GoDaddy balks at removing child-abusing domains

/ 18/01/2019

It comes as absolutely no surprise to us that in the wake of Sabine McNeill’s trial and nine-year sentence, some of the more enthusiastic Hampstead SRA conspiracists have upped their game. We refer in particular to Christine Ann Sands, self-styled “Sheriff” Sands who gave herself a promotion to the rank of “General” Sands some time ago.

Recently Sands attempted to cut a deal: she would remove her foul and largely unread website in exchange for Sabine’s release from prison. Astonishingly, the courts did not accede to her demands. No idea why. [Printer: Insert rolly-eye emoticon here—Editor]

For obvious reasons, we’re not going to link to any of the filth Sands has recently put online. However, some readers will be aware of her recent Facebook dribblings, which include links to a number of new websites whose domain names comprise the names of certain protected witnesses and their children.

GoDaddy drops the ball

Several of the witnesses reacted almost immediately, firing off emails to GoDaddy, the domain name registrar and web-hosting company used by Sands to do her dirty work.

We were given permission to reprint parts of their correspondence, which was addressed to the company’s Child Abuse and Privacy complaints sections:

Dear Sir / Madam,

On Wednesday 9th January a United Kingdom criminal court case concluded in the case of R v Sabine McNeill. The defendant received a landmark nine-year custodial prison sentence. The case dealt with online stalking and harassment due to false allegations of satanic sexual abuse and rape and murder of babies and children. These allegations had been found to be baseless in a previous court case.

Reporting restrictions were in place to protect the identities of the witnesses and their families. This sought to ensure that no adult witnesses were named, in order to prevent possible further identification of our children.

There are multiple additional court orders also in existence concerning this matter. I was both a complainant and a witness in this case. My [child] was alleged to have been sexually abused and has had [their] picture shared 135,000 times on social media.  A website with the following url: formed evidential material of the online harassment in this court case: [redacted].

This website is hosted with you and owned by Christine Ann Sands who was also arrested regarding harassment:

https://www.hamhigh.co.uk/news/crime-court/two-women-banned-from-hampstead-church-after-satanic-abuse-protests-1-4035972 

Following the court case, Ms Sands has updated her website, specifically to identify me as a witness, along with other protected witnesses. I have attached a copy of the court order, which prevents the naming of any adult witness that would lead to the identification of their children. It specifically prohibits me being named. [Names of witness and child redacted].

I have attached screenshots … illustrating both the naming of myself and my child. The url for these is: [redacted]. This website has identified either myself and/or my [child] in more than one place in connection with claims of child sexual abuse.

In addition to being in breach of a UK court order, it is also in breach of your hosting agreement, which states a website must not: display or advertise pornographic, X-rated, sexually explicit, or otherwise tasteless materials, images, products or services (including, but not limited to: massage, dating, escort or prostitution services); or use pornographic, X-rated, sexually explicit keywords or images in video names, descriptions or listings.

Ms Sands does both in relation to children under the age of 18 and protected witnesses in the UK court system. The nature of her material places our children in danger, as it is attractive content to paedophiles and gives details of my [child’s] home address in full. I have copied into this email, the Police Investigating Officer. For clarity, should you require any further information regarding the criminal court cases and the subsequent court orders, of which this website is in breach, he can be contacted at: …

Attachments to this email included screenshots of pages including the above information, as well as a copy of the reporting restriction from Sabine’s trial.

The Child Abuse complaints section responded quickly:

GoDaddy does not allow illegal content on our customer’s websites. However, as a hosting provider, it is not our place to determine if the site you have mentioned is actually engaging in illegal activities.

GoDaddy regularly works with courts and law enforcement from the local to the international level. If you suspect any of our customers are using their website to engage in any illegal activities, please help us by contacting your local law enforcement agency, and request them to investigate this situation.

Law enforcement can contact us at LEO@godaddy.com if they need the website(s) taken down, or if they need more information pursuant to an investigation. We have a long-standing history of cooperation with law enforcement and the courts.

In other words, piss off. GoDaddy apparently sees nothing wrong with Sands’ online child sex abuse, and claims that it falls within their terms of service. Furthermore, they will only deal directly with the police, not those whose families have been victimised for four years by Sands and her ilk.

