Various media sources are regurgitating and giving spin to a GiGaom story that GoDaddy has quietly killed off its cloud computing web hosting plans less than a year after they were first introduced.  GoDaddy CIO Auguste Goldman has reputedly confirmed the decision in a statement saying: 

”We are focused on small and medium sized businesses (SMB) and SMBs don’t use this product the way we are offering it now. So, in the weeks ahead, it won’t be a stand-alone product in and of itself. However, we plan to continue developing cloud technology into our other hosted products. We will continue to support existing Cloud Server customers in a variety of ways.” 

TechRockies’s take on the story: 

It's unclear on why GoDaddy decided to move away from the cloud, however, the firm has traditionally served more small businesses rather than the enterprises who typically would use cloud computing offerings. 

GiGaom which did scoop the story goes on to provide commentary which borders on sensationalism: 

Perhaps web-hosting giant GoDaddy wasn't cut out to be a cloud computing provider after all. 

This type of decision is one of the classic risks of cloud computing, where a service might be here today and gone tomorrow. 

The WHIR speculation goes further and takes it to a whole new level ... 

For the hosting industry at large, the impact of Go Daddy’s decision to back out of the cloud server business could be interesting. The company’s lack of traction, and lack of success with that particular product could be taken as a sign that traditional shared hosting providers aren't equipped to compete in a cloud server market, where customers have different demands. 

Enough Already! Yellow media aside..

GoDaddy is a company with their ear very close to the ground. They have been very adept at pushing the limits without falling off the cliff.  Companies such as GoDaddy spend a lot of money on market research.

“We are focused on small and medium sized businesses (SMB) and SMBs don’t use this product the way we are offering it now.”

This latest news, rather than being a failure, may actually be an admission by GoDaddy of a miscalculation and mis-step in evaluating the direction the market was gravitating towards.

Minus all the bogus marketing hype, a cloud hosting platform, especially around scaling and load balancing, does have some real advantages over traditional shared hosting. But similar to an unmanaged Dedicated or Virtual Private Servers (VPS), cloud hosting requires a more technically savvy, adventurous type individual that is willing to expend the extra time and energy to achieve the intended results.

Most businesses could expect to experience no real benefit over traditional shared hosting. Not only would the technical aspects be daunting for some, but a possible distraction from running their actual business.

The GoDaddy statement appears to acknowledges this reality.

“it won’t be a stand-alone product in and of itself. However, we plan to continue developing cloud technology into our other hosted products”

Cloud does have some advantages. But in its present form, even with the numerous issues and concerns surrounding security, and data ownership resolved, it may not be a practical  solution for the average business owner on the internet.. 

So a more likely reason GoDaddy has modified their cloud hosting plans is the average John/Jane Doe doesn't want /need them!    

Or maybe the average entrepreneur thinks like Steve Wozniak, the co-founder of Apple

Recently Woznizk lamented the shift away from hard disks towards uploading data into remote servers. (editor’s 2 bits.. yes cloud hosting uses physical servers just like shared!)

"I really worry about everything going to the cloud," he said. "I think it's going to be horrendous. I think there are going to be a lot of horrible problems in the next five years."

He added: "With the cloud, you don't own anything. You already signed it away" through the legalistic terms of service with a cloud provider that computer users must agree to.

"I want to feel that I own things," Wozniak said. "A lot of people feel, 'Oh, everything is really on my computer,' but I say the more we transfer everything onto the web, onto the cloud, the less we're going to have control over it." 

Maybe they do but that would just be me speculating!

A recent report by BIA/Kelsey concluded that U.S. consumers will spend $3.6 billion this year for daily deals, up 87% from the prior year. The research firm estimates 23% growth for spending of deals in 2013, up to nearly $5.5 billion in 2016. The report analyzed and forecast the online deals space, with companies like Groupon and LivingSocial but excluded Ecommerce activity by companies offering daily deals.

How does a report about daily deals exclude Ecommerce activity by companies offering daily deals? Daily deals and steals like these offerings ...  

Flipper Host

Use Coupon Code : JURY20  and receive a further 20% Discount on Flipper Host’s already low prices!

Valid for all Plans including basic, standard, professional, premium, xpremium, xxpremium and includes all payment terms (monthly, quarterly, semi-annually, annually, bi-annually). This is Flipper Host’s first time ever direct discount of their VPS products.

 

720Leap 

Tylar over at 720Leap let us know that they has some great limited time offers for people to take advantage of while they’re revamping their website! 

Get the Lucky7 - Shared Hosting Plan for  a HostJury Deal and Steal Price of 9.00 per year using Coupon Code: Lucky7HJ

------------

LittleGuy - VPS Plan Priced at $25.00/year. Use Coupon Code: LittleGuyHJ at you'll get the package discounted to $20.00/year

 

BigRock

Use Coupon Code: OCTAFF to get .COM domains for $9.49 as well as 25% off on Web Hosting 

 

As always, HostJury recommend that while price may be a consideration when choosing a web host, it should only be one of the many factored into your research. Page load speeds, additional features, good communication, and a fast knowledgeable support team will always top saving a few cents per day... or in this case, a few bucks! As always, HostJury makes no recommendation or endorsement of any listed providers. Web hosts are presented in no particular order.  You are encouraged to practice due diligence.. and at some point leave a review of the services provided.

Coupons may also be found on review pages of many of the web hosts reviewed on HostJury. In the right column under the related blog post section. More coupons coming shortly!

Web hosts wishing to participate in HostJury's deals and steals are invited to contact us by email: feedback@hostjury.com   

Every once in awhile there is a commentator somewhere (likely on a blog!), who states that blogging has reached its peak and is in a decline. Blogging will soon fade into history. People now embrace social media utilities like Twitter, Facebook, the new Myspace.. well maybe not Myspace just yet, but Justin is working on changing that!

The headline grabs your attention:

“Kayaker, 19, disappears after going over waterfall” 

Described as a well-loved and experienced kayaker, a 19-year-old from Canmore is missing and presumed dead after an accident on a Whistler, B.C. river. 

Peter Thompson was paddling with others on the Cheakamus River in Whistler Friday when he went over a four-meter waterfall (sixteen feet) but did not resurface, said his good friend and kayaking pal Chris McTaggart, 26, who is left devastated.  “It’s was really a straightforward waterfall and he had run it twice the day before”. 

If ever a story compels you to want to know more, this is it.  Because Peter Thompson told his stories on blogger, we can! He described himself in his profile: 

I am 19 years old and am an avid Kayaker and skier. Living in Canmore Alberta I am in the perfect spot to get my extreme on all the time. I have been kayaking for 9 years and skiing for as long as I can remember. 

Thompson last post shared his anxiety and exhilaration tackling the 30-meter (100-foot) drop at the Ram Falls near Nordegg 

“Once I got to a certain point I knew there was no turning back and I recall saying to myself ‘there is no turning back now better enjoy it,... The free fall was awesome, the impact was super soft. I had a good line and came out at the bottom smiling. The boys both had good lines and we were all stoked to have fired up a drop like that.” 

Media accounts broadcast how Peter Thompson is presumed to have died.. but a blog tells how he lived!  

 

The Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada (OPC) is again seeking proposals for its Contributions Program 2013-14. The project is aimed at promoting privacy and the protection of personal information in the private sector. The Contributions Program promotes the advancement of privacy knowledge in Canada by funding independent privacy research and related knowledge translation initiatives. Since its inception, the Program has allocated approximately $3 million to nearly 90 initiatives in Canada, and is considered one of the foremost dedicated privacy-research funding programs in the world.

