Is it within their rights? I am not a lawyer, but I think the answer is yes. In their terms of service they say they can cut you off at any time. You can find similar clauses in the terms of service of most blogging services.

However, the other thing I found in their terms was this:

“Textamerica.com may use, sell and/or share with its affiliates any information provided by you on this website, including your name, e-mail address, usage patterns, and uploaded images and text.”

Wow, so by posting something you give them ownership of it. Plus they can sell all your personal information to anyone they label an “affiliate” (and there is no definition of what an affiliate is). That is not typical of other blogging services I’ve seen, and would by itself be a good reason not to do business with them.

Mike

Thank you Russell for finding this story and blogging about it.

You (and Carlo) and I (and my co-blogger Alan) and many more of us heavy bloggers can afford storage space. Many of those customers who were attracted to TextAmerica’s free sites are not that fortunate. Some don’t own PCs at all, and for many I am sure it is their currently only viable storage space for pictures.

But its also more than that. It is the clear promise TextAmerica had made as it recruited members to join their mobile blogging/picture blogging network. They promised to store these images.

What they now are about to do is wrong. Totally wrong. I immediately blogged about it in support of you in my referring posting “Tempting the ire of a digital community – TextAmerica about to delete stored memories”. It is at my blogsite http://www.communities-dominate.blogs.com

And I am now going to ask for other bloggers to join in and protest this. I will also post about it at Forum Oxford. I will ask the Engagemnt Alliance to consider carrying my protest posting about TextAmerica.

If this is what TextAmerica ends up doing, it goes against all the fundamental elements of the blogosphere. Transparency, truth, honesty, respect, and permanent digital tracks to record the history.

A company that claims to be the “leading mobile blog company” cannot so blatantly go against the blogosphere.

I feel a particularly strong personal mission about this contemplated action by TextAmerica, as this reminds me of the Kryptonite incident from two years ago. My book Communities Dominate Brands makes the point right from the title on, that if you challenge a community, you lose. TextAmerica cannot go through with this (in this way) and emerge with their reputation intact. Quite the opposite. This may be their death-nail.

Thank you Russell for blogging this. I will try to gather more support for you around this. A shame. Shame shame shame. TextAmerica please immediately reconsider !!!

Tomi Ahonen
4-time bestselling author and blogger
Founding member Engagement Alliance, Forum Oxford, Carnival of the Mobilists, Wireless Watch
latest book Communities Dominate Brands
website http://www.tomiahonen.com
blogsite http://www.communities-dominate.blogs.com