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EasyDNS's Plain English Terms of Service make them seem like a really unprofessional company: >We are NOT a DDoS Mitigation Service. [...] If you come on this

EasyDNS's Plain English Terms of Service make them seem like a really unprofessional company: >We are NOT a DDoS Mitigation Service. [...] If you come on this system knowingly bringing a DDoS on your heels we shut down service (we may also wildcard your DNS to localhost and set the TTL on your zone out to a year. You’ve been warned). or >Guilt-by-Association: not only do we terminate any domains or websites which violate our policies, we ferret out every other domain you have on the system under different names, accounts, etc and we terminate those too (don’t worry, we can tell). There is no appeal. I'm not looking for a DNS provider, because I'm perfectly happy with my current one, but sheesh.

jacobush 7y ago
On the one hand, I agree. On the other, it's refreshing to see the terms actually spelled out. Often you have similar things described in a very dry almost inconspicuous way.
crusso 7y ago
It's unprofessional to let prospective customers know that EasyDNS is not a company that specializes in handling DDOS, so just keep looking for a company that can help you out? Seems refreshingly honest to me. And as a customer of theirs, I appreciate that they're looking to protect the infrastructure that I rely upon. Regarding that second part; if you do any kind of online service provision like EasyDNS, you'll quickly realize that the scammers are legion. EasyDNS is giving fair warning to anyone who thinks that they can just burn domain after domain on spamming or other disreputable ventures. EasyDNS won't allow its infrastructure to participate in scams. These guys are extraordinarily ethical and professional.
- TheCapn 7y ago
  >These guys are extraordinarily [...] professional. I think part of OP's complaint is they are not coming across as professional. It is entirely reasonable to take those stances but their tact is way off and definitely portrays their company in an unprofessional manner. They might be good at what they do, I wouldn't know personally, but they come off as edgy/abrasive/unprofessional and those two quotes alone would have me second guessing if I wanted to work with people who communicate in that manner.
  - orclev 7y ago
    The only difference between them and others is that they're plain in their language rather than obfuscating it behind lawyer speak. All providers have similar provisions hidden in their TOS, it's just buried behind layers of legalese and addendums. Personally although it might not look "professional" I wish more companies would use plain language that states what they actually mean plainly without forcing you to higher a lawyer to go through the TOS with a fine tooth comb.
    - thfuran 7y ago
      There's plenty of room for technical writing between the colloquialism-riddled, informal mess that that is and legalese.
    - AJ007 7y ago
      If you use that sort of rude plain language, and make a mistake, good luck.
  - Griffinsauce 7y ago
    People have such a strange idea of "professionalism". It's about your principles and what you do, not the semantics and aesthetics.
    - brianpgordon 7y ago
      "What you do?" You mean like breaking a customer's domain name for the next year if EasyDNS thinks they brought a DoS attack "on their heels?"
      - fuzz4lyfe 7y ago
        I take professionalism to mean you know your craft. Like for example setting the TTL on a DNS server to a year won't cause downstream services to cache the record for a year but instead something on the order of a few hours to a few days in practice. To quote RFC 2181: "Implementations are always free to place an upper bound on any TTL received, and treat any larger values as if they were that upper bound. The TTL specifies a maximum time to live, not a mandatory time to live."
- FDSGSG 7y ago
  > we may also wildcard your DNS to localhost and set the TTL on your zone out to a year. You’ve been warned No, this is simply indefensible. There's simply no way you could ever excuse this. Suspending a customer domain is OK, this is not.
