For the electronic forms that run your business, it’s probably not such a good idea to use a hosted forms service like JotForm. Just ask the 700,000 users of JotForm who just lost access to all their two million web forms for two days. Using an external service provider exposes you to unpredictable shutdowns.
Two days ago, the Jotform.com website was suddenly removed without warning from the Internet’s global Domain Name System (DNS), effectively making over two million electronic forms unreachable for its 700,000 users and their customers.
The Jotform.com website allows users to design electronic forms and host them on the company’s servers. Jotform’s domain name registrar, GoDaddy, informed Jotform that the shutdown was the result of a fraud investigation by the Secret Service.
A Jotform spokesman said that the company regularly closes accounts that create false web forms for fraudulent activities, e.g. attempts to fool bank customers into submitting their login credentials. According to Ars Technica, Jotform considered it “hugely unfair” to shut down the entire domain, without notice, for something a user had done even after protections were in place against it.
“We have 2 million user generated forms. It is not possible for us to manually review all forms. This can happen to any web site that allows user generated content”, said a company spokesman in a blog on the company’s website.
According to CNET, sites like YouTube and Facebook that are service providers are not liable for content their users post that may violate copyright or face other objections. It’s unclear why the case of JotForm, which would seem to fit the description of service provider, was handled this way.
Jotform has moved its domain names from GoDaddy to two other Internet registrars.
Published on Feb 17, 2012.