The OPC is inviting proposals that focus on its four priority areas: 1) identity integrity and privacy; 2) information technology and privacy; 3) genetic information and privacy; and 4) public safety and privacy.  However, the Office will also consider proposals in other areas related to privacy and protection of personal information in the private sector.

The Contributions Program places a strong emphasis on funding research that is meaningful for Canadians and that can be applied in concrete ways. Researchers are asked to integrate knowledge translation components into their project proposals, such as innovative approaches for engaging relevant stakeholders in the research process, disseminating research results and facilitating the application of results by potential end-users.

Some of the projects funded last year included:

• An analysis of the scope of voluntary information sharing by private enterprises in law enforcement investigations into cybercrime;
• The development of a series of in-depth news reports and other informational tools for French radio and web sites that provide practical information about protecting personal information;
• An interactive mapping tool to help Canadians better understand cloud computing and its impact on their personal information;
• An investigation of smartphone applications and the risks to end-user privacy.
• A report on the positive and negative privacy implications of using information technology in situations involving domestic violence, sexual violence and stalking.

Organizations interested in generating new ideas, approaches and knowledge about privacy can learn more about and how to apply at OPC Contributions Program. All proposals will be evaluated on the basis of merit.  The maximum amount that can be awarded for any single project is $50,000 and a maximum of $100,000 can be awarded per organization. All proposals must be submitted by November 30, 2012. 

VPS.net has announced that they are giving away an F1 Dream Vacation for two including First Class airfare, four nights of 5 Star Hotel accommodations , limousine service and two VIP F1 Paddock Club passes to the United States Grand Prix. The winner will also gets $250 in cold hard cash!. Winner will be announced on November 1st. The mini dream vacation in Austin Texas is scheduled for November 16-18, 2012.

To enter the contest

VPS.net will give one entry for every dollar spent on any of their hosting products between September 1 and October 31, 2012. (Cloud Server, Cloud Hosting, Hosted Apps and elastic VPS product lines).

For those determined to gain some extra advantage, VPS.net clients or those wishing they were (non clients can participate and are eligible to win), can use Twitter and Facebook for score some additional extra entries: For each pre-written tweet, users will receive ten entries and for participating on Facebook, users will receive 20 entries.

Full contest rules can be found here. 

Want more..

Mention in your tweets that you read about the contest on @HostJury and if you win we’ll throw in a extra $100 in cold hard cash!

Still more..

If you win and tweet a picture from Austin on race day holding a sign saying "HostJury.com", we’ll give you another $150.00

(editors note: the extra cash is strictly from HostJury and is not sanctioned by VPS.net.. but what do you care.. its cash!)

What are you waiting for... Start Tweeting!

ABOUT VPS.NET

VPS.NET is a division of the UK2Group, which provides domain registration and web hosting services to thousands of customers globally through its family of hosting brands - UK2.net, midPhase.com, WestHost.com, 100TB.com, Anhosting.com, Resell.biz, and VI.net. VPS.NET is committed to providing secure and reliable products and services underpinned with excellent support. VPS.NET operates one of the largest cloud hosting systems in the world. It offers affordable cloud hosting to everyday users, while giving enterprise users the flexibility they need to adequately scale, and handle their growing IT demands. 

 

GoDaddy has announced that effective November 2, 2012, Java (not JavaScript) will no longer be available on servers. In a short statement posted in their support forums, GoDaddy states: 

“Quite frankly, customers using Java deserve more flexibility than what we offer in a shared hosting environment.  

Clients running JavaScript on their website will not have an issue. The change is most likely to affect developers who utilize a Java framework. GoDaddy recommends clients requiring Java should consider moving their site(s) to Virtual Private Server (VPS) or Dedicated Hosting, before November 2, 2012.

The ability to install Java (or any other script) on a Virtual Private Server or dedicated server does make them viable options. Still neither will offer the simplicity of use, or the cost effectiveness of a shared hosting environment. Unless a user opts for the more expensive managed plan, both VPS and Dedicated Servers require the client to install, update, and troubleshoot their own scripts,  as well as monitor security.

GoDaddy also states: 

“Shared hosting is not ideal for Java Enterprise hosting because multiple customers share the same services powering Java.” 

While true that using a dedicated server setup ensures you are not sharing the server resources with everyone else in the neighborhood, the same can not be said regarding Virtual Private Servers. VPS users may be better isolated from the other users on the server but they are still on the same server. Users are limited by the overall server resources similar to a shared hosting configuration.

And like shared hosting, many web hosting providers have chosen to maximize their returns by overselling their services!

For clients affected by GoDaddy decision on your behalf.. HostJury offers a few suggestions of providers continuing to offer Java shared hosting.

JavaPipe

 

OnlineCares

 

 

4Java

HostJury contacted 4Java and they have not responded. You may want to check the reviews on this one prior to making a plunge!   

For those willing to make the jump...

GoDaddy's Dedicated or VPS 

 

As always, HostJury makes no recommendation or endorsement of any listed providers. Web hosts are presented in no particular order.  You are encouraged to practice due diligence.. and at some point leave a review of the services provided. 

 

Jeff Lyon, CEO of Black Lotus, puts the 'Low' in Black Lotus by spamming competitor's clients.
Inadvertently it seems many clients of the ddos mitigation service provider Staminus ended up on the maiing list of Black Lotus this past week. Jeff Lyon, CEO of Black Lotus responded publicly on the popular web hosting forum Webhostingtalk that he's "addressing the matter with our e-mail vendor who has launched and completed an investigation".

The thread is available for your perusal here: Black Lotus sending spam
In one private email to a complaint, Mr. Lyon responded that the user should "do the citizens of California a favor and remove the tin foil hat."

Perhaps next Black Lotus could offer a lucrative spam mitigation service in light of their newfound familiarity with sending unsolicited spam.

We've included an image capture from one user of part of the message:

A post written by Dave Lee, ceo/founder of GP Apps, caught my attention earlier today. Dave writes how he  signed up for Tiny Post about 10 months ago, created a few posts and then promptly forgot about the app as he “just never found a use for it.”

Dave then communicates in great detail how beginning on August 31 he began receiving emails from Tiny Post informing him how a number of individuals were either liking his posts or following him stalker style. (okay so he never used the word Stalker). Finding it a little incredulous that someone, never mind several someones would take a fancy to his Tiny Post creations, Dave Lee investigated further.

Lee posts screenshots along with some commentary: 

“So here are the profiles of the 5 people liking my posts.  These are definitely fake accounts set up by Tiny Post and is a flat out shady practice.  They’re tricking users into thinking these are real people, and that real people are liking and following them.  Not cool.  I even gave them the benefit of the doubt thinking maybe these 5 people are the founders, but they’re nowhere to be found on their team page.” 

David Lee does provide an update that softens his initial conjecture: 

There’s a lively discussion on Hacker News regarding this post.  A couple users pointed out that I shouldn’t jump to the conclusion that Tiny Post is orchestrating this themselves.  It could be a third party who’s set up a bot to follow users so they can gain more followers.  end

As I navigate to the Tiny Post website the adage “the only bad news is no news” crosses my mind.  Lee had commented on the difficulty experienced by startups getting off the ground as a social site. Without activity, users don’t find value.  But without users, you get no activity.  David Lee’s post was generating activity!

