AWS Finally Takes Down Clone Website

AFTER LEGAL ACTION THREATENED

by Sharon Rondeau

(Sep. 10, 2020) — 12:20 p.m. EDT – On Tuesday and again on Thursday morning, Amazon Web Services (AWS) claimed that a clone website hosted on its servers which has been stealing The Post & Email’s work since June was “taken down,” yet the website remained accessible to this writer as of noon Thursday, to include content from Wednesday.

Minutes after sending AWS an email Thursday referring to legal action for the company’s failure to remove our copyrighted material from its servers, AWS appears, as this story goes to press, to have disabled the site, as “Error 502” messages are now appearing when the navigational tabs, mimicking The Post & Email’s, are clicked.

We had contacted an attorney Thursday morning given AWS’s recalcitrance in taking down the offending website after acknowledging that its activity constituted “abuse,” as we had reported on August 24.

After being informed that day that an investigation into our complaint was under way, we heard nothing from AWS until we recontacted them on Tuesday.

The AWS customer agreement states, in part:

4.2 Your Content. You will ensure that Your Content and your and End Users’ use of Your Content or the Service Offerings will not violate any of the Policies or any applicable law. You are solely responsible for the development, content, operation, maintenance, and use of Your Content.

todaystopics.com is the second website which has copied The Post & Email’s work wholesale in the space of a year, registered its domain name with GoDaddy.com, and secured hosting from AWS.