ORIGIN AND PURPOSE OF MYSTERIOUS WEBSITE UNKNOWN
by Sharon Rondeau
(Dec. 27, 2019) — A blog styled “hothealthblog.com” which copied and published our content without permission has been taken down at the request of The Post & Email’s editor.
The blog was discovered in a Google search in August and found to be replicating each and every article published at The Post & Email without a byline or link back to our work.
A domain search revealed that the blog was registered with Cloudflare, a security service which does not itself host websites directly. The domain-name registrar, GoDaddy, said it was similarly unable to assist.
From there, we were able to discover that Amazon Web Services (AWS) was the site’s website host. In August, we filed a complaint with AWS, which responded in September by requesting specific citations of the replicated content which we provided under penalty of perjury
On September 27, AWS sent the following notice:
Hello,
We’ve received your report about alleged posting, hosting, or distribution of unlicensed copyright protected material on Amazon Web Services. We’ve completed an initial investigation of the issue and learned that the activity you reported originated from a user of our network.
We take reports of copyright infringement very seriously. We’ve taken appropriate action in response to your complaint to remove or disable access to the material and to notify the user who posted the material of your complaint. If the user sends us a counter-notice, we will forward such counter-notice to you with additional instructions.
Thank you for alerting us to this issue.
Regards,
Amazon Web Services LLC
In a subsequent search, we discovered that the blog is no longer online.
The Post & Email is grateful to AWS for investigating our complaint and taking appropriate action. Why the blog was launched or the identity of its owner remain unknown.