An initial thought on Tiny Post.. a great idea that should be continually gaining traction! My second thought "who are these people using for a web host". As I tried to scroll down, the site was “almost” frustrating. (I’m being nice.. I have zero patience!) .  The whois record shows GoDaddy as the domain register and the site running on Amazon Web Services nameservers.

I then ran a test using GTmetrix.

 

Google was being proactive incorporating web site speed into the search ranking algorithm. Google understood the demands of users. Any attention for Tiny Post, good or otherwise will attract potential users.  My first reaction to Tiny Post.. good. The second thought should have been how do I sign up!

It seems that just about every day there is some webhost from somewhere tweeting or blogging about how they’ve just made some list profiling the best of the best..  like the INK 5000 list.. (bet you’re thinking thats a typo!).  Leaving the story about web hosts and their fake bling for another post/day, there is one list that is published annually that does come with a fair amount of acclaim. Forbes 400 Richest Americans.

This year's list has all the usual tech giants from MicroSoft, Google, Oracle, Amazon, Apple, Linkin, Aol, Yahoo, Netscape, and EBay, PayPal, and Facebook. It goes without saying that the tech industry is well represented on Forbes gazillionaire list!

A couple on the list in particular caught my eye. Their fortunes came from web hosting.

GoDaddy Founder Bob Parsons

Which Forbes Lists

#311 Forbes 400
#854 Forbes Billionaires

At a Glance

• Age: 61
• Source of Wealth: Web hosting, Self-made
• Residence: Scottsdale, AZ
• Country of Citizenship: United States
• Education: Bachelor of Arts / Science, University of Baltimore
• Marital Status: Married

 

Forbes profile of GoDaddy founder Bob Parsons states that he sold the majority of the web hosting provider in 2011 to private equity investors KKR, Silver Lake and TCV in a deal that valued the firm at more than $2 billion. Parsons, who received an estimated $930 million in cash, remains the largest individual shareholder and is executive chairman of the firm, which has more than 5 million hosting websites, 10.5 million customers and 53 million domain names.

Bob is also an avid motorcyclist, he also owns Go AZ Motorcycles, Arizona's largest motorcycle dealership, which is based in Scottsdale. He and his wife Renee created the Parsons Foundation in 2012, which is primarily focused on helping children in greater Phoenix area and in Haiti. They gave $5 million including a $1.5 million matching grant to the Southwest Center for HIV/AIDS, and $1 million to his alma mater, University of Baltimore, to establish a new professorship specializing in digital communication.

A Vietnam vet who received three medals during his tour including the Purple Heart, he graduated magna cum laude with an accounting degree and in 1984 started a software company in his basement, writing the computer programs himself. He sold that company, Parsons Technology, to Intuit for $64 million and used the proceeds to start Go Daddy.

Interesting stats. To most common folk Bob Parsons is better known for the racy Super Bowl ads (including the less sanitized versions of the ads that appear only online), sponsorship of Nascar's Danica Patrick, and his act of philanththropy with African farmers being bothered by elephants. Oh, and lets not forget cheap domain names!

RackSpace’s Graham Weston

Which Forbes Lists

#360 Forbes 400

At a Glance 

• Age: 48
• Source of Wealth: Web hosting, Self-made
• Residence: New Braunfels, TX
• Country of Citizenship: United States
• Education: Bachelor of Arts / Science, Texas A&M University
• Marital Status: Married
• Children: 3

 

Born into a San Antonio-area ranching family, Graham Weston took photos at livestock shows in high school and sold them to contestants. During college at Texas A&M, he made money helping people appeal their property-tax bills. Later he built a mall.

Weston was successful enough that 3 local college students asked him in 1998 to invest in their Web-hosting business. Rackspace.com. (editor's note: are there any web hosting companies not started by college kids!) He liked it so much he joined as CEO. He gave up that position in 2006 but is now chairman and still the largest shareholder in the $8 billion (market cap) outfit.

Weston supports various science and education projects in and around San Antonio, including a computer terminal at the public library where students can see the view from a ship exploring the ocean's floor.

That's pretty cool!

 

 

 

The Miss Hong Kong beauty pageant's attempt for online voting,  American Idol style, was thwarted after attackers yet to be revealed,  brought down the broadcaster's polling system. TVB has set up a team to investigate the alleged cyberattack, which forced a panel of judges to pick the winner.

In an ugly turn, Hong Kong’s netizens condemned the judges' first place choice and others complained to the Communications Authority. Tracy Chu Chin-suet, the public's hot favorite to become Miss Hong Kong, landed second runner-up while Carat Cheung Ming-nga, who was earlier named Miss International Goodwill, was chosen Miss Hong Kong. She will compete for the Miss World title next year.

Initial investigations revealed there were millions of page-hits during the pageant, suggesting a Denial of Service  attack said a spokesman of Microsoft, which provided technical support for TVB for the event.

Microsoft, whose Azure platform was used to power TVB's poll, released a statement claiming that although its cloudy product was not affected, there does appear to have been some foul play:

From the findings of the initial investigation, our engineers identified some unusual data traffic targeting the TVB fun application in the operating records of the related voting system. Within the 15-minute voting period, the system already recorded unusual data traffic which was many times higher than the original expectation. This was substantially higher than the total number of people watching the program and also the total population of Hong Kong.

We therefore have grounds to suspect that the application was attacked by malicious hackers, causing abnormal disruption in the operation of the application and thus the subsequent uploading of related data to the cloud system for further processing.

TVB's deputy director for external affairs Tsang Sing-ming apologized for the blunder. Tsang claimed that the station had expected half a million viewers to vote during the 10-minute slot from 10.45pm to 10.55pm on Sunday, but the traffic exceeded the server's capacity.

No one appears to be focusing on another possible scenario that may have factored into the crash... to attract viewers to vote on Sunday the organizers were giving away a Mini Cooper to one randomly selected voter.

"We will announce another contest related to the pageant for the viewers in a couple of days to give away the prize," Tsang said.  Microsoft may have a chance to redeem Azure yet.. I can hardly wait!

 

A while back, HostJury decided  that adopting the secret shopper model was a grand way to provide more indepth reviews of web hosting provider, while remaining true to the concept of "giving the users the ability to recommend and review their web hosting provider to other users and to share real hosting reviews".  So after a couple of false starts the concept appears to be catching on. HostJury will begin posting secret shopper reviews in the coming weeks.

HostJury is looking for more people to document their experiences getting online. The process is simple. Just let us know the type of website/blog you envision and we'll provide the names of 3 web hosts that meet the requirements to host your site. Not happy with your existing host.. you qualify as a secret shopper also and can have your website moved from the existing web host. Your review post would include a paragraph on why your former host just wasn't working for you!

As the secret shopper, you will document questions, responses, and speed of each web host's sales departments. Once you settle on which host has provided the best options, sign up for a year of service. Again document and rate the sign up process as well as the ease/ complexity of getting your website online, including the responsiveness of their support staff.

Write a short post (500-1000 words) detailing your foray into cyberspace, the shortcomings, the awesomeness.. and a conclusion that reviews the overall experience to HostJury readers.

Q) Does this have to be my first website?
A) Absolutely not. You can be a secret shopper for any number of websites. We do require the websites to be functional, developed, and being utilized at the end of the trial period.

Q) How long is the trial period?
A) 90 Days provides a sufficient period of time to reasonably rate and review the web host services. The trial period also provides adequate time to add content to your website, encounter issues such as downtime, initiate support inquires and requests, as well as generate traffic for your site.