  - Guvante 7y ago
    I think it depends on what you did. If you did something crazy like run a DDoS C&C layer off your subdomains then it would make perfect sense for them to respond like this. As others said every service reserves the right to do things like this, they just typically phrase differently. To quote GoDaddy: > You acknowledge and agree that GoDaddy and registry reserve the right to deny, cancel or transfer any registration or transaction, or place any domain name(s) on lock, hold or similar status, as either deems necessary, in the unlimited and sole discretion of either GoDaddy or the registry: .. snip .. (ii) to protect the integrity and stability of, and correct mistakes made by, any domain name registry or registrar, Emphasis mine and a bit snipped out since this is already long. This says if it affects their stability they can transfer your registration as they see fit. It doesn't include any protections on when you can change the domain or what they can change it to meaning blackholing you into localhost for a year is fine.
    - FDSGSG 7y ago
      Come on. They made this threat in a very specific context, it has nothing to do with abusive activity like running a DDoS C&C. >As others said every service reserves the right to do things like this, they just typically phrase differently. To quote GoDaddy: Suspending a domain is standard practice, sabotaging one by setting long EOLs is not. It is dishonest to suggest that these are similar.
  - mywittyname 7y ago
    It sounds like they are doing society a favor.
    - FDSGSG 7y ago
      By going after DDoS victims? Care to explain further?
- rndgermandude 7y ago
  I'm more opposed to the term "Guilty by association" than by what they actually mean and intent to do.
- BoorishBears 7y ago
  There's nothing professional about the general tone of that document, and especially the threat others have mentioned. This reads like the TOS for making an account on someone's phpBB forum, not a real service that should be handling anything important.
nitwit005 7y ago
People complain about the incomprehensible legalese in terms of service all the time. Here you are complaining about a lack of legalese. Shows you why people just stick with the unreadable nonsense.
- johnnyfaehell 7y ago
  No, they're complaining about the abrasiveness of the terms of service.
  - gargravarr 7y ago
    Personally I'll take a blunt 'no, we won't tolerate this' over a load of hot air. Get to the point and let's move on. This gets my approval.
    - FDSGSG 7y ago
      You approve of maliciously tampering with customer configs to punish them? I get suspending someone, I don't get "we may also wildcard your DNS to localhost and set the TTL on your zone out to a year"
      - gargravarr 7y ago
        Many platforms (e.g. Amazon, Google) will block your account without warning and any new ones you create trying to get back into their platform, and defend their behaviour with generic 'violation of T&Cs' statements to kick you off their platforms permanently. I'm not condoning this behaviour, but at least EasyDNS spell this out plainly. And since DNS is their core product, the mechanism makes sense.
        FDSGSG 7y ago
        How could you possibly compare that to > we may also wildcard your DNS to localhost and set the TTL on your zone out to a year This is going way beyond suspending a customer, this is an active attack by EasyDNS.
lima 7y ago
Having been in that business: Web hosting companies receive a TON of abuse. Some of them specialize in dealing with large DDoS attacks, unpopular/illegal/shady content, but most don't and want to spend their time on their product instead. Scammers typically open tons of similar accounts, register expensive phishing domains and host phishing pages on your network, and guilt-by-association is how you clean it up. Most of the things in their ToS are very common with any professional hosting company who is fed up with scammers, they just don't tell you about it like that. Their ToS, while I would never use them for my own company, made me laugh because I felt the pain.
