NOTE: This is the final commentary that was posted on our Geocities website before we pulled much of the material that we had posted there on April 24, 2000.

Wyatt's LAST Geocities Rant

April 24, 2000

As the title would imply, this is our final rant to be published on Geocities. In fact, in all likelihood, this is the final update of our Geocities web site.

About two weeks ago we got a notice from Geocities that we were doing someting wrong, and pulled our site claiming a violation of Terms of Service. Only problem is, I couldn't get them to point to where the problem was.

Here's their original notice....

Your Homestead (Hollywood/Academy/1399) has been suspended based upon our belief that you are in violation of the Yahoo! GeoCities Terms of Service. Your Homestead will be deleted and the associated Yahoo! account is subject to closure 7 days from the date on which this message was sent. If you feel that your site has been suspended erroneously or you have other questions, please write to geo-guidelines@yahoo-inc.com BEFORE the end of this 7 day period.

By creating and using your Yahoo! Geocities account, you agree to abide by Yahoo! GeoCities Terms of Service (TOS). Pursuant to the TOS, Yahoo! reserves the right to terminate your account or otherwise prohibit use of your account in the event that, among other things, Yahoo! believes that you have violated or acted inconsistently with the letter or spirit of the TOS.

Should you decide to build another Homestead, please pay close attention to the Terms of Service. In particular, please note paragraph (o):

You agree to not use the Service to: ...

(o) use your home page (or directory) as storage for remote loading or as a door or signpost to another home page, whether inside or beyond Yahoo GeoCities;"

We encourage you to review the Yahoo! GeoCities Terms of Service at: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/geoterms.html.

Thank you for your cooperation.

Regards,

GeoCities

So I wrote back, asking them to explain further...here's what I got.... Dear Community Member,

Thank you for your inquiry.

Your account was suspended for remote loading and storage violations of the Yahoo! GeoCities Terms of Service. Using a GeoCities account as a storage device to remote load files is directly in violation of the Yahoo! GeoCities Terms of Service.

Remote loading is the act of pulling files from your GeoCities account from a location other than your GeoCities site -- for example: setting up a home page with another service and then loading files to that site from your GeoCities account.

Please remove any files that are not in use on your home page or incorporate those files into your home page.

Further use of your Yahoo! GeoCities account for remote loading and storage purposes may result in removal or further suspension.

We urge you to review the terms carefully:

http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/geoterms.html

If you use other Yahoo! services, we encourage you to review the Yahoo! Terms of Service at:

http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/

Thank you,

Yahoo! GeoCities Team

Original message follows:

-------------------------

Please explain the suspension of my homepage at hollywood/academy/1399.

This homepage has essentially remained unchainged since I put it up almost three years ago. I further don't understand where the only quoted TOS that is mentioned below is a problem on my page.

----------------------

Should you decide to build another Homestead, please pay close attention to the Terms of Service. In particular, please note paragraph (o):

You agree to not use the Service to: ...

(o) use your home page (or directory) as storage for remote loading or as a door or signpost to another home page, whether inside or beyond Yahoo GeoCities;" ----------------

Please point to where this is a problem on my page.

Your immediate attention is requested!

At this point, I demanded that they restore my access so that I could at least retrieve some older files and explain their actions...their response.....Look familiar???

Dear Community Member,

Thank you for your inquiry.

Your account was suspended for remote loading and storage violations of the Yahoo! GeoCities Terms of Service. Using a GeoCities account as a storage device to remote load files is directly in violation of the Yahoo! GeoCities Terms of Service.

Remote loading is the act of pulling files from your GeoCities account from a location other than your GeoCities site -- for example: setting up a home page with another service and then loading files to that site from your GeoCities account.

Please remove any files that are not in use on your home page or incorporate those files into your home page.

Further use of your Yahoo! GeoCities account for remote loading and storage purposes may result in removal or further suspension.

We urge you to review the terms carefully:

http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/geoterms.html

If you use other Yahoo! services, we encourage you to review the Yahoo! Terms of Service at:

http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/

Thank you,

Yahoo! GeoCities Team

http://geocities.yahoo.com

Original message follows:

-------------------------

Since you suspended my homepage I have not been able to access the FTP site, so I cannot determine what files, if any, might be in question.

>Dear Community Member,

> > > >Thank you for your inquiry.

> >Your account was suspended for remote loading and storage violations of >the Yahoo! GeoCities Terms of Service. Using a GeoCities account as a >storage device to remote load files is directly in violation of the >Yahoo! GeoCities Terms of Service.

> >Remote loading is the act of pulling files from your GeoCities account >from a location other than your GeoCities site -- for example: setting >up a home page with another service and then loading files to that site >from your GeoCities account.

I once again ask you to SPECIFICALLY point out where this has been violated. The only places where I pull files in remotely -- that is, not directly from my page, are for links such as Link Exchange, who was specifically authorized by you, and your banners. If I have missed something, please advise me SPECIFICALLY what I have done wrong and I will fix it.

As I said previously, my home page has been up on Geocities for several years without any question, and every day that goes by with it suspended reduces its value to Yahoo Geocities and myself. Further, without access to inspect your claims of violation gives me no defense and further deprives me of the work from a couple of other web pages which I created specifically and have no other copies of.

I ask that you restore my FTP access immediately so that I can attempt to remedy this situation and at least retrieve the pages that pay tribute to a departed member of my family.

Your immediate attention is requested.

So...effective immediately....

All the audio files have been deleted from this website (http://www.geocities.com/wyattcox) and all files archived for use on our site at http://www.wyattcox.net.

Our daily commentaries along with our written rants will continue to be posted on those latter two sites....

This page will remain up as long as the folks at Geocities allow it, but without further updates by me.

....thanks for listening....


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