Q) What if the web host I choose really sucks?
A) Well that would be a story in of itself ;)
We are not suckers for punishment and don't expect our secret shoppers to endure torture either. It will allow you to document in your post the refund process or lack there off.

Q) How much $ do I get paid?
A) The minimum is the cost paid by you for a year of web hosting. Well written, thorough, as well as entertaining reviews, will be paid a premium bonus amount equal to the amount paid for the year of web hosting.

Q) So how do I apply to be a HostJury secret shopper?
A) Send us an email : feedback@hostjury.com to begin shopping!

For those who like to write other type stuff:

"There was once a young man, in his youth, his desire was to become a great writer.

When asked to define great, he said, "I want to write stuff that the whole world will read, stuff that people will react to on a truly emotional level, stuff that will make them scream, cry, howl in pain and anger!"

He now works for Microsoft writing error messages..........

 

 

Some may question why HostJury would include offerings from Go-Daddy in the daily deal and steal section. Isn’t GoDaddy always offering some form of special as part of their marketing strategy?

In a word “yes”

Yesterday numerous (likely millions) of Go Daddy clients, as well as clients of other web hosts (read peons, geeks, and nerds), that utilize Go Daddy’s DNS servers had their sites taken offline. We are not the paypals, or Hollywood, or the music industry, or governments. We are the individuals that make up the internet and transform it into what it has become. A part of our identity, and our culture. A force for change.

Yesterday one dude claims it was in his power to threaten “the internet”

And that can’t be right. With power comes responsibility. When “powers hungry types” have attempted to regain their control, the web fights back. We cheer, tweet, blog, march in the streets, get arrested.  September 11th.. how fitting!

Your website does not need to be hosted by GoDaddy to take advantage of these offers! 

SPECIAL OFFER! .COMs just C$5.99* per year up to 5 domains!

 

click image to open link on new page

 

SPECIAL OFFER! SSL Certificates only $12.99 

 

click image to open link on new page 

According to many customers, email and sites hosted by web host and domain registrar GoDaddy are down. According to the official GoDaddy Twitter account the company is aware of the issue and is working to resolve it.

 

                  VS

 

It appears Anonymous is claiming responsibility on Twitter for GoDaddy's woes.

First Round by a unanimous decision.. Anonymous

On a serious note, many webbies secretly cheer Anonymous on when they are mucking with those sympathic to the government's mandate. But when you take millions of websites offline you risk alienating the peons doing the cheering!

Waiting for either an Anonymous pastebin update, or the GoDaddy status update!

Updates

GoDaddy:  “Services began to be restored for the bulk of affected customers at 2:43 pm PT.  At no time was any sensitive customer information, such as credit card data, passwords or names and addresses, compromised. We will provide an additional update within the next 24 hours.  We want to thank our customers for their patience and support. ” 

it's not Anonymous coletive the attack is coming just from me 

It is not Anonymous coletive it's only me don't use Anonymous coletive name on it , just my name 

Updated Again!

Go Daddy Site Outage Investigation Completed

Yesterday, GoDaddy.com and many of our customers experienced intermittent service outages starting shortly after 10 a.m. PDT. Service was fully restored by 4 p.m. PDT.  

The service outage was not caused by external influences. It was not a "hack" and it was not a denial of service attack (DDoS). We have determined the service outage was due to a series of internal network events that corrupted router data tables. Once the issues were identified, we took corrective actions to restore services for our customers and GoDaddy.com. 

We have implemented measures to prevent this from occurring again.   At no time was any customer data at risk or were any of our systems compromised.     Throughout our history, we have provided 99.999% uptime in our DNS infrastructure.

This is the level our customers expect from us and the level we expect of ourselves.

We have let our customers down and we know it.   We take our business and our customers' businesses very seriously. We apologize to our customers for these events and thank them for their patience.  

- Scott Wagner   Go Daddy Interim CEO

Round Two anyone? 

Unlike other web hosting review sites we don't want to give you our opinionated view of web hosting providers- we want to give you, the user, the ability to recommend and review your web hosting provider to other users and to share your real hosting reviews. Do you use GoDaddy.. leave your thoughts on this outage!

 

The arrest of an anti-corruption cartoonist in India on charges of sedition has sparked criticism. Aseem Trivedi is being held in the city of Mumbai for his cartoons allegedly mocking the Indian constitution. He was also charged with insulting the national flag and remanded into police custody until 16 September.

India's media and prominent citizens have condemned Mr Trivedi's arrest, calling it a "wrongful act". Sedition is a non-bailable offence in India. Assad was also charged under the IT Act and the 1971 National Emblem Act. 

Update: The Bombay High Court says that Aseem Trivedi can be released on bail if he pays 5,000 rupees ($90; £67). Trivedi has said he will not hire a lawyer or apply for bail himself until the charges are dropped. ;)

 

Earlier, the website carrying Aseem Trivedi's anti-corruption cartoons were banned by the police in Mumbai. Aseem Trivedi is a co- recipient of this year Courage in Editorial Cartooning Award, along with  Syrian cartoonist Ali Ferzat . HostJury wrote an earlier post about Syrian cartoonist Ali Ferzat, who was abducted and badly beaten in August, 2011

When Aseem Trivedi exhibited similar cartoons at an India Against Corruption rally in December 2011 at the MMRDA grounds it appears his website was immediately banned. CARTOONSAGAINSTCORRUPTION.COM was reportedly suspended after a complaint was filed by a Mumbai-based lawyer. The web host and domain registrar of CARTOONS AGAINST CORRUPTION, BigRock, reportedly suspended Assad’s website in reaction to the complaint.

At the time, The Times of India reported: 

That when cartoonist Aseem Trivedi's was told that his website could not be accessed anymore, he initially brushed it off as a connection issue. The Kanpur-based professional cartoonist was busy exhibiting his political cartoons in the anti-corruption protest at the MMRDA grounds in Mumbai. 

It was only on Dec 27th, the next day, when he received an email from BigRock, the domain name registrar with which his website was registered, that he realized what was wrong. "We have received a complaint from Crime Branch, Mumbai against domain name 'cartoonsagainstcorruption.com' for displaying objectionable pictures and texts related to flag and emblem of India. Hence we have suspended the domain name and its associated services," the mail read. 

In a later report TOI, BigRock general manager Shashank Mehrotra is quoted as saying: 

"We received a complaint from the Mumbai Crime Branch and acted on it after evaluating the website according to our own 'acceptable use policy'. We found the material on it to be lewd."  

The ban on the website initiated a hot debate over in India. Reporters Without Borders wrote in their report about India: 

The national security policy of the world’s largest democracy is undermining online freedom of expression and Internet users’ privacy. The authorities have already clamped down on several mainly file-sharing and streaming websites without any ruling on the illegality of such actions. Anti-corruption cartoonist Aseem Trivedi saw his website, “Cartoons Against Corruption,” which features humorous anti-corruption drawings suspended by his hosting company in late 2011. 

The Committee to Protect Journalists also stated in a report: 

The case of a cartoonist charged with treason and offending India's national sentiments reflects a growing debate over what constitutes freedom of expression in India." 

The cartoons which are grouped under the title, “cartoons against corruption” often feature derogatory depictions of politicians such as Digvijaya Singh and the Prime Minister. One cartoon depicts the national Ashoka emblem as three wolves dripping blood from their jaws, with the title, “wolves with the signs of danger”. Trivedi's cartoon have depicted Parliament as a commode and showed the national emblem with wolves instead of lions.

