Netcetera Are Spineless Morons

What?

A while back I reproduced a page from Quackometer.net which the website’s owner had been forced to take down after the Society of Homeopaths threatened them with some unspecified legal action, claiming the pages were defamatory (which they were, assuming you define “defamatory” to include things with are both nasty and true).

A while after that, I mentioned a second incident, where a crazy man called Joseph Chikelue Obi pulled a similar stunt, presumably because he’d seen it work for the Society of Homeopaths but hadn’t noticed that the page had been reproduced on about 50 other websites (or as Joseph Chikelue Obi calls them, “5,000 defamatory bloggers” — or as Gimpy calls them, “let slip the blogs of war”).

Well, the thoroughly lovely people at Positive Internet have offered to host the site for him, which is good because Netcetera have stopped.

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.

…Therefore we have decided to breach our contract and refuse to provide the service for which we were paid. This seemed like a good idea at the time.

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.’

It occurs to me that that isn’t an acceptable use policy, that is an insurance policy. It’s a pathetic attempt to free themselves of any contractual obligations whatsoever. I’m no lawyer, but I’m pretty sure this would not fly in a courtroom. I’m sure at least that statements like “this policy is subject to change, without alternate notice, so please check regularly for updates” have been overturned by judges before now:

The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in the US has held that companies cannot unilaterally vary the terms of a contract such as this one by merely updating their website, and that actual notice is required to users.

That’s from a discussion of Facebook’s user agreement. And Facebook don’t charge you so this is far worse.

We will prevent public access to the site as of noon today 18th February 2008.

It’s worth mentioning that this email was sent at about 11:40 AM on the 18th of February 2008, as if that’s good enough.

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.

Regards

So, in short, Netcetera think it’s okay to screw their paying customers because somebody who is not a customer asks them to. It would be the work of but a few moments to Google Joseph Chikelue Obi and discover he’s a fraudster. In fact, Googling him would be pointless as the complaint must have included a link to the pages being complained about, which are littered with references to newspapers chronicling his fraud. I’m at a loss to see how they hope to make money this way, although I presume it involves getting people to pay them for a service and not providing it, thus generating a near-100% profit margin. There really isn’t any chance that this quack could put up a decent court case. No chance at all. Apparently, Netcetera don’t want the good PR that would come with standing up for their customers at almost no personal risk.

I can only surmise that Netcetera are a pack of spineless morons. I really can’t think of any other explanation for their actions.

On a largely unrelated note, here is a laughably ridiculous report by Joseph Chikelue Obi about all this.

The Gentle Art Of Whatever It Is That Joseph Chikelue Obi Does, Exactly

You may recall, some time ago, a blog called Quackometer had to remove a page about the Society of Homeopaths because the Society of Homeopaths* threatened his hosting company with legal action. Well, he’s in trouble again. Just the other day, his godawful web hosts, Netcetera (you may have noticed some more Google- than user-oriented keyword selection going on here), received a letter from a lawyer representing a quack called Joseph Chikelue Obi. In case that page also gets taken down, here is a cache of it on Furl.net. Here are Furls of the offending two posts: Right Royal College of Pompous Quackery – Dublin; Ethical Quackery, the Monarchy and Kate Moss.

The problem is that Joseph Chikelue Obi says that the posts are “defamatory”:

Our clients hereby give you formal notice that they are determined to sue you directly for the highly defamatory contents contained on the website should you fail to immediately shut down the website and delete all of the defamatory material relating to the Royal College of Alternative Medicine, Professor Dr Obi and our clients` lawfully registered Trademarks.

Nowhere is it stated exactly what parts of the pages are defamatory or what the complaint is, because that would give Andy Lewis (who runs the site) chance to remove only that part. Also, of course, because the Quackometer pages are backed up with published reports in newspapers which Joseph Chikelue Obi has chosen not to sue, although he’s not really planning to sue Lewis or Netcetera either: he just saw the reports about the time the Society of Homeopaths threatened to and (having not read them very carefully at all) thought “maybe I can get the annoying pages taken down”. I mean, look at this ridiculous letter:

In case the defamation continues beyond 12 noon on Monday the 21st of January 2008, we are instructed to hold you fully liable to the tune of £1 Million (One Million Pounds) per day, together with additional punitive damages relating to the many months during which the defamatory material had and has been globally accessible via your server.

One Million Pounds? That’s ridiculous. That’s just a made-up number. It’s designed to sound Big And Scary, so Netcetera bow to his will, and it worked, because Netcetera are cowards. They clearly don’t care about anything but getting as much money as they can and keeping out of trouble at any cost, and I really don’t expect any more from them. I don’t expect any more from Joseph Chikelue Obi either: his college is imaginary, he’s been suspended for misconduct, he takes people’s money promising them everything and gives them nothing, newspapers advice people to avoid him, charges £250 to hear recorded phone messages, refused to turn up to his own GMC hearing, and his qualifications are highly suspect.

