturday March 06 2004, @12:46AM
            • Re:Thankyou sir by Skaarjj (Score:1) Sunday March 07 2004, @03:03AM
          • Re:Thankyou sir (Score:5, Interesting)

            by cbreaker (561297) on Friday March 05 2004, @04:08PM (#8479053)
            (Last Journal: Tuesday December 12 2006, @07:54PM)
            Good response. Gotta love people that actually read an article and get it all wrong.

            The thing is, if this was any other business besides a government one (more specifically a police one), they would have to sue him like anyone else, not immediately seize all his gear. This is the problem with cops in general, they have the power to act and ruin your life, and ask questions later.

            I don't care if this guy DID try to inflate the prices and such, I do not feel as though the police should have the right to do this to him without a court order.
            [ Parent ]
          • Re:Thankyou sir by alienw (Score:3) Friday March 05 2004, @04:10PM
            • Re:Thankyou sir (Score:5, Interesting)

              by number11 (129686) on Friday March 05 2004, @04:55PM (#8479582)
              If I volunteer to do work for you for free, and then send you a bill for it, that is fraud and/or extortion.

              Fraud, maybe. But if I volunteer to do work for you for free, and then later tell you I'm not gonna work for you any more unless you pay me, that's just the breaks. If you don't like it, you don't use my services any more. It wasn't extortion when X-Drive said they weren't gonna be free anymore, and I'd have to pay them if I didn't want them to dump my files. It's not extortion when eFax tells me that I'm gonna have to pay them if I want to keep the fax number they've provided for years for free. How is this different?

              If the sheriff wanted a SLA guarantee, he would have hired a commercial service. He got what he paid for. And if the sheriff wanted to own the domain, he should have gotten a .gov domain, unless he's selling justice he's got no business with a .com TLD anyhow.

              [Insert ignorant redneck sheriff joke here]
              [ Parent ]
            • Re:Thankyou sir (Score:5, Insightful)

              by 91degrees (207121) on Friday March 05 2004, @05:00PM (#8479629)
              (Last Journal: Friday June 11 2004, @11:15AM)
              If I volunteer to do work for you for free, and then send you a bill for it, that is fraud and/or extortion.

              It's certainly not extortion. It may be fraud. Depends on the nature of the bill, and the nature of the agreement. If there is a dispute abut the nature of the agreement, (abnd it appears that there is) then it is a civil matter. Not a criminal matter.

              The first link (which goes to a somewhat unbiased newspaper) clearly says he asked for $300K.

              Don't trust the media to get all the facts right. they tend to make small mistakes, and mishear things, and write what they think happened rather than what actually happened.
              [ Parent ]
              • Re:Thankyou sir by alienw (Score:2) Friday March 05 2004, @05:15PM
              • Re:Thankyou sir by terrymr (Score:2) Friday March 05 2004, @06:36PM
              • Re:Thankyou sir (Score:5, Insightful)

                The guy volunteered to host and maintain the site in exchange for free publicity. Then he decided to stop doing so. But instead of handing the site and the domain over to the police department, he decided to try to shake money out of them. That certainly sounds believable, and the department's reaction is quite understandable.

                I see. So if I do volunteer work for another entity without any sort of contract, with the clear disclaimer on all the work that I own it, and then I decide to stop doing it, I have to turn over my work for free or be thrown in jail?

                Who "owns" a domain name? In this case, he offered to set up the site for publicity. He registered the domain name, the site always said that it was owned by his company, and then he stopped providing the free service (after a year of trying to negotiate a new deal where they would pay him for it). The domain name and the data has value to the sherriff's department (obviously), and they have NO AGREEMENT that he is to turn over the data or domain name to them if he stops hosting the site. So of course, it's perfectly understandable that they would throw him in jail and confiscate his equipment if he wanted them to pay for it.

                He might have asked for an unreasonable amount, and he might have even felt a bit malicious about it. Certainly, he had them up a tree, but they did do a lot of the climbing themselves. Still doesn't seem to me to be that obvious that he committed any crime.
                [ Parent ]
              • Re:Thankyou sir by 91degrees (Score:2) Saturday March 06 2004, @03:49AM
              • Re:Thankyou sir by Ohreally_factor (Score:2) Saturday March 06 2004, @04:07PM
            • Re:Thankyou sir by chengmi (Score:1) Friday March 05 2004, @05:47PM
            • Re:Thankyou sir by Cranx (Score:2) Friday March 05 2004, @05:51PM
            • Re:Thankyou sir by Eradicator2k3 (Score:2) Friday March 05 2004, @06:00PM
            • Re:Thankyou sir by Frank T. Lofaro Jr. (Score:2) Friday March 05 2004, @07:22PM
          • Re:Thankyou sir (Score:5, Funny)