 

Aseem Trivedi is also a founding member of Save Your Voice, the movement against internet censorship in India. The website for this organization, saveyourvoice.in, is presently residing on web host BigRock servers.

HostJury requested a comment from BigRock management regarding the suspension of CARTOONS AGAINST CORRUPTION. An initial response came back minutes later that the questions had been forwarded to the responsible contact. A short time later HostJury received a follow up response from Shashank Mehrotra, the General Manager & Business Head, BigRock acknowledging receipt of  our request for information. 

I want to quickly acknowledge the note/set of questions you sent us about cartoonsagainstcorruption.com. Because of the time zones, it is very late here. I will send you a set of detailed responses explaining our actions, AUP, and position on this tomorrow. 

Impressive response timing BigRock .. indeed, we at HostJury are very impressive!

(Editor's note. The following response points out a number of questions or issues around legal responsibilties of web hosts. HostJury will address these bigger issue in a separate post and provide a link in the coming days)  

Big Rock Response

I’m sharing below some notes and background on this. 

1. BigRock is a domain name registrar and hosting business which is a part of the Directi group of companies. Collectively our businesses make us one  the largest global registrar entities – powering over 7 million domains. We play an active role in detecting, managing, and mitigating abuse, spam, child pornography, pharmacy spam, and fraudulent activity on the Internet and have worked for many years with a number of cross border law enforcement agencies, industry groups working to mitigate abuse, and other interested parties in making the Internet safer and more secure. Our work has won us commendations from various agencies and working groups – including the FBI and the Mariposa Working Group to name a few.
2. BigRock is the domain registrar for the domain: cartoonsagainstcorrpution.com. We were not the web hosting provider for this domain name. We are also not an ISP as suggested in previous media reports.
3. BigRock received a government notice from the Cyber Police Station, Crime Branch, C.I.D, Mumbai on 27th December, 2011. This notice asked us to remove the website content pointed to by this domain name with immediate effect.
4. We suspended the domain name, which is the action available to us as a domain registrar, as per our rights and obligations under our Domain Registrant Policy which forms part of our acceptable use policy which is quoted & highlighted below. The registrant was informed of our actions thereafter.
5. Our Domain Registrant Policy references “applicable laws, government rules or regulations, requests of law enforcement”. We acted under the aegis of various laws including the Indian Information Technology Intermediaries Guidelines 2011, a link to which can be found here: www.mit.gov.in/sites/upload_files/dit/files/GSR314E_10511(1).pdf.
6. BigRock is committed to the security and service of all its customers, its technology platform, and to obey the law of the land.  BigRock does not censor or moderate content. We are however committed to take necessary action where required to disable content in violation of our acceptable usage policy and local and/or international law which is a commonly accepted norm amongst Internet companies who serve, host, or facilitate the publishing of online content.
7. I am pointing you to the following independent blog post which has a detailed analysis of this case. We have no nexus with this blogger and are not offering any comments on its contents but want to highlight this as an independent opinion on some of intricacies involved: http://www.iltb.net/2012/01/cartoons-against-corruption-how-the-law-aids-web-censorship/ 

BigRock Domain Registrant Policy (between the Customer (registrant) and BigRock (registrar)) 

URL - http://www.bigrock.in/support/legal.php?requestfor=registraragreement&from=agree_page

4 (1)(5). RIGHTS OF REGISTRAR, REGISTRY OPERATOR AND SERVICE PROVIDERS
(5) Notwithstanding anything to the contrary, Registrar, Registry Operator and Service Providers, in their sole discretion, expressly reserve the right to without notice or refund, delete, suspend, deny, cancel, modify, take ownership of or transfer the Order, or to modify, upgrade, suspend, freeze OrderBox, or to publish, transmit, share data in the OrderBox Database with any person or entity, or to contact any entity in the OrderBox Database, in order to recover any Payment from the Registrant, Customer or Resellers, for any service rendered by Registrar including services rendered outside the scope of this agreement for which the Registrant, Customer or Reseller has been notified and requested to remit payment, or to correct mistakes made by Registrar, Registry Operator or Service Providers in processing or executing the Order, or incase of any breach of this Agreement, or incase Registrar learns of a possibility of breach or violation of this Agreement which Registrar in its sole discretion determines to be appropriate, or incase of Termination of this agreement, or if Registrar learns of any such event which Registrar reasonably determines would lead to Termination of this Agreement or would constitute as Breach thereof, or to protect the integrity and stability of the Registrar Products, OrderBox, and the Registry or to comply with any applicable laws, government rules or requirements, requests of law enforcement, or in compliance with any dispute resolution process, or in accordance/compliance with any agreements executed by Registrar including but not limited to agreements with Service Providers, and/or Registry Operator, and/or Customers and/or Resellers, or to avoid any liability, civil or criminal, on the part of Registrar and/or Service Providers, and/or the Registry Operator, as well as their affiliates, subsidiaries, officers, directors and employees, or if the Registrant and/or Agents or any other authorized representatives of the Registrant violate any applicable laws/government rules/usage policies, including but not limited to, intellectual property, copyright, patent, anti-spam, Phishing (identity theft), Pharming (DNS hijacking), distribution of virus or malware, child pornography, using Fast Flux techniques, running Botnet command and control, Hacking (illegal access to another computer or network), network attacks, money laundering schemes (Ponzi, Pyramid, Money Mule, etc.), illegal pharmaceutical distribution, or Registrar learns of the possibility of any such violation or upon appropriate authorization (what constitutes appropriate authorization is at the sole discretion of Registrar) from the Registrant or Customer or Reseller or their authorized representatives, or if Registrar, Registry Operator or Service Providers in their sole discretion determine that the information associated with the Order is inaccurate, or has been tampered with, or has been modified without authorization, or if Registrar or Service Providers in their sole discretion determine that the ownership of the Order should belong to another entity, or if Reseller/Customer/Registrant does not comply with any applicable terms and conditions, standards, policies, procedures, and practices laid down by Registrar, Service Providers, ICANN, the Registrar, the Registry Operator or for any appropriate reason. Registrar or Registry Operator, also reserve the right to freeze the Order during resolution of a dispute. The Registrant agrees that Registrar, Registry Operator and Service Providers, and the contractors, employees, directors, officers, representatives, agents and affiliates, of Registrar, Registry Operator and Service Providers, are not liable for loss or damages that may result from any of the above.

I hope this gives you the answers you need. My team and I are here if you have more questions. Thanks for reaching out. 

Shashank Mehrotra

General Manager & Business Head, BigRock 

 

Web host SiteGround first made a brief appearance on HostJury’s top rated host list earlier this year, before dropping back off, then reappearing again. Since that time, SiteGround has steadily climbed higher through the ranking. As we've done in the past, HJ decided to take a closer look at some of the inner workings of this company.

As detailed in the SiteGround company blog, what began as “simply not wanting to waste a few tickets we had”, quickly turned into a project to increase the company’s support of the Open Source communities. SiteGround has sponsored, and supported (as well as attended) a number of events like JoomlaDays and WordCamps all over the world.

SiteGround also got some press in recent days for their new user area. The redeveloped portal is designed to helps customers carry out administration and get the most from their hosting, including exclusive features that are not available in a web hosting control panel.

HostJury contacted SiteGround and asked if they’d mind answering a few questions about where they’ve been, and maybe where they want to go.

Possibly Levan Apriashvili, SiteGround’s Customer Care Supervisor may have had a different notion of what constitutes “a few questions”,  but none the less he was a good sport and did fabulous!

HJ: Please tell us a little about SiteGround, historically speaking.

