Never Cower as an Individual Even If it is the Foremost Corporate Entity in the World Against You

Yes, ours is a land of free enterprise. But that right for enterprise is not reserved for some specially-endowed guys. It gives equal chances to you and me. Only that we don't steal or undermine rights of others.

In business, sometimes the entity who gets in there first, gets to keep it.

No, I am not a business guy nor an IT guy. Yet some years ago, I got interested in the domain name fad that was catching up. As my job involved some technical writing too, it was necessary to keep abreast of whatever happened in the world at that time.

While searching through the innards of domain name business, I just tried some names at random. None of them were available. I completed the writing assignment and forgot about domains altogether.

Some months later, I had to revisit the subject, again for purely research purposes, and was surprised to see that some of the domain names I tried before were never renewed and were not being claimed by anybody. And some of them remained unclaimed for many weeks.

One of the names had caught my fancy. I thought, why not claim that domain name for myself for just 9.99? I did, for the fun of it. Thus I became a domain name owner just for fun and even tried my hand at website building to make a small website to go with it. I didn't do it myself. I just downloaded a software, just blindly followed the instructions, presto, I made a website.

Later, as yearly renewals became a hassle, I renewed for a longer period at a discount. Then slept over it for some five years, until now.

To be frank, the name I chose was just plain English, there was nothing special about it. No visitors except some misdirected ones, may have come to see my website by accident. I too remembered it only when the notices of renewal came from the hosting company.

I am not bothered about advertising my website or worried about competitors, as I have no intention of making a fast or slow buck with websites. At this stage in my life, I have no intention of collecting pennies from Amazon or Ebay clicks, which may or may not come.

Nor do I have any intention of selling off the domain during my lifetime. At some point in my life, may be, I may include articles on one of my favorite subjects there, but not any time soon.

My website does not even come up in search engine rankings nor is it worth any penny according to online domain name valuers.

Then, why I bother you with all these non-essentials on a good-for-nothing (at least for now) website?

Because, somebody, that too, the world's foremost IT company, decided my nondesript website is too "important" to the world in a negative way.

Last month, I received a warning email from the world's IT God that they think my insignificant website looks suspicious and that I am spreading spyware and viruses through it to the whole world.

Then, they threatened me that if I don't answer them, they will tell the whole world not to visit my website.

That was ridiculous. They were not talking to a multinational online company. They were talking to a small fry in a small American village, who had bought a domain and made a website for the fun of it, started sleeping over it and has no intention of waking up to make money from keywords or banners.

Since I never learnt any programming and I don't intend to learn it at this time, I knew I didn't do it. Still as a duty to the world and with the ever-present possibility of a third-party planting such malware surreptitiously, I called my hosting company and informed them about the threatening email from the IT Gods.

The hosting company told me they will call back after checking their logs. They replied within hours and told me their part of the story:

1. They constantly scan their servers for infections and infestations.
2. At no time in the last five years, my website seemed to harbor any malware, according to their logs.
3. After receiving my call, they scanned not only my website, but all their servers (not a small task) and they didn't find anything unusual.

I chose to ignore the IT Gods because,according to my belief, the chain of command in my life is like this:

GOD > PARENTS > THE LAW

I never will allow anybody or organization to intrude into this hierarchy, even if they think they are Gods.

They continued to inundate my email in-box with dire warnings daily for a fortnight. May be, those self-styled Gods foolishly thought that my livelihood depended on that one website, which even I don't visit for months.

And the final result:

After two weeks of spamming my email account with threats, they stopped it and removed the "do-not-visit-this- website" warning from their own search engine. They cannot claim they didn't do it, because their official website had reserved a page just for my website's purported "diabolics." I care two hoots either way. My conscience is clear.

If they could prove that my website contained such dangerous items, they should have informed the law-enforcement agencies who would have come after me.

They didn't; instead, cowardly removed the warning themselves. Why? There was no such malcontents right from the start.

Because, no IT company is entrusted the policing and the work of judiciary by the constitution of USA. I don't care if their corporate stock is avidly bought by investors.

Yes, they may be doing yeoman service to the world, warning really and potentially dangerous websites.

But, Just because my website is dormant, it doesn't mean it is "suspicious." It is my right to decide what I should do with my small-fry website - to keep it dormant, sleeping over it or to make it go live and make a big show before the world to get some attention. I am under no pressure to do the latter.

Just because I am an individual small fry, NO corporate entity, even if they are worshiped by the whole world, has any right to send me warnings, threats and blackmail through the impersonal interface provided by the internet.

There are lawmakers, law-enforcers and the judges to take care of it without such fads.

And the IT Gods now stand exposed by withdrawing the wrong, manipulative, coercive warning, on their own
- without my going on my all fours EVEN ONCE before them entreating,"please, please, remove the warnings on my website, please."

If any fool, just because he has an MBA or technical degree decides he is my God and can usurp my fundamental rights, he should realize that I have to give him permission, if I ever will, to be my God. And, I have no intention giving that during my lifetime.

I don't know how many innocents are being scared and blackmailed by IT gods like this? If you didn't plant any malware on your website, don't yield to blackmail by self-styled IT vigilantes. But if you did, it is another matter to be dealt by the appropriate authority.

Strange that even in the most developed country in the world, laws are misused by non-governmental corporates to intimidate innocent citizens, while actual culprits go unscathed.

While these guys run after innocent people blackmailing them, the actual thieves are having a heyday stealing from people's credit card and bank accounts in millions.

They should realize there are equally qualified people to expose their tricks to the average non-technical guys, whom they may consider as just "laymen."

Sorry readers, if I sound arrogant. Sometimes arrogance by some self-styled Gods needs to be treated that way. Remember, I was advised by similarly qualified but humble humans to ignore their gimmicks!