The next paragraph of the letter shocked me, though:

Kindly note that Google has already blocked the highly defamatory material from appearing on its search engines in the Republic of Ireland, and is currently in the process of extending the ban to other countries.

I honestly expect more from Google. Aside from the fact that I can’t for a second see how Google could possibly be labelled liable for libel when all they did was tell people that someone else has written a webpage pointing out that some newspapers published articles containing information that was probably true anyway, it doesn’t seem to fit with their general politic. I’ve written to Google, but not long enough ago that I could reasonably demand an answer yet. Here’s some (well, okay, most) of my email:

I understand you have recently removed some pages from your index after a legal threat: http://www.google.ie/search?q=quackometer+obi

…

I’d like to know how sites are checked, when this kind of threat is received, to see if they are genuinely defamatory. Having a policy of “not using an editorial viewpoint to determine the ranking of results” ( http://www.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=4115&query=editorial&topic=&type=) and a policy of removing defamatory content at the request or threat of individuals concerned seems to be somewhat at odds with your stated “[strong belief] in allowing the democracy of the web to determine the inclusion and ranking of sites in our search results” (http://www.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=39334&ctx=en:cuf2). The web’s democratic nature only works if you allow both sides of a story equal rights to your search results.

… If the world’s leading search engine happily indexes his own pages and third-party pages which sing his praises, but removes all pages which criticise him or highlight his past “misadventures” … then anyone searching on his name or ‘services’ will be left with the false impression that he is a universally-praised and wholly uncontroversial man with no detractors, which is simply not the case.

This clearly leaves a situation where your search results are not only factually inaccurate, they are not even a true reflection of the content available on the web. It might be more helpful to simply return no results at all.

If nothing else, the “websites removed” notice should be placed in a more prominent position: A search for Obi (http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=Joseph+Chikelue+Obi&btnG=Search ) returns the “defamatory” page as the very first hit, whereas the notice about its removal on the same search at google.ie is right at the bottom of the page, where many users simply won’t see it.

Google has a reputation, and to some degree I think an obligation, for providing unbiased search results and that is not what you are doing in this case. At the moment I feel badly let down. Is there anything you can tell me to allay that?

It’s actually remarkably hard to email Google. Their website is awful by modern standards. You can’t easily contact them.

*It’s well worth using the phrase “the Society of Homeopaths” just to make “the Society of Homeopaths” a link to one of the blogs that reposted that blog about what the Society of Homeopaths did. It boosts its ranking in a Google search for “the Society of Homeopaths“.

The Gentle Art of Homeopathic Killing with the Society Of Homeopaths

This is a post from Quackometer, originally found here, posted Thursday, August 16, 2007. His hosts, Netcetera, decided got a complaint from the Society of Homeopaths and decided that they’d rather have him take the page down than risk any further action. This decision was wrong, and Netcetera are a bunch of weasels. My hosts, NearlyFreeSpeech.Net, I’m given to understand are not weasels and have no truck with such complaints. As far as I’m concerned that makes them better hosts.

In any case, if you want to complain to my hosts, then please do, there’s a link above. And guys, if anyone does complain then please pass it on — I could use a laugh. Not that it would matter, since the post is now everywhere. This is what happens when you try to silence the internet. I’m reproducing it here principally because I assume the Society of Homeopaths would like me not to.

The Society of Homeopaths (SoH) are a shambles and a bad joke. It is now over a year since Sense about Science, Simon Singh and the BBC Newsnight programme exposed how it is common practice for high street homeopaths to tell customers that their magic pills can prevent malaria. The Society of Homeopaths have done diddly-squat to stamp out this dangerous practice apart from issue a few ambiguously weasel-worded press statements.

The SoH has a code of practice, but my feeling is that this is just a smokescreen and is widely flouted and that the Society do not care about this. If this is true, then the code of practice is nothing more than a thin veneer used to give authority and credibility to its deluded members. It does nothing more than fool the public into thinking they are dealing with a regulated professional.

As a quick test, I picked a random homeopath with a web site from the SoH register to see if they flouted a couple of important rules:

48 ’¢ Advertising shall not contain claims of superiority.
’¢ No advertising may be used which expressly or implicitly claims to cure named diseases.

72 To avoid making claims (whether explicit or implied; orally or in writing) implying cure of any named disease.

The homeopath I picked on is called Julia Wilson and runs a practice from the Leicestershire town of Market Harborough. What I found rather shocked and angered me.

Straight away, we find that Julia M Wilson LCHE, RSHom specialises in asthma and works at a clinic that says,

Many illnesses and disease can be successfully treated using homeopathy, including arthritis, asthma, digestive disorders, emotional and behavioural difficulties, headaches, infertility, skin and sleep problems.