Levan: SiteGround was founded back in 2004, by a small team of a few people with some experience in web hosting and a few others with no experience whatsoever in the industry but with tons of enthusiasm. Today, 8 years later, we all have learned a lot and have become one of the most technologically advanced shared hosting companies. We employ more than 80 people and we serve more than 250000 domains.

HJ: Since SiteGround was launched, what are some of the biggest lessons that you have learned?

Levan: I would say there are two really important lessons we have learned. First, we learned to look for our own technological solutions where other hosting companies would never imagine such can be found. We are proud to have invented unique technologies like the account isolation on a shared server, or the multiple versions of PHP available on a single server.

The second lesson we learned is that the success on our company depends on the success of each of our customers. So we invest a lot in helping each person and our customer service goes well beyond what a standard hosting company support would ever do.

HJ: What would you consider as your accomplishments up to this point?

Levan: Accomplishment… we consider any happy customer as an achievement, any new project as an accomplishment, any positive customer feedback as a success.

One of the main things SiteGround has always stood for is bringing open source applications to the end users and showing them how easily they can both use those scripts and contribute to the community. Open source is freedom and that freedom should be shared by all of us on the web. It is amazing how easy it is to start a blog with WordPress and how much you can earn online with a e-store build with Magento.  

But maybe from all the open source applications Joomla has always been the biggest inspiration to us and we will keep on spreading the word and doing the best we can to sustain the optimal environment for it.

HJ: Any failures you’d like to tell us about?

Levan: As a company with more than 8 years of experience and one of the top webhost worldwide, sure we have failures :) That is how we grew and became stronger. We do not deny failure and we take responsibility for it, everyone fails at something. But what we cannot accept is not trying at all.

Our biggest failure was internally called “Terminator 2”, anyone in the office knows that story, thank god our customers don’t ;) It did not affected our end users, at least not all of them and not permanently.

It was a newly launched internal system for terminating inactive hosting accounts. It was supposed to free up space and automate manual work. Well… after the launch it turned out that it cannot be controlled quite well and it went ahead and terminated a few active accounts. After a manual restore and the whole staff working overtime, we were able to fix everything.

Then… on the next day, guess what? – at the crack of dawn ”Terminator 2” was back and did exactly the same thing once again :)

(editor's note: cute story Levan.. love that shameless little plug about " top webhost worldwide".. it's a big world but you're getting there!)

HJ: Maybe this will have the same response but If you had to go back and change anything, what would top your list?

Levan: I think the question #4 about covers it :) so we might skip this one if you don't mind.

HJ: Can you talk about how SiteGround has powered its marketing efforts? What role does has social media played?

Levan: The majority of our clients have always come from referrals. When people like something and are happy with it they tend to spread the word. The social media serves as a natural accelerator and broadcasts the word of mouth to a wider range of people.

The thing about social media is that it always finds a way to rule out the bad from the good. For us it has always been great to have a supportive and happy community.

HJ: How has growth been? Has it met your expectations? Do you oversell?

Levan: We have certainly grown quite a bit. The two new offices we launched are housing an expanding staff and we will keep on hiring more people whenever our clients need more hands on deck.

We are not a start up company anymore, so we have quite a good idea about our growth patterns and the hardware is always set up before it is actually needed.  So we are never in a situation to put more customers on one server, just because the next is not ready.

Otherwise, I do not think overselling has anything to do with the size of a company. You can have a single server with ten customers on it and still if you know that your server is actually good for 8 customers you will be overselling. Being such freaks about website speed, security and uptime, as we are, overselling is completely out of question. We would never make a compromise with the quality of our service.

HJ: Tell us about your control panel, is it based on cPanel?

Levan: We do provide cPanel, but it is actually a part of a larger customer postal: our User Area, which was recently completely redesigned. So  apart from the vast functionality for managing each single hosting account that the cPanel offers we add the freedom of managing multiple accounts and domain names, all billing and support issues from a single place.

HJ: Does SiteGround manage any other brands in its fold?

Levan: Not yet, but we do have some ambitions plans :)

HJ: How active is the SiteGround community and does your business benefit from it?

Levan: We are very happy with the way our community support us. People will forever remain the driving force of this industry and we never forgot that giving back is also important.

We have a lot of fun, and always share it with our followers and fans. There have been numerous gifts as well as specials on holidays where everyone can be part of the scene. The greatest benefit is that you can read, see and listen to the feedback of the people who you work for. When they are satisfied, we are as well.

HJ: In my work, I view the offerings from various web hosts on a daily basis. They all appear to offer similar services and claim the exact same features set them apart from their counterparts. Resisting the urge to say “service” or “price”, what sets SiteGround apart from its competition?

Levan: I would say heart. That’s what makes us different. Heart is needed to be really passionate about what we do, heart is needed to be patient and to understand the needs of the people and heart is needed to overcome difficulties that most of the others consider inherent for the industry.

That is exactly what drives us to seek perfection and ensures server security and reliability though hours and hours of hard work and determination as well as a level of customer service that can only be achieved when you truly care for your customers.

HJ: What’s next for SiteGround? Can you talk about any new features in the pipeline?

Levan: There are many :) We have been nothing but ambitious all the way through and will continue to innovate and define what a hosting company should be.

Now that we have redesigned the user areas for our clients, a brand new site design is coming along as well. We have also planned several technological innovations for the next few months that will redefine what speed means in the shared hosting industry. Stayed tuned there is always something cooking in SiteGround! :)

Levan may "escalate" any future inquiries from HostJury (it was only 12 Q's), but for the record, our inquery to SiteGround received very prompt responses.

Clients of SiteGround can share and review their experinces here!  

 

 

When HostJury floated the idea of having daily (or almost daily) specials offered from various hosts, we were not quite sure what the reaction would be from the web hosting community.  Arguably, web hosting is a pretty competitive marketplace with many companies already offering some pretty cut rate pricing.. could HostJury really succeed in its goal to have “real deals” let alone “steals”.

So when Randy from fastSERV offered us today “steal”, even we were impressed with the direction this is going!  Enjoy folks because these will not last long!


click image to open link to this special offer in new window

fastSERV really ups the ante on todays deals and steals with some surplus X3450 servers for just $99 bucks per month!

CPU: X3450 - RAM: 8GB - DISK: 1 x 500GB HD - BW: 10TB - Managed Support

So just in case you missed that.. this special fastSERV deal is for managed servers!

Price = $99/mo Use Coupon Code: hostjury

Some conditions and limitations may apply but it is indeed limited... when they are gone, they are gone!

As always, HostJury recommend that while price may be a consideration when choosing a web host, it should only be one of the many factored into your research. Page load speeds, additional features, good communication, and a fast knowledgeable support team will always top saving a few cents per day... or in this case, a few bucks! As always, HostJury makes no recommendation or endorsement of any listed providers. Web hosts are presented in no particular order.  You are encouraged to practice due diligence.. and at some point leave a review of the services provided.

Coupons may also be found on review pages of many of the web hosts reviewed on HostJury. In the right column under the related blog post section. More coupons coming shortly!

Web hosts wishing to participate in HostJury's deals and steals are invited to contact us by email: feedback@hostjury.com   

HostJury posts daily (or almost daily) special offerings and deals from various hosts. You’ll have to act fast as all these deals will be very limited in their durations.


click image to open in new window

 

OneProvider/BSN Servers has released its completed OneCloud™ infrastructure which allows you to open/close VPS nodes in one of our 12 VPS locations (and growing) through your own OnePanel admin.

