Jotform.com is Back Online

Jotform.com is Back Online

We’re happy to share a good news with you. The domain suspension at jotform.com has been lifted. If you have changed your forms to one of the alternative domains, you can keep them as they are. We will keep the new domains permanently.

I wish we could provide more details about what happened, but we are also in the dark. We have not been given any information by Godaddy or the Secret Service, other than our domain being suspended as part of an ongoing law enforcement investigation. You can read more details about it on Arstechnica, Wired, CNET, Techdirt, Forbes, Geek.com and TheNextWeb.

In the next few days, we will work hard to restore your confidence in us. A suspension at the domain level is a very harsh punishment for a web service provider. However, we are not in a position to make excuses. You have trusted us and added Jotform forms into your web pages. It’s our top priority to make sure that our service is reliable, and robust.

So, here are some of the permanent solutions we are working on right now.

1. Forms on Separate Domains

Depending on your risk profile, or the country you are in, we will assign a separate domain name to you. (i.e. jotform.us) Any new forms created will only work on that domain name. Our goal is to limit the impact of any possible domain suspensions in the future.

Note that, this will not apply to any existing forms. Your existing forms will work with all domains. This will only apply to the new forms you create.

2. Moved Domains from Godaddy to NameCheap and Hover

Namecheap has been very publicly against SOPA and internet censorship. Hover’s General Manager has personally contacted us and offered his support during our difficult time. I have always been an admirer of the simplicity and beauty of Hover’s user interface. So, we have moved our domains to these registrars.

3. Launched status.jotform.com

We have just launched a new page site to post about our service status updates. You can also contact us from Twitter or Facebook.

4. Use Your Own Domains on Your Forms

It is now possible to use your own domain names on your forms. You can read more details about it here. We have just launched a simple version of this feature, and we are planning to improve it in the next few days.

5. DMCA Safe Harbor

We are considering applying for DMCA Safe Harbor. Although, the requirement of no active monitoring of user activity would not work for us, since we have to actively stop the phishers. Anything less would be irresponsible.

6. Increase Our Efforts to Stop Phishing

Our existing Bayesian phishing filter has been pretty successful at stopping phishing. We are currently discussing what additional steps we can take to stop phishing forms on Jotform. We have scheduled a hackaton next week to try out new ideas.

We’d like to thank everyone who has been patient with us. We believe that without the support provided in the social news sites such as Hacker News, Reddit, and Slashdot, plus the journalists who covered the story, the suspension might have continued.

AUTHOR
Aytekin Tank is the founder and CEO of Jotform and the bestselling author of Automate Your Busywork. A developer by trade but a storyteller by heart, he writes about his journey as an entrepreneur and shares advice for other startups. He loves to hear from Jotform users. You can reach Aytekin from his official website aytekintank.com.

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