An e-mail glides into my inbox, on gilded wings, lodging itself between offers for TEN MILLION DOLLARS from Mrs Miriam Abacha and all the V1@GrA I will ever need. A refreshing change, then."Yer archives, mate", said an eagle-eyed reader of these humble pages, "They're gone. All I get is a message saying 'Yahoo says No'."
And by God, so they had. For the best part of the weekend and not a sausage from Yahoo, my web behemoth of a service provider, who are actually receiving genuine cash money to host my annals of filth.
"So," I ask them, "Where's my website, then?"
Them: We deleted it.
Me: WTF?!
Them: Oh yes. It breaks the terms of service, so we deleted your account. No warnings, squire. Tough.
Me: O RLY?
Them: YA RLY!
Me: NO WAI!
Them: WAI! (And I quote) The GeoCities Terms of Service states that you cannot use your GeoCities page to link any other page, whether inside or beyond Yahoo! and/or GeoCities. Also: BUTTSECKS?
Me: No. No thank you. Hang on - you're telling me I can't use hyperlinks on my website?
Them: Darn Tootin' right. You could be sending people *anywhere*.
Me: Surely that's the entire point of the internet, and dare I say it, your own Yahoo search engine.
Them: Err….
Me: In fact, your terms of service say (and I quote) 'You agree not to use the service to 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'. I have over 250 active pages on my website, and ONE link to my blog. A blog which generates over 200 visitors BACK to Yahoo. Are you *trying* to lose a paying customer?
Them: OK, have your website back, then. See if we care. But remove the link.
Me: You're so kind. Can I leave the URLs in as text?
Them: *deafening silence*
Wanted: Nice, cheap pop-up free home for 6.2MB of files with easy-to-use web-based interface. No arseholes or timewasters, please. Happy finish guaranteed on first date. I'm rather hoping Voltan's Evilscope is web compatible.
Update: Enormous thanks to The Rikaitch for transferring my entire archive site onto his webspace. Truly a God amongst men. I have pointed my scaryduck.co.uk domain in the general direction, so once the upload is complete, it's a big "Fuck you!" to Geoshitties, and "Hello Swansea!"
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