September 21, 2007 – (HOSTSEARCH.COM) – Web hosting provider AIT (http://www.ait.com) has filed a TRO against Fayetteville Publishing Company (FPC), claiming that the company may have “spoiled or destroyed” evidence relating to litigation initiated by AIT.
AIT’s launched a lawsuit against FPC in 2005 and 2006 alleging it had committed online click fraud against AIT’s local, classified and national advertisers by “inflating its web traffic to its website”. FPC’s servers were evidence in the case and ordered maintained by a third party to ensure their integrity. According to AIT, the court later ruled that the servers could be returned to FPC if the company kept them in tact as evidence until the litigation between the parties was concluded.
The basis of AIT’s concerns that FPC may have spoiled or destroyed the evidence on the servers was FPC’s assertion that it was not obliged to preserve the evidence. AIT contended that the transcripts of the court proceedings showed FPC’s servers had been returned to FPC as the company had agreed to preserve the servers as evidence.
AIT has traditionally been active in the fight against click fraud and previously led a class action lawsuit against Google. The company has also worked with the FBI and Senate Judiciary Committee regarding click fraud and its possible ties to organized crime and terrorism.
"I have just returned from DC again discussing this issue with various officials," explained AIT's CEO and Founder, Clarence Briggs. "It is amazing that we produce over 60,000 pages of discovery and evidence and days of depositions to substantiate our allegations while FPC managed to produce very little in discovery. The primary thing we asked of them was to protect the core evidence maintained on the original web servers."