- ryanlol 7y ago
  >Most of the things in their ToS are very common with any professional hosting company who is fed up with scammers, they just don't tell you about it like that. Yeah, maybe if you primarily deal with lowendtalk hosts operated by 12yo kids. Actual professional hosting companies would never even consider this stuff.
  - lima 7y ago
    Screening domain registrations for abuse, removing sybil accounts (i.e. "guilt by association), cooperating with authorities, terminating the contract for DDoS attacks they can't handle and shutting down Nazi pages is something the vast majority of professional hosting companies will do. Of course, if it's a purely B2B hosting company of the "Talk to our sales department and sign a contract" variety, it's less of issue, but even they have to deal with spammers and fake company registrations who really want those clean IP blocks and will have clauses in their ToS that allows them to terminate the contract immediately. In fact, the only providers who do not do this are the cheap low-end hosts who don't care about their IP and ASN reputation.
    - ryanlol 7y ago
      >we may also wildcard your DNS to localhost and set the TTL on your zone out to a year. You’ve been warned Go ahead, name some "professional" hosting companies with similar practices.
FDSGSG 7y ago
Let me just further highlight this specific part: >we may also wildcard your DNS to localhost and set the TTL on your zone out to a year. You’ve been warned Maliciously tampering with customer DNS configs to DoS them for extended periods? Fucking incredible.
- nprateem 7y ago
  And I'd be surprised if it couldn't lead to a successful legal claim against them for damages.
  - jeremy7600 7y ago
    Wait, you want to expose your shady spam operation so you can claim damages? Tell me how that works out for you.
    - FDSGSG 7y ago
      Where exactly does the quoted text mention shady spam operations? It's about DDoS victims, not cybercriminals. >We are NOT a DDoS Mitigation Service. Yes, we have a lot of DDoS mitigation in place. No, this isn’t here so that you can get cheap DDoS mitigation. You cannot use any services here if you are, have been or think you may be the direct target of a DDoS attack. Contact us instead for a referral to a real DDoS mitigation company. If you come on this system knowingly bringing a DDoS on your heels we shut down service (we may also wildcard your DNS to localhost and set the TTL on your zone out to a year. You’ve been warned).
      - mikehodgson 7y ago
        > If you come on this system knowingly bringing a DDoS on your heels
        FDSGSG 7y ago
        So hosting a minecraft server? Or a game server of any kind? An IRC server? An internet forum? An email provider? All things notorious for attracting DDoS attacks.
outworlder 7y ago
> seem like a really unprofessional company Ah, "unprofessional". An adjective that can be tackled on to anything in a business setting, meaning "something I don't like but can't quite articulate why, only that's different to what I'm used to".
- ryanlol 7y ago
  I feel like "unethical" better describes the practices described in the document, "unprofessional" is really selling it short.
013a 7y ago
I think if every company wrote a "plain english terms of service" in the same vein of brutal honesty as this one, most of them would come off as pretty unprofessional. > "We will terminate your account for any reason at all. We'll terminate it if its associated with another account that's been terminated. Often, there won't be a reason; our systems just autonomously decided that your account had to go. None of that matters to us. We don't care, because this is just a side-project to us. We have no customer support. There are no humans you can call. There is no appeal process." - Google Play Maybe Professionalism is a series of lies and obfuscations we tell one-another to hide our true intentions and actions. But, maybe, we should strive to be more open and honest; even if its harder to hear.

