diberry - 6:49 pm on May 17, 2011 (gmt 0)

ChillingEffects.org, the clearinghouse for the DCMAs, was kind enough to replace my legal name with the domain name, and instructed me that putting the domain name in the "company name" field on any future complaints would cause it to show up as the name. Good to know!

Now I have to consider: I've gotten these clowns removed from Google. Do I really want to hire a lawyer to write to HostGator, and then possibly have to sue the site owners and/or HostGator? Lot of trouble and expense, when my main concern was Google not getting confused about who originally wrote my webpage.

BTW, I haven't had time to get more lawyer opinions yet, but the one I spoke to said the host has an obligation to pass on the DCMA complaint in a timely fashion, and if the other site owner does nothing, the host IS obligated to take it down themselves. So HostGator was misleading when they indicated to me that they just pass it onto the other site owner and then we duke it out - if the other site owner isn't responsive, it's HostGator's problem after all, and they do have legal obligations.

But I do intend to get more feedback on this, since different lawyers sometimes interpret the law differently. Will keep you posted.