Use Promo code: JURY50

*Conditions and Limitations may apply.

 

 

click image to open in new window

 

RackMountain B U S I N E S S package comes with plenty of perks to ensure your website runs efficiently
Monthly price $10.95 less $2.00 using “hostjury09” promo code.

Offer valid until September 10, 2012

Features like:
50GB disk space
300GB bandwidth
cPanel
Linux OS
SiteBuilder
Softaculous script installer and more.
Monthly price $10.95 less $2.00 using “hostjury09” promo code. Offer valid untill September 10, 2012

Conditions and Limitations may apply

As always, HostJury recommend that while price may be a consideration when choosing a web host, it should only be one of the many factored into your research. Page load speeds, additional features, good communication, and a fast knowledgeable support team will always top saving a few cents per day... And as always, HostJury makes no recommendation or endorsement of the listed providers. The web hosts are presented in no particular order.  You are encourage to practice due diligence.. and at some point leave a review of the services provided.
But really.. saving some greenbacks (or any other color of money)  is a great way to celebrate humpday!

Coupons may also be found on review pages of many of the web hosts reviewed on HostJury. In the right column under the related blog post section. More coupons coming shortly!

Web hosts wishing to participate in HostJury's deals and steals are invited to contact us by email: feedback@hostjury.com   

As the dreams of grandeur and easy money wane like the passing of summer, for many now defunct web hosts all that remains is a quiet and less than dignified burial in the HostJury deadpool.  Not all defunct web hosts can be accused of the “take the money and run” operandus. Many conscientious web hosts notify their clients of impending changes in a responsible manner. Others make an arrangement that allows for the orderly transfer of clients to another web hosting company. The former, the ones that take their clients into a Hades like place get special attention and usually get have their obituaries written in a separate post! These hosts appear to have just quietly slipped away!

So without further adieu, the most recent additions to the HostJury deadpool...

bdswitchserver

"With reliability, experience, customer support as well as uptime of 99.99%, we are the trusted leaders of dedicated servers in Bangladesh,India... Dishing up goodness since January 01 2012."

They appear to have run a very effective marketing campaign as their name pops up everywhere. May want to focus a little more on the actual company next time guys!

 

Hammer Hosting

There appears to be some debate on the final resting spot of this annoyance. Some say it was bought out and moved across the pond to the USA. Others claim the fourteen year old kid running the horror show would ban clients on a hormone induced whim leaving them without back-ups or recourse. It does appear at some point the kid ditched the Hammer name, opting instead to use HungOverHosting.com. Also currently not loading at the moment but the domain registration is active until December 17, 2012. Let's hope

Sum this one up in a couple of words.. "Good riddance".

 

Web Solution Hub

The domain redirects to talkingchimps.com which also isn’t loading.

ItsJustHosting

This Premium business web hosting, managed VPS, managed Hybrid and Managed Server company out of Vancouver, BC  appears to have gone down for .. at least the third time. They say the third time's the charm!

ZinkHost

24-7-365 Customer Support.  Here at ZinkHost, we offer 24/7 customer support. So no matter when you need some help, we'll be here! All of our plans guarantee 99.9% uptime so you don't have to worry about downtime and can concentrate more on your websites! Try us with no risk! If you're not happy in 30 days, get all of your money back!

In hindsight these claims may appears a tad overzealous..

Windy City Web Solutions

The page isn’t loading. This company was started cira: 2004. A quick google show 200k hits for windy city or variation thereof. Even the marketing guru from bdswitch may have faltered trying to brand that name in ChiTown

 

AARHosting

Their site doesn’t load and their last tweet in February says it all:
@AARHosting Take 50% off our already low prices on shared hosting using coupon code SHARED50OFF

 

HastyHost and HastyFree

This was two different brands. May have delayed the inevitable by ditching the free accounts .. Hasta la vista!

Host Up Close

Quoting from their site  "What makes Host Up Close different".. 

I guess we’ll never know!

Huskora

There maybe a reason I never interviewed this web host when I was in Limerick earlier this summer.. Blame it on the EuroZone crisis if you want but I suspect their package pricing may be partially to blame 

 

 

HostJury is posting daily (or almost daily) special offerings and deals from various hosts. You’ll have to act fast as all these deals will be very limited in their durations. 

Click image to open in new window
25% off first billing cycle...  monthly, quarterly, semi-annually or annually payments. Use coupon code “HostJury” at checkout.  
*Offer Limited to 20 uses.. Act Fast!
*Offer good for new purchases only.  
*Cannot be combined with other offers.

 

 

25% off for life on all Easy Shared and Reseller Plans

Use Promo Code “HJ25OFF” at checkout. Valid only thru Sept 11 2012.

Click here for details on EASY Shared Hosting Plans

Click here for more information on EASY Reseller Plans

Yes it is that Easy!  

Conditions and Limitations

- Valid once per order/client
- New signups only
- Cannot be combined with any other offers/discounts
- Not applicable to addons/configurable options

 

As always, HostJury recommend that while price may be a consideration when choosing a web host, it should only be one of the many factored into your research. Page load speeds, additional features, good communication, and a fast knowledgeable support team will always top saving a few cents per day... And as always, HostJury makes no recommendation or endorsement of the listed providers. The web hosts are presented in no particular order.  You are encourage to practice due diligence.. and at some point leave a review of the services provided.

But really.. saving some cash is cool and a great way to start the work week!

Coupons may also be found on review pages of many of the web hosts reviewed on HostJury. In the right column in the related blog post section. More coupons coming shortly!  

Web hosts wishing to participate in HostJury's deals and steals are invited to contact us by email: feedback@hostjury.com   

With the dog days of summer behind us HostJury is turning a new page. Well not really, but we have been spending this last long weekend of the summer soliciting web hosts to put their best foot forward and come up with some really cool deals and special offerings. And it appears that our efforts are being rewarded!

Starting today, HostJury will begin posting daily (or almost daily) special offerings and deals from  various hosts. You’ll have to act fast as all of the deals will be very limited in their durations.  So as always, HostJury recommend that while price may be a consideration when choosing a web host, it should only be one of the many factored into your research. Page load speeds, additional features, good communication, and a fast knowledgeable support team will always top saving a few cents per day...

And as always, HostJury makes no recommendation or endorsement of the listed providers. The web hosts will be presented in no particular order.  Still saving some cash is really hot as those cool fall evenings approach..  and a great way to offset the increased costs of getting the little ones (or the not so little ones) back to school!

 

 

Click image to open in new window

50% off for life promotion to expire on Sept 8th. Offer good for new purchases only. Use code GET50 at checkout. Cannot be combined with other offers.  

 

Coupons may also be found on review pages of many of the web hosts reviewed on HostJury. In the right column in the related blog post section. More coupons coming shortly!

Web hosts wishing to participate in HostJury's deals and steals are invited to contact us by email: feedback@hostjury.com  

The latest numbers from comScore reinforce that it not only the US Federal deficit that's growing.  U.S. retail e-commerce sales numbers shows that second quarter online retail spending reached $43.2 billion for the quarter, up 15 percent versus year ago. This represents the eleventh consecutive quarter of positive year-over-year growth and seventh consecutive quarter of double-digit growth.

“While the second quarter’s 15-percent growth rate couldn’t quite match the especially high growth rate from the first quarter, it was nevertheless almost four times higher than the growth in overall consumer spending, a sign of continued strength in the e-commerce channel,” said comScore chairman Gian Fulgoni.