jacobush 7y ago

On the one hand, I agree. On the other, it's refreshing to see the terms actually spelled out. Often you have similar things described in a very dry almost inconspicuous way.

crusso 7y ago

It's unprofessional to let prospective customers know that EasyDNS is not a company that specializes in handling DDOS, so just keep looking for a company that can help you out? Seems refreshingly honest to me. And as a customer of theirs, I appreciate that they're looking to protect the infrastructure that I rely upon. Regarding that second part; if you do any kind of online service provision like EasyDNS, you'll quickly realize that the scammers are legion. EasyDNS is giving fair warning to anyone who thinks that they can just burn domain after domain on spamming or other disreputable ventures. EasyDNS won't allow its infrastructure to participate in scams. These guys are extraordinarily ethical and professional.

TheCapn 7y ago
>These guys are extraordinarily [...] professional. I think part of OP's complaint is they are not coming across as professional. It is entirely reasonable to take those stances but their tact is way off and definitely portrays their company in an unprofessional manner. They might be good at what they do, I wouldn't know personally, but they come off as edgy/abrasive/unprofessional and those two quotes alone would have me second guessing if I wanted to work with people who communicate in that manner.
- orclev 7y ago
  The only difference between them and others is that they're plain in their language rather than obfuscating it behind lawyer speak. All providers have similar provisions hidden in their TOS, it's just buried behind layers of legalese and addendums. Personally although it might not look "professional" I wish more companies would use plain language that states what they actually mean plainly without forcing you to higher a lawyer to go through the TOS with a fine tooth comb.
  - thfuran 7y ago
    There's plenty of room for technical writing between the colloquialism-riddled, informal mess that that is and legalese.
  - AJ007 7y ago
    If you use that sort of rude plain language, and make a mistake, good luck.
- Griffinsauce 7y ago
  People have such a strange idea of "professionalism". It's about your principles and what you do, not the semantics and aesthetics.
  - brianpgordon 7y ago
    "What you do?" You mean like breaking a customer's domain name for the next year if EasyDNS thinks they brought a DoS attack "on their heels?"
    - fuzz4lyfe 7y ago
      I take professionalism to mean you know your craft. Like for example setting the TTL on a DNS server to a year won't cause downstream services to cache the record for a year but instead something on the order of a few hours to a few days in practice. To quote RFC 2181: "Implementations are always free to place an upper bound on any TTL received, and treat any larger values as if they were that upper bound. The TTL specifies a maximum time to live, not a mandatory time to live."
FDSGSG 7y ago
> we may also wildcard your DNS to localhost and set the TTL on your zone out to a year. You’ve been warned No, this is simply indefensible. There's simply no way you could ever excuse this. Suspending a customer domain is OK, this is not.
- Guvante 7y ago
  I think it depends on what you did. If you did something crazy like run a DDoS C&C layer off your subdomains then it would make perfect sense for them to respond like this. As others said every service reserves the right to do things like this, they just typically phrase differently. To quote GoDaddy: > You acknowledge and agree that GoDaddy and registry reserve the right to deny, cancel or transfer any registration or transaction, or place any domain name(s) on lock, hold or similar status, as either deems necessary, in the unlimited and sole discretion of either GoDaddy or the registry: .. snip .. (ii) to protect the integrity and stability of, and correct mistakes made by, any domain name registry or registrar, Emphasis mine and a bit snipped out since this is already long. This says if it affects their stability they can transfer your registration as they see fit. It doesn't include any protections on when you can change the domain or what they can change it to meaning blackholing you into localhost for a year is fine.
  - FDSGSG 7y ago
    Come on. They made this threat in a very specific context, it has nothing to do with abusive activity like running a DDoS C&C. >As others said every service reserves the right to do things like this, they just typically phrase differently. To quote GoDaddy: Suspending a domain is standard practice, sabotaging one by setting long EOLs is not. It is dishonest to suggest that these are similar.
- mywittyname 7y ago
  It sounds like they are doing society a favor.
  - FDSGSG 7y ago
    By going after DDoS victims? Care to explain further?
rndgermandude 7y ago
I'm more opposed to the term "Guilty by association" than by what they actually mean and intent to do.
BoorishBears 7y ago
There's nothing professional about the general tone of that document, and especially the threat others have mentioned. This reads like the TOS for making an account on someone's phpBB forum, not a real service that should be handling anything important.

nitwit005 7y ago

People complain about the incomprehensible legalese in terms of service all the time. Here you are complaining about a lack of legalese. Shows you why people just stick with the unreadable nonsense.

johnnyfaehell 7y ago
No, they're complaining about the abrasiveness of the terms of service.
- gargravarr 7y ago
  Personally I'll take a blunt 'no, we won't tolerate this' over a load of hot air. Get to the point and let's move on. This gets my approval.
  - FDSGSG 7y ago
    You approve of maliciously tampering with customer configs to punish them? I get suspending someone, I don't get "we may also wildcard your DNS to localhost and set the TTL on your zone out to a year"
    - gargravarr 7y ago
      Many platforms (e.g. Amazon, Google) will block your account without warning and any new ones you create trying to get back into their platform, and defend their behaviour with generic 'violation of T&Cs' statements to kick you off their platforms permanently. I'm not condoning this behaviour, but at least EasyDNS spell this out plainly. And since DNS is their core product, the mechanism makes sense.
      - FDSGSG 7y ago
        How could you possibly compare that to > we may also wildcard your DNS to localhost and set the TTL on your zone out to a year This is going way beyond suspending a customer, this is an active attack by EasyDNS.

