Easyspeak:Posted: 6/23/05 14:26
Gold Community Compensation and Economic Questions
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Hello everyone,
Throughout the past few weeks we have been thinking about compensation for the effects of the vicious attack made on all of us. In our review we considered many factors including: how many of the services we provide were impacted, how those services were impacted, and the final outcome of the attack. Through this review we have determined that save for a few hours, all of ezboard’s services were available to users in the last three weeks. Communities were able to post and read as normal. What were not available were the historical posts. Other than the continuity of a thread’s train of thought, the disappearance of historical content did not affect the delivery of services.
With the above in mind, we have tried to balance a number of competing demands: the impact of the data loss and the agreements made between the site and our users in the Terms of Use everyone has agreed to, to name two. Based on this review our conclusions are:
1. Every current Gold Community, and every Gold Community subscription that lapsed since the attack, will receive six weeks of additional subscription credit.
2. Refunds will not be provided for paid subscriptions or unused Community Chest contributions
3. Unused Community Chest contributions may be transferred by the contributor to other ezboard communities, or used for ezSupporter subscriptions.
4. All credits will be applied at the conclusion of the payment data restoration, which we expect to take between 1 and 2 weeks
5. We will consider individual requests for special consideration, and will provide you with a special e-mail address to submit your requests at the conclusion of the payment data restoration. Requests submitted through other means (CS or e-mailing me or other staff directly) will not be responded to.
How did we get to our decision? We have based this policy on three principles. The first is the agreement we have with our users about our responsibility for services. This is clearly defined in the Terms of Use (www.ezboard.com/content/view/40 ) that you agreed to when you registered, and again when you ordered subscription services and or made a payment to a Community Chest. The Terms of Use read
- You understand and agree that the Service is provided "AS-IS" and that ezboard assumes no responsibility or liability for, among other things, (1) any service outages or interruptions (2) the unavailability of particular boards, features or services, (3) the inability to access the Service, (4) the failure or inability to post materials to the Service, (4) the deletion of materials posted to the Service or (5) the failure to store materials posted to the service. (see paragraph 3)
Ezboard makes no warranty that … (ii) the service will be uninterrupted, timely, secure or error-free. (see paragraph 14)
Under the TOU we provide an “as is” service, and you and we have agreed specifically that we are not responsible for the outcome of the attack.
Second, we should all remember that the ezboard service is comprised of many elements, which have been consistently provided over time. Those elements include the service and its attributes (posting, reading, customization etc.), hosting and bandwidth, use and maintenance of the application, provision of customer service. And yes, preparation of backups. Those services were, and are, being provided. The hacker was able to damage one aspect of the service – the deployment of backups -- but that does not take away from what we have provided, and continue to provide, for our users and communities.
Third, in the TOU there is a very clear and consistent policy on all funds paid for our subscription programs:
- Any fees due or paid by you under the CSC program are non-refundable in part or in whole (see paragraph 9)
Regardless of whether they are in Community Chest or a subscription, all funds paid to ezboard have only one use – to pay for ezboard services. We intend to provide the services of your choice for the money you’ve paid. If your community has a positive Community Chest balance, that balance may be used to purchase ezboard services only. The attack does not change our long-standing policy of not providing refunds. This was agreed to by every user each time a service order was placed or payment made.
We realize that for some of you this is not the answer you are seeking. Please keep in mind that the hacker has done damage to everyone in the ezboard universe – the communities, admins, users, and the company. We are all sharing that pain.
We believe that we are making a fair and significant effort to compensate for that damage.
We are moving ahead, to a new beginning. The first step has been the completion of the board restoral process. The next step is the release of a new community engine. We invite you to try it out and we will send invitations in the coming weeks. You should know that the new community engine has solved many of the issues that you have experienced on ezboard in the last year. It is faster, more reliable, offers automated back-up to your home computer, fast restorals, the features you love and new features you’ll want like RSS, blogging and more.
We appreciate your patience and support through this difficult period and look forward to your continued support.
Sincerely,
Robert Labatt
