A good website is an invitation to a conversation, where you tell your story, and invite your audience to tell you theirs. Knowing who you’re conversing with has to come first. Have I introduced you to Jean?
Sitelock is STILL on my s*** list. Please read the UPDATE to this evolving story at the bottom of the post.
A beloved client forwarded this to me this morning. It’s an email she received from the “security” firm SiteLock, a (former) partner company of popular website hosts HostGator.com and Bluehost.com.
Hell hath no fury like an angry webmaster who hasn’t yet had her coffee.
Notice the wording: One or more of the domains you own has malware on it.
Fairly clear, right? One of her sites is infected with malware…it says so right in black and white. Bad news, but I’ve never been one to hit the panic button before it’s time.
I calmly went to HostGator’s tech support “Live Chat” to ask them about this. I pasted the email into the box so the technical support rep could see what I’m contacting them about. I asked: Is this legitimate? What happens next?
Over the course of the conversation, I learn from the tech dude that SiteLock is their partner company. And I learn, in fact, there’s no evidence of malware. The site MIGHT be infected, he says, but no one really knows for sure. In order to truly find out, my client would need to purchase an expensive malware prevention package from SiteLock, so they can peek inside and see if there’s malware there. If there is, they’ll charge another fee to get rid of it. Those fees, combined, crept into four figures.
I take a deep breath and count to ten: So…the email is a sales pitch, designed to frighten my client into purchasing a product? And the email makes a statement that’s patently untrue? I point it out to him again: One or more of the domains you own has malware on it. Why would they say such a thing if it weren’t true?
Hemming and hawing ensue.
I’ll spare you the gory details of my response, which nearly set the curtains ablaze. I want you to think I’m much more patient and kind than I happened to be this morning.
My little dog came to sit next to me and put his head on my knee. You okay? You smell mad. Maybe a walk?
Well…aside from being angry about a concerted effort to drum up business by sending good people into a panic about their website? Good people who might not be terribly techie, or who may be busy…..gosh I don’t know….building their business? So instead of helping depressed people, doing reiki healing, selling their art, finishing their book, booking new coaching clients, they have to spend their money and life energy dealing with service provider scams—from the very people they are already paying every month to keep their website running. Infuriating.
In short: Anyone whose website is hosted with the company HostGator.com, or with Bluehost.com, or with ANY of the hosting companies under the conglomerate parent company EIG, is likely to receive one of these emails soon, if you haven’t already. I wanted you all to know what this particular game was, so you can watch for it.
To all my clients: Please feel free to drop me an email or a PM if you receive one of these emails. I can be of help deciphering the scare-mongering.
Edited to add: See the comments below the post for some helpful/scary comments made by others. In August 2018, Endurance Group’s CEO and CFO were fined several million dollars for fraud by the SEC related to company subscriber numbers.
Hosting is a personal decision, but for what it’s worth, I have shifted all of my sites to the hosting companies at the top of my Resources page. I’m trying to make a list of the companies that get great customer reviews, give good value, and don’t have anything to do with all of this filth. If you know of others that fit this description, hit “Contact” in the top menu and let me know so I can get them listed.
If you’d like to avoid giving your hard-earned money to scammers like these, here is a recent list of hosting companies owned by EIG, the parent company of Hostgator, Arvixe, Bluehost, and dozens of others, and here is a list of hosting companies owned by Sitelock’s new masters at ABRY Partners . I would only suggest you avoid those if you don’t want to find yourself in the same boat again.
This mess continues to evolve. Sitelock was acquired by a private equity firm called ABRY Partners. That was in April, and as we’ve all seen, the blackmail tactics have continued unabated. I have no proof that Sitelock has access to private data from its former EIG sister companies, but my first instinct is to stay as far away as possible from any of them.
Also, Endurance International Group’s web presence arm — which is called, you guessed it, Endurance Web Presence — has been merged with the Web.com universe to form a new entity called “Newfold Digital.” (with thanks to the sharp-eyed reader who shared that with us)
Here are some things you may want to try, if you are A) currently paying for website services from a company connected to the above (including sadly ConstantContact.com), and B) aren’t currently locked out of your site:
Take a deep breath. We’ll all get through this together.
You know what I love about you guys?
You’re the helpers.
What’s that, you say?
Remember what Fred Rogers (Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood) told us about his mom’s advice?
“When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, ‘Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping’.”
We live in a world where people find themselves sick, sad, stressed, and angry – and often they don’t even know why. Gee, let me think: Shrill media, addictive technologies, partisan politics, weather disasters courtesy of a changing climate, toxins in our air/water/food, escalating violence and divisiveness, religious extremism…I wonder why we’re sick?
It is a tough row to hoe some days.
Yet this morning, when I looked across the list of people I’ll work with in the coming week, I saw this (you know who you are – and thank you):
Whenever someone approaches me who hopes to work with us, I set up a consultation by video or phone to ask a gentle series of questions. To the untrained ear, it may sound like I’m asking about the nut and bolts of their business, about clients, about services. But from the thousand-foot view, a pattern emerges:
I want to know if they are a helper.
I want to know whether their motivation for doing what they do is something larger than “get rich quick.”
I want to know if their hearts are in the right place.
Do you know what I’ve found, in 99% of the cases? The answers are yes, yes, and yes. It’s surprising, because it’s absolutely not what we read on the news or see on television. Even a cursory glance at characters littering our TV channels over the course of an evening would have us think that homo sapiens are essentially self-centered, materialistic, unfaithful, conniving buffoons (there’s a reason the “spiritual epiphany” story is so popular in modern films and books). Ground into our minds is the anti-mantra, we’re in this alone, and we’d better look out for number one, because no one else is going to save us.
And yet here’s me: Mid-fifties, survivor of violence, no stranger to addictions or to dire financial straits, having not lived a charmed life—and yet crowding all around me is so much good. So many people who are trying to make something better in the world.
That’s why I love you guys.
You are living proof that the media has people all wrong. You make your living by doing good. Bad things happen, but they are dwarfed by the sheer goodness of millions of daily—and largely unnoticed—individual actions. You’re part of a community of helpers, proof positive of the basic goodness in humanity. You create good news. You are the good news.
Thanks. Keep it comin’. And if you need a cheerleader, a coach, or a sherpa to help you reach more people, help more people, you know where to find me. Drop me a note and let me know how I can help.
