You can find one answer to this by going to Ed's rip-off reports website http://ripoffreport.com/reports/0/004/RipOff0004175.htm, under Ryan Homes complaints. There you will see where Ryan Homes built defective homes in an entire subdivision. One of the victims went public on the rip off report forum.

In order to get Ryan Homes to fix the houses, ALL public complaints from the victim were ordered to be removed, and the victim had a gag order that prevented them from discussing the problems any further. Ed will not remove complaints from the rip off report site, so there you can read Ryan Homes failed attempt at an all encompassing gag order. 

Builders typically handle larger problems this way, if the choose to do anything at all. This is mostly so they can lie time and again when someone new also has a serious builder created problem. They hope to isolate them and wear them down, and often that works.

The non-disclosure or gag order method also helps bury a long visible history of shoddy work, that if it were to remain accessible and well documented, might force our representatives to take notice and create consumer protections. That would reduce this often devastating problems to hundreds of thousands of home buyers. Some of us will not wear down, so they use a defamatory approach to explain away places like HOBB.org and HADD.com.

Some gripe site builders cave to threats of legal action from the builder, even if the threat is only a scare tactic. Actually suing their own customers can backfire on the builder in the worst way. In rare cases the builder can find a valid legal angle to get a site shut down if it is not carefully built.

Common mistakes are using the company's logo on the grip site, which is simple copyright infringement, or stating allegations or opinions as facts, which can legally be called defamatory. I don't know all the reasons though. There are more.  But I've had a gripe site up about my builder since maybe 2001, so I guess I know enough for now.

How convenient that it is to revise history! If the website disappears, then the shoddy construction never happened in the first place. How convenient!

Here's one blogsite that won't disappear:
http://peretired.blogspot.com/

I don't believe in revising history. Nor do I believe in cutting deals with the devil.

"All that's necessary for the forces of evil to win in the world is for enough good men to do nothing."
Edmund Burke

PS  Bravo, rrj! Well said! Keep up the good fight!

HOBB's policy is that we do not remove any complaints or references to any website from the HOBB site.

I will say this that most of the site shutdowns have been more likely the result of the builder buying back the defective homes rather than repairs.  See KB Home Buy-Backs
http://www.hobb.org/docs/KBcompensation.pdf
http://www.hobb.org/component/option,com_zoom/Itemid,468/catid,6/

Builders understand that homeowners mean business when they go to the trouble and expense of a public display of defective homes to the world, and that buying back the house and the transfer of ownership of the website is a prudent business decision.