            by Hatta (162192) on Friday March 05 2004, @04:32PM (#8479290)
            (Last Journal: Monday November 28 2005, @12:21PM)
            He forgot the 285th rule of acquisition: "No good deed goes unpunished."
            [ Parent ]
          • Re:Thankyou sir by aaamr (Score:1) Friday March 05 2004, @05:21PM
          • Re:Thankyou sir by LionMage (Score:3) Friday March 05 2004, @06:17PM
          • Re:Thankyou sir by C10H14N2 (Score:3) Friday March 05 2004, @07:47PM
          • Re:Thankyou sir by larry bagina (Score:1) Saturday March 06 2004, @10:49AM
        • FLASH: Slashdot posters trained to read articles by asr_man (Score:3) Friday March 05 2004, @04:11PM
        • Re:Thankyou sir by gilroy (Score:2) Friday March 05 2004, @09:46PM
        • Re:Thankyou sir by ejdmoo (Score:2) Saturday March 06 2004, @12:36AM
        • 4 replies beneath your current threshold.
      • uh, whatever! (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Scudsucker (17617) on Friday March 05 2004, @03:32PM (#8478663)
        (http://slashdot.org/ | Last Journal: Thursday November 04 2004, @06:51AM)
        They guy was frikkin arrested, his equipment impounded, and he's being threatened with 20 years in jail. For a dispute that should be settled in civil court. Is the guy snow white innocent in the whole affair? Probably not. Is the police department committing a huge abuse of authority? Hell yes!
        [ Parent ]
      • Re:Thankyou sir by Telcontar (Score:3) Friday March 05 2004, @03:34PM
      • Re:God will save him by Anonymous Coward (Score:1) Friday March 05 2004, @04:02PM
      • 2 replies beneath your current threshold.
    • Before everyone gets their tin foil in a not, a few quotes from the article to show that there are two sides to every story:
      Richard then demanded $300,000 of taxpayer dollars from the county. Richard said the money would offset the huge expense of running the Web site for the 33 months.
      This for 3.5 million users per year.
      Richard lied to investigators by claiming he sold the domain name to a Virginia company, Hackel said. Hackel said his mistake was placing too much trust in Richard and agreeing to have Richard pay the nominal domain fee. Richard retains authority of the domain name.
      Appearently he was holding the domain name until they paid him $300,000
      [ Parent ]
    • by Lizard_King (149713) on Friday March 05 2004, @02:59PM (#8478251)
      (Last Journal: Thursday January 10 2002, @10:55AM)
      3.5 million hits per month

      "hits" is such a crappy way to measure bandwidth. Depending on how the site is built and which web traffic monitoring tool you use, a single unique visit to a site can result in hundreds of hits. My shitty site gets in the order of 50-70k hits a month and I know its only my mom.

      [ Parent ]
    • 3.5 M hits/Mo. by ackthpt (Score:1) Friday March 05 2004, @02:59PM
    • Re:Oh, gotta rant, gotta rant on this one... by Anonymous Coward (Score:3) Friday March 05 2004, @03:01PM
      • Re:Oh, gotta rant, gotta rant on this one... by nehril (Score:3) Friday March 05 2004, @03:26PM
      • Re:Oh, gotta rant, gotta rant on this one... by alienw (Score:2) Friday March 05 2004, @03:29PM
      • No no no no no. (Score:4, Insightful)

        Wait, please RTFA. He OFFERED to run the site for free initially, I quote:

        Richard, a former reserve deputy in the sheriff's marine division, more than three years ago offered to provide the Web site at no cost to the county as an in-kind contribution. Hackel, who enthusiastically supported it, said Richard agreed to operate it in exchange for publicity for his company.

        Doesn't sound like he was getting screwed to me. Sounds like he pulled a turnaround when he asked the county for $300,000 all of a sudden.

        I've actually been in a situation when we've had to shut someone's site down because they wouldn't pay. It took us more than 6 months to do it though, because we were professional and considerate, and it wasn't even a big site, just one of our small clients. But we had to do it after a while because he was just totally ignoring our bills and communications. He did eventually pay a reduced sum that we agreed to through negotiations. We then surrendered his domain gladly. But my point is, we gave him a long time and we tried really hard to communicate with him before shutting him down. It was the most drastic thing I've EVER done to a client, and I still feel a little weird about it.

        This sounds different. Sounds like ye old bait and switch to me. And it doesn't really sound like they were out of communication--something I'm sure should have been worked out before the drastic step of shutting down their site happened. ESPECIALLY considering this guy offered to do it for free initially. You don't just shut down someone's site, especially not a high profile client like this. You just don't. There are other avenues way before that happens.

        [ Parent ]
      • by LostCluster (625375) * on Friday March 05 2004, @03:38PM (#8478726)
        Nope... he was operating on the "free drugs" model of business...

        Give the county free services for three years, then hit them with the price and tell them that they can't live without him... that's not true, the county can take those three years of free service and give him nothing but a thank you, and then take their business elsewhere.

        While the extortion charge is a bit extreme, he's lost all hope of doing business with any local government in the area ever again. He should know that local governments have to follow strict purchasing rules, and usually any contract worth $300,000 a year has to go out to bid.

        His claim of ownership of the domain is a bit weak. He's not the Macomb Sheriff. The sheriff's office could very well create a trademark and then sue for posession of the domain name.
        [ Parent ]
      • Re:Oh, gotta rant, gotta rant on this one... by morleron (Score:1) Friday March 05 2004, @05:52PM
      • 1 reply beneath your current threshold.
    • by argmanah (616458) <argmanah@yah o o .com> on Friday March 05 2004, @03:02PM (#8478305)
      Read TFA, not skim TFA.

      According to the second link in the article, he spent $300,000 of his own money and is not asking for his inventment back. He simply tried to tell the county that, going forward, he couldn't afford to pay for it himself. When they ignored him, he closed up shop to keep from losing more money. They retaliated by arresting him and slapping him with exortion and other charges.
      [ Parent ]