Wednesday, February 25, 2009

Some Rare Good News

A San Antonio man has been successful in his quest to shut down a Dallas-based 'wife-beaters' Website.

Wife-beaters.com, a Dallas-based business that sold wife-beater T-shirts, has been shut down after a San Antonio man complained to the company hosting the site.

Cbeyond, a communications company based in Atlanta, said it shut down the site Monday after receiving a complaint last week.

The site was removed because its customer violated its contract by reselling Web hosting services to Wife-beaters.com, said Bill Weber, CBeyond’s general counsel. The content of Wife-beaters.com also violated Cbeyond’s acceptable use policy, which prohibits “objectionable information of any kind.”

The Web site sold white tank tops, commonly referred to as “wife-beaters,” and gave a discount to anyone who could prove they were convicted of wife beating.

“We are not going to host a site like that,” Weber said.

When reached on Tuesday, business owner James Doolin said he would return The Dallas Morning News’ call but never did.

Patrick Greene, who has for weeks searched for a way to remove the site from the Internet, said he was pleased that the site was removed. “I felt like I was helping thousands of women,” he said.

After filing complaints with the FBI, the Texas attorney general and the Better Business Bureau to shut down the site, but was unsuccessful. On Friday, he contacted Cbeyond to report that the site was offensive and violated the company’s policy.

Greene said he plans to keep looking for wife-beaters.com - just in case Doolin finds another host for his material.

Thank you, Mr. Greene, for not dismissing this as a harmless joke like so many others do.

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