Well, there are a number of named diseases there to start off. She also gives a leaflet that advertises her asthma clinic. The advertising leaflet says,

Conventional medicine is at a loss when it comes to understanding the origin of allergies. … The best that medical research can do is try to keep the symptoms under control. Homeopathy is different, it seeks to address the triggers for asthma and eczema. It is a safe, drug free approach that helps alleviate the flaring of skin and tightening of lungs…

Now, despite the usual homeopathic contradiction of claiming to treat causes not symptoms and then in the next breath saying it can alleviate symptoms, the advert is clearly in breach of the above rule 47 on advertising as it implicitly claims superiority over real medicine and names a disease.

Asthma is estimated to be responsible for 1,500 deaths and 74,000 emergency hospital admissions in the UK each year. It is not a trivial illness that sugar pills ought to be anywhere near. The Cochrane Review says the following about the evidence for asthma and homeopathy,

The review of trials found that the type of homeopathy varied between the studies, that the study designs used in the trials were varied and that no strong evidence existed that usual forms of homeopathy for asthma are effective.

This is not a surprise given that homeopathy is just a ritualised placebo. Hopefully, most parents attending this clinic will have the good sense to go to a real accident and emergency unit in the event of a severe attack and consult their GP about real management of the illness. I would hope that Julia does little harm here.

However, a little more research on her site reveals much more serious concerns. She says on her site that ‘she worked in Kenya teaching homeopathy at a college in Nairobi and supporting graduates to set up their own clinics’. Now, we have seen what homeopaths do in Kenya before. It is not treating a little stress and the odd headache. Free from strong UK legislation, these missionary homeopaths make the boldest claims about the deadliest diseases.

A bit of web research shows where Julia was working (picture above). The Abha Light Foundation is a registered NGO in Kenya. It takes mobile homeopathy clinics through the slums of Nairobi and surrounding villages. Its stated aim is to,

introduce Homeopathy and natural medicines as a method of managing HIV/AIDS, TB and malaria in Kenya.

I must admit, I had to pause for breath after reading that. The clinic sells its own homeopathic remedies for ‘treating’ various lethal diseases. Its MalariaX potion,

is a homeopathic preparation for prevention of malaria and treatment of malaria. Suitable for children. For prevention. Only 1 pill each week before entering, during and after leaving malaria risk areas. For treatment. Take 1 pill every 1-3 hours during a malaria attack.

This is nothing short of being totally outrageous. It is a murderous delusion. David Colquhoun has been writing about this wicked scam recently and it is well worth following his blog on the issue.

Let’s remind ourselves what one of the most senior and respected homeopaths in the UK, Dr Peter Fisher of the London Homeopathic Hospital, has to say on this matter.

there is absolutely no reason to think that homeopathy works to prevent malaria and you won’t find that in any textbook or journal of homeopathy so people will get malaria, people may even die of malaria if they follow this advice.

Malaria is a huge killer in Kenya. It is the biggest killer of children under five. The problem is so huge that the reintroduction of DDT is considered as a proven way of reducing deaths. Magic sugar pills and water drops will do nothing. Many of the poorest in Kenya cannot afford real anti-malaria medicine, but offering them insane nonsense as a substitute will not help anyone.

Ironically, the WHO has issued a press release today on cheap ways of reducing child and adult mortality due to malaria. Their trials, conducted in Kenya, of using cheap mosquito nets soaked in insecticide have reduced child deaths by 44% over two years. It says that issuing these nets be the ‘immediate priority’ to governments with a malaria problem. No mention of homeopathy. These results were arrived at by careful trials and observation. Science. We now know that nets work. A lifesaving net costs $5. A bottle of useless homeopathic crap costs $4.50. Both are large amounts for a poor Kenyan, but is their life really worth the 50c saving?

I am sure we are going to hear the usual homeopath bleat that this is just a campaign by Big Pharma to discredit unpatentable homeopathic remedies. Are we to add to the conspiracy Big Net manufacturers too?

If I can just interject here — the above paragraph is quite incredibly ironic, and slightly prescient, given the development since. I particularly liked the bit about “Big Net manufacturers”… –Andrew

It amazes me that to add to all the list of ills and injustices that our rich nations impose on the poor of the world, we have to add the widespread export of our bourgeois and lethal healing fantasies. To make a strong point: if we can introduce laws that allow the arrest of sex tourists on their return to the UK, can we not charge people who travel to Africa to indulge their dangerous healing delusions?

At the very least, we could expect the Society of Homeopaths to try to stamp out this wicked practice? Could we?

A lot of people have complained about the Society of Homeopaths since this started. Personally, I’d like to depart from that model and complain about Netcetera. If you’re willing to take down a user’s page just because someone asks you to, you are not in any meaningful sense a web host. Put the page back, you great nancies, and stop running a mile the moment you’re served with a crayon-scrawled cease-and-desist. They’re mostly from big organisations bullying you for their own selfish ends, and if you capitulate then you’re pathetic.

(Update: I’ve edited the thread title slightly, and added a few links, after it became apparent that an inadvertent Googlebomb is happening. It’s perhaps less inadvertent now.)

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