The message is clear: without intervention from the police, GoDaddy won’t stop Sands from abusing children online. Realistically, this means that the company is willing to allow its customers to perpetuate the abuse of children. The police are already overburdened, and are unlikely to spend their time trying to negotiate with GoDaddy.

And we suspect that even if the police do contact them with the requisite documentation, GoDaddy will find another excuse—”We only have to obey U.S. laws; your UK court orders mean nothing to us” is popular this year, we hear.

Sadly, this type of response is typical of the larger social media companies—WordPress, YouTube, Google, Twitter, and Facebook all make grandiose claims about their “online safety” processes, but just as GoDaddy has done here, when it comes to actually protecting children from abusers like Sands, their words add up to precisely nothing.

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51 thoughts on “GoDaddy balks at removing child-abusing domains”

  1. You’d think there’d be an international watchdog or ombudsman out there to register complaints about a website hosting outfit …Tim Berners-Lee has managed to get a number of countries to sign up to a world wide web magna carta.

    Sands appears to be off her nut, suffering from erotomania, grandiose notions of herself, attention-whoring….maybe she’s an outpatient of some psychiatric facility where she lives.

    Do our data protection laws protect us in the USA?

    Liked by 1 person

    • Unfortunately, our laws don’t provide protection in the USA, no. As you say, some sort of international watchdog seems to be something that needs consideration, given the global scope of the internet.

      Liked by 1 person

  2. Parliament could pass powerful laws whereby any corporation that makes profits in the UK must obey UK laws or face stiff financial penalties. Sadly at present they seem consumed by Brexit (whatever side you believe in). But this IS an aspect of Brexit in many ways.

    The giant tech companies have been thumbing their noses at local laws for years now although some countries are playing catch-up, the EU, Australia, France, Italy but politicians MUST get it through their heads that this new age of the internet is changing the whole financial structure of tax gathering let alone the rapid use or robot technology to replace humans.

    I’m pretty sure Christine Sands could be sued in a civil court for harassment. She seems to be well off. I wonder where she lives?. Many US states have harassment laws that state citizens can be pursued under those and moving around the States is no protection.

    All easier said than done of course but it’s imperative to get some politicians on side. I’m also disappointed that newspapers aren’t too crash hot about this as they are really at the mercy of the internet which is destroying aspects of their business as they lose masses of advertising. Whatever one thinks about Rupert Murdoch he hates Google with a vengeance along with all net entities that facilitate what he says is the theft of his content.

    Liked by 1 person

    • I think Murdoch is a dinosaur who enjoyed his monopoly far too much, you can’t even say about him that he has used his power for good, He definitely isn’t a paragon of virtue, so he can feck off with himself.

      Do you ever read joe.uk or joe.ie? they publish sponsored content masquerading as news…it’s a new trend with online news publications – how will news providers ever stay honest?

      I’m reading information on Data protection here:

      https://gdpr-info.eu/issues/

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  3. I can see that it might be annoying that GoDaddy won’t just take the virtuous and truthful complainant’s word for it that he or she has a valid complaint, but, frustrating as it is, this caution cuts both ways. If truthful goodies could just take down baddies’ websites by complaining about them in emails to the baddies’ registrars and web hosts, with no due process necessary, then (mutatis mutandis) lying baddies would likewise be able to take down hapless goodies’ sites willy nilly, just as easily, merely by complaining about them informally. Who wants that?

    Possibly GoDaddy could do better. Arguably. But “pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and start all over again”, I say.

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    • I would agree with that if the complainant hadn’t included the court-stamped order with their name on it, along with verifiable personal details and contact details of the officer in charge. The very least I’d expect from a company like GoDaddy would be a request for ID, and possibly a bump up the ladder to the next level of bureaucracy.

      Liked by 1 person

        • Can someone with legal standing be approached to contact the FBI? Barrister, Investigating Officer, Judge even?

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      • I have (sympathy is the wrong word) an appreciation of GoDaddy’s position. Getting too involved in the policing of their sites opens them up to loss of common carrier status which by and large protects them from being co-defendants in defamation and copyright lawsuits for websites hosted on their platform. I moved a server to Norway to avoid (rather bizarrely) a bunch of French citizens trying to go via my service provider to remove something perfectly legal I’d written.

        HOWEVER (and it’s a big however – see what I did there?), who they do business with is at their own discretion and should not be confused with policing sites.

        Go Daddy Terms and Conditions:

        5. General Rules of Conduct
        iii. You will not use this Site or the Services in a manner (as determined by GoDaddy in its sole and absolute discretion) that:
        * Promotes, encourages or engages in child pornography or the exploitation of children;

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    • They’re not just taking the complainant’s word for it, John. The blatantly illegal and dangerous content is there for them to see. This is just another web hosting company buck-passing to avoid taking responsibility for disgusting content on their own sites. I mean God forbid they should have to sacrifice advertising revenue for the sake of child safety.

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  4. You would think that after Belindas recent case, she would have decided to pull her head in a bit (especially as she also has been to court and sentenced)…
    Is she still in the US?? I would think that the dad woul d be the one best able to pursue her there for civil damages, I wonder if the UK police could go after her?

    There has to be an improvement on the current situation, this business of ‘they are in another country so they can’t be touched’ simply isn’t good enough in the age of the internet….
    Another thought that springs to mind is if GoDaddy wont pull her sites (when they are clearly in breach of the law in the UK) could they be forced into doing something eg IP bans on the entire company in the UK until they comply??

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    • Suing for defamation in the US is a nightmare, I believe. The costs are astronomical, plus last I checked, the burden of proof (unlike in the UK) is on the plaintiff. Maybe one of our resident legal experts can either correct me on that or expand on it (?).

      Like

      • We shall await the verdict in the Sandy Hook case.
        Alex Jones already had to settle with the owners of the pizza restaurant in the ridiculous “pizzagate” scandal.
        I believe they didn’t push for damages just a promise from Jones not to continue spreading lies but he also had to pay all legal costs on both sides which was a small fortune.

        The flip side of suing in the USA is that their can be no limit to damages and especially with a jury (can you imagine them facing a defendant like the vile Sands and the victims -2 angelic children- I know which side they would choose) they can award unlimited damages.

        Of course again- in practical terms it can be long and arduous and you have to ensure the defendant is not some slippery bastard who can do a runner or has no money. Alternatively a well heeled defendant may settle quickly to avoid being bankrupted.

        Remember in the Hulk Hogan case which closed Gawker he was awarded a total of $140 million. He actually received $31 million (according to the tax he paid on it) and that was just for a video of Hogan having sex.

        It pales into insignificance with what has been published about the Hampstead victims.
        One problem is whether entities like GoDaddy are considered publishers which they aren’t in the USA.
        An UK court decided very early on the Google was not a publisher but that doesn’t mean that can’t change. Australian courts have decided Google are publishers ( I think Italy has as well). The UK decision was a long time ago when judges really did not understand the internet. Times have changed.

        Liked by 1 person

    • LOL monsters selling our souls for money, if only my mum beat the crap out of me 5 or 6 times a year with implements I am sure that would have made me a more rounded human being.

      Liked by 1 person

  7. It’s disgusting that some of the big Internet companies are so unhelpful with regard to online abuse and that victims so often have to resort to other legislation such as copyright to protect themselves. In light of this, wouldn’t GDPR cover this situation? The new laws are incredibly powerful and are recognised internationally. I think it is worth checking out.

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  8. Firstly. a big thank you to all who reported CAS’s revolting websites to GoDaddy

    Secondly a big thank you to Karen for calling GoDaddy out about this

    Thirdly I suggest, as a next step, that the websites and communications to GoDaddy are reported to the Internet Watch Foundation

    https://report.iwf.org.uk/en

    It is probably a good idea to collate all reports into one and then have a single person submit a report detailing all activity.

    Hopefully Sands will end up doing some jail time for this. It is never, ever OK to publish material depicting child sexual abuse and Sands obviously needs to learn the hard way. GoDaddy needs a swiftly administered kick up the arse too.

    Liked by 3 people

  9. This is appalling and is making me an even more crotchety old lady than usual! I mean, even if Ms Sands were correct (I don’t think she is for one moment) – but if she were correct and people who contribute to/read articles on this site had the wrong end of the stick, the CHILDREN still wouldn’t deserve to be put at risk of having their identities exposed to all and sundry. Of course, I believe this site has the RIGHT end of the stick in this matter and the children DO NOT deserve to be placed in danger of having their real life names put in the public domain. Sorry for the capitals – I don’t really like “shouty” posts and here I am putting capitals in my own comment. I’m really just an onlooker here – I don’t know any of the people involved in this case in person and it’s something I stumbled across but I want the people to have suffered to have some prospect of a peaceful life.

    Liked by 2 people

  11. GoDady may balk at removing Sand’s nasty claptrap but so does Sabine McNeill apparently. There is still a text authored by her at Pressbooks with all the usual claptrap.

    ## Wasn’t Belinda McKenzie injuncted in the first Judgement along with McKenzie and that Irish woman?

    Liked by 1 person

      • It’s outrageous that ebil sabeel uses her mother’s experience of escaping bombing in Dresden with her infant daughter as a qualification to moan and gripe about injustice – the injustice of it all. Yeah….whatever! When I think about the war effort I think about what Great Britain suffered and I remember the impact on Ireland (complicated!). Call me crazy if you like but I reckon the second World War impacted far more greatly on Brits and France than Germans, the German’s bitter regrets revolve around being taken to task and held accountable, deservedly so. Verdamme lang her!

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        • As a germanophile who’s lived in Germany, I have to respectfully disagree. Sabine isn’t typical and if anything, Germany’s a more liberal society than ours. The majority of Germans are embarrassed and ashamed of what their country did under Hitler and trust me, for decades the younger generations have been bombarded by guilt trips via German TV, movies, magazines etc. Being held accountable for WW2 and the Holocaust is nothing new. I wonder how it compares to how guilty we feel for what we did for hundreds of years during colonialism, including slavery and numerous massacres from South Africa to India to Ireland. If we feel guilty at all.

          Also, whether we like to admit it or not, we did commit atrocities in Germany during WW2 as well. However we try to spin it, the bombing of Dresden and other places were acts of terrorism. Not for one second sticking up for Germany’s actions, which were abominable, but I do get irked by this state of denial on the part of us Brits about our past.

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          • Well, I’m a person who attended the Deutsche Schule Dublin, my best friend was Uschi (short for Ursula), she and I loved each other lots, we bonded together very muchly on the basis of being kindred spirits…but my being a member of a typically large Irish family seemed to somehow result in her succumbing to my older brother’s ‘advances….I’m still really pissed off with him about that.

            But my personal experience of my native German school friends was excellent as was my experience with our German born teachers….none of them laid a guilt trip on us. But my sister, who attended the same school was subjected to horrific bias on the part of a visiting teacher from Deutschland , he used to call my sister and her classmates ‘Irish Pigs’ and accuse them of being smelly and unkempt, meanwhile, my Ma and Da paid a heap of money for the ‘privilege’ of such abuse being ladled out upon my lil’ sis – shocking!

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    • Great Moments of Whataboutery :
      “If someone had told you 10 or 15 years ago that discovered up to 200 babies bones in an Irish Catholic orphan from the Sisters of M..m..m (madness ?) you wouldn’t have believed that sort of thing but it’s been uncovered hasn’t it so it’s not beyond the realms of possibility is it?”.

      Err, no. 200 bones of babies haven’t been discovered. A handful of bones have been discovered in what was a sewer turned into a crypt but archaeologists working on the site it say it’s so unstable it may take years to discover what is there.
      The original researcher who found records of up to 200 babies deaths recorded pondered on whether that Tuam site may have been used as a burial ground but never claimed it as a certainty. Now someone has claimed there are 800 babies while some children who lost siblings wonder if in fact they were sent to Canada or Australia.

      Even the BBC indulged in churnalism repeating this “fact” just as they did years ago when I switched on the TV while visiting NZ and saw a BBC reporter stating “today I’m standing on ground in Jersey at the former children’s home Haut de la Garenne and below me lie the buried bodies of dozens of murdered children” which of course turned out to be a coconut shell.

      It’s an unholy mess that may take years to solve but what in the Hell that has to do with Hampstead is an even greater mystery but it does example how gossip and rumour repeated ad infinitum morphs into certainty especially in the internet age even though it still just remains gossip.

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  14. GoDaddy have UK interests. Wonder if it might be worth firing off a letter to their English office, who might be more inclined to take note of English law or court orders.

    Liked by 1 person

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