I got an email from someone whom I greatly respect yesterday, Brett Tabke of Webmaster World. He had a question regarding a domain I owned.

Long story short, we were hosting copyrighted information without permission from Brett.

Not good, and I was rather embarrassed as you can imagine.

Background: Last year one of my employees, whom I trusted, was given the task of calling the Webmaster World offices and asking if we could post some files in a password protected area for our members of the SEO Revolution. She told me that we could, but there were some restrictions. We met those restrictions.

In the end, because this employee is a “former” employee it may never be known who she talked to … or if she ever talked to anyone. The main issue is, when it is your business, regardless if it is the fault of your employee, the blame rests on your shoulders. So I took it.

Lesson Learned: When something is vital for your business and it involves an important relationship in your business, do it yourself, or do it with the employee. That is a mistake that I will never make again. Relationships with people of the magnatude of Brett Tabke are too important to risk.

But, I do hate employees that suck.