lima 7y ago

Having been in that business: Web hosting companies receive a TON of abuse. Some of them specialize in dealing with large DDoS attacks, unpopular/illegal/shady content, but most don't and want to spend their time on their product instead. Scammers typically open tons of similar accounts, register expensive phishing domains and host phishing pages on your network, and guilt-by-association is how you clean it up. Most of the things in their ToS are very common with any professional hosting company who is fed up with scammers, they just don't tell you about it like that. Their ToS, while I would never use them for my own company, made me laugh because I felt the pain.

ryanlol 7y ago
>Most of the things in their ToS are very common with any professional hosting company who is fed up with scammers, they just don't tell you about it like that. Yeah, maybe if you primarily deal with lowendtalk hosts operated by 12yo kids. Actual professional hosting companies would never even consider this stuff.
- lima 7y ago
  Screening domain registrations for abuse, removing sybil accounts (i.e. "guilt by association), cooperating with authorities, terminating the contract for DDoS attacks they can't handle and shutting down Nazi pages is something the vast majority of professional hosting companies will do. Of course, if it's a purely B2B hosting company of the "Talk to our sales department and sign a contract" variety, it's less of issue, but even they have to deal with spammers and fake company registrations who really want those clean IP blocks and will have clauses in their ToS that allows them to terminate the contract immediately. In fact, the only providers who do not do this are the cheap low-end hosts who don't care about their IP and ASN reputation.
  - ryanlol 7y ago
    >we may also wildcard your DNS to localhost and set the TTL on your zone out to a year. You’ve been warned Go ahead, name some "professional" hosting companies with similar practices.

FDSGSG 7y ago

Let me just further highlight this specific part: >we may also wildcard your DNS to localhost and set the TTL on your zone out to a year. You’ve been warned Maliciously tampering with customer DNS configs to DoS them for extended periods? Fucking incredible.

nprateem 7y ago
And I'd be surprised if it couldn't lead to a successful legal claim against them for damages.
- jeremy7600 7y ago
  Wait, you want to expose your shady spam operation so you can claim damages? Tell me how that works out for you.
  - FDSGSG 7y ago
    Where exactly does the quoted text mention shady spam operations? It's about DDoS victims, not cybercriminals. >We are NOT a DDoS Mitigation Service. Yes, we have a lot of DDoS mitigation in place. No, this isn’t here so that you can get cheap DDoS mitigation. You cannot use any services here if you are, have been or think you may be the direct target of a DDoS attack. Contact us instead for a referral to a real DDoS mitigation company. If you come on this system knowingly bringing a DDoS on your heels we shut down service (we may also wildcard your DNS to localhost and set the TTL on your zone out to a year. You’ve been warned).
    - mikehodgson 7y ago
      > If you come on this system knowingly bringing a DDoS on your heels
      - FDSGSG 7y ago
        So hosting a minecraft server? Or a game server of any kind? An IRC server? An internet forum? An email provider? All things notorious for attracting DDoS attacks.

outworlder 7y ago

> seem like a really unprofessional company Ah, "unprofessional". An adjective that can be tackled on to anything in a business setting, meaning "something I don't like but can't quite articulate why, only that's different to what I'm used to".

ryanlol 7y ago
I feel like "unethical" better describes the practices described in the document, "unprofessional" is really selling it short.

013a 7y ago

I think if every company wrote a "plain english terms of service" in the same vein of brutal honesty as this one, most of them would come off as pretty unprofessional. > "We will terminate your account for any reason at all. We'll terminate it if its associated with another account that's been terminated. Often, there won't be a reason; our systems just autonomously decided that your account had to go. None of that matters to us. We don't care, because this is just a side-project to us. We have no customer support. There are no humans you can call. There is no appeal process." - Google Play Maybe Professionalism is a series of lies and obfuscations we tell one-another to hide our true intentions and actions. But, maybe, we should strive to be more open and honest; even if its harder to hear.