 

The comScore report includes the obligatory disclaimer stating that "although e-commerce remains strong, we are taking a cautious view of the second half of the year in light of some renewed signs of economic uncertainty and a stubbornly high unemployment rate",  the chart highlights how e-commerce continued to gain strength in recent years despite dismal performance in every other sector of the economy.

HostJury has written a number of post over the years that highlight the global trends towards an even stronger e-commerce sector  than that seen in the USA marketplace.  While the relative strength of the overall economy may factor into forecasting future growth, adverse economic conditions has actually spured growth as consumers look for ways to stretch their income. The overall acceptance of online shopping along with the relative ease and low entry barriers associated with creating an online businesses will continue to drive the growth of eCommerce. 

• Besides the traditional e-commerce setups like EBay and Magento, there are now numerous companies such as Yahoo Merchant Solutions and Shopify providing out of the box, quick and easy e-commerce solutions along with tools and tips to easily promote your business in the marketplace.
• more payment options (are you listening PayPal!)
• greater broadband coverage and speeds
• a mobile market  saturation that continues to revolutionize daily life
• streamlining of distribution models will continue to widen the price gap between eCommerce and the traditional marketplace 

Other highlights from Q2 2012 include:

• The top-performing online product categories were: Digital Content & Subscriptions, Consumer Electronics, Flowers, Greetings & Gifts, Computer Hardware and Apparel & Accessories. Each category grew at least 16 percent vs. year ago.
• 42 percent of e-commerce transactions included free shipping, representing a seasonal pullback from the Q4 2011 high of 52 percent.

Another domain name scam was short lived after the Canadian Internet Registration Authority (CIRA) received reports that “renewdomain.ca” was sending out fake email renewal notices to .CA Registrants. “Renewdomain.ca” which was registered on August 6th using GoDaddy domain registry service, is not a CIRA Certified Registrar.

The website owner was fraudulently posing as a domain owner's "Registrar" and was attempting to obtain payment from the registrant. The email identifies the recipient’s domain name and stated that it is about to expire. The recipient is then directed to renew the domain by clicking on a link that leads to the  “renewdomain.ca” PayPal payment page.

The CIRA has worked with the offending website’s Registrar (GoDaddy), and the site is now shut down. The CIRA says it is continuing to work with PayPal in an effort to shut down the fraudulent payment page.

Domain scams are not new!

The latest scam is nothing new. In 2001, the federal Competition Bureau (of Canada) issued a warning about documents that appeared to be invoices sent out by a business called the "Internet Registry of Canada". Complaints indicated that the mailings from the 'Internet Registry of Canada' give the impression that it is affiliated with the Government of Canada, or that it is an officially sanctioned agency registering domain names in Canada.

VeriSign was sued in 2002 for their actions in sending ambiguous emails informing people, often incorrectly, that their domain was about to expire and inviting them to click on a link to renew it. Renewing the domain resulted in the registration company being transferred to VeriSign from the previous registrar. VeriSign was later found not to have broken the law but were barred from suggesting that a domain was about to expire or that a transfer was actually a renewal.

In 2002, the FTC shuts down "TLD Network Ltd", "Quantum Management (GB) Ltd.",  and "TBS Industries Ltd." of London, England for selling bogus domain names dot USA and dot BRIT, which they deceptively marketed as usable suffixes. The FTC also charged “National Domain Name Registry”, “Electronic Domain Name Monitoring”, Corporate Domain Name Monitoring”, and their owner Darren J. Morgenstern with making false and misleading statements to domain name holders with the intent to dupe them into needlessly registering variations of their existing domain names by deceptively contending that third parties were about to claim them.

Also in 2002, the UK Advertising Watchdog Authority (ASA) slammed Domain Registry of Europe over similar mail shots. In response to this, Alan Freeman, Relations Manager for DRoE, said that the company which also trades as Domain Registry of America and Domain Registry of Canada had registered 1.1 million domains for customers and was registering between 5,000 and 7,000 new domains a day.

Register.com sued Domain Registry of America (aka "Domain Renewal Group"), claiming the company illegally lured away thousands of customers by tricking them into transferring their domains. Soon after, Dutch hosting provider Deinternetman also pondered legal action against Domain Registry of Europe for sending their customers letters urging them to renew their domain names contracts.

In 2003, the Federal Trade Commission reached a settlement with the Domain Registry of America for practices such as transferring domain registrations to their service under the guise of domain renewal, a practice known as domain slamming, as well as having hidden fees.

In 2004,  Canadians James Tataka, Simon Benlolo, Alan Benlolo, and Elliot Benlolo were found guilty by a jury for violating the Competition Act. Their scam involved mailing almost 900,000 phoney invoices to businesses and non profit organizations in Canada.  Registrar Brandon Gray Internet Services Inc. later had its licence terminated in September 2010 by the CIRA, as a result of domain slamming carried out under the name of Domain Registry of Canada. The officer registered with the Ontario government for Brandon Gray Internet Services was none other than Marilyn Benlolo... (editors note.. small world I guess, or possibly a shortage of surnames in Canada)

Also in 2004, as the result of another Competition Bureau investigation into 1473253 Ontario Incorporated, operating as Yellowbusiness.ca, James Tetaka was sentenced and fined for sending out phoney invoice mailings. Daniel Klemann and 1480455 Ontario Incorporated, operating as Internet Registry of Canada (IROC), were also sentenced in 2004 to a $40,000 fine and a five-year prohibition order for deceptive Internet domain name renewal mailouts that targeted 73,000 businesses and non-profit organizations across Canada.

In 2005, the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission warned of a domain name renewal scam where domain name holders have received a letter that looks like an invoice for the registration or renewal of a domain name, where the domain name in question is very similar to your actual domain name except has a different ending, for example it will end in “.net.au” instead of “.com”

In March of 2006, Consumer Fraud Reporting reported about a company called “Domain Listing Service” sending out emails to domain name holders that look like a bill to register/renew their domain name listing a “final notice”. There were also reports from New Zealand that Blair Rafferty had resurrected his bankrupt brother Chesley's domain name service, "domain slamming" New Zealand and Australian registrants.

In 2007, a company known as "Domain Renewal SA" operating from Brussels was sending out emails that told you that you need to renew your domain, as well as a wave of emails originating from China from “Asian Domain Registration Service”, implying that a domain name will be lost, or all Asian TLDs of the domain name will be taken away shortly by a foreign company.

2007 also brought reports of some sleazy marketing by a company using the name of Liberty Names of America(or Liberty names of America Inc., also referred to as "Lnoa Inc." or "Lnoa.com") sending out "Domain Name Expiration Notices".

In 2008, ICANN warned that  "we are aware of accredited registrars in North America with officers that have been convicted of mail fraud, that continue to be associated with the deceptive marketing practices employed by the Domain Registry of America. We do not consider this an acceptable situation. Accreditation processes must be reviewed, and that review must be released for public scrutiny".  

Network Solutions, as well as others, got some bad press when it was revealed that when searching on the Network Solutions website to see if a name was available for registration, Network Solutions was actually registering the name and then attempting to sell that name at an inflated price.

GoDaddy has also been accused of registration abuses in the past. It was alleged that GoDaddy and WebDesigners collaborated to register domain names under the WebDesigners company name, resulting in actual domain name owner having no control over their domain name and then being forced to pay thousands of dollars in arbitration costs in order to get their domain name back.  GoDaddy has also been accused of double billing clients and then refusing to offer refunds until complaints were made to the Better