WebProNews

Site taken offline, GoDaddy mum on reason

Site owner Gino Sesto picked the wrong host for his RateMyCop.com site, as GoDaddy took it offline and evidently refused to provide the real reason for doing so.

The RateMyCop.com domain has a new web host now, but for a while the new and immediately controversial site had been set adrift with only a GoDaddy error page marking its presence.

RateMyCop allows people to leave feedback, good or bad, about their interactions with law enforcement officers. The site's debut met a negative response from police who fear how it could be abused.

The Threat Level blog recounted Sesto's experience with GoDaddy once he discovered the site had been taken offline:

RateMyCop founder Gino Sesto says he was given no notice of the suspension. When he called GoDaddy, the company told him that he'd been shut down for "suspicious activity."

When Sesto got a supervisor on the phone, the company changed its story and claimed the site had surpassed its 3 terabyte bandwidth limit, a claim that Sesto says is nonsense. "How can it be overloaded when it only had 80,000 page views today, and 400,000 yesterday?"

Now that the site is back online, Sesto's next challenge may be in policing its users. In looking at the profiles of two most-rated officers, one in Arizona and the other in Oklahoma, the same user gave each 5 stars and praise for their work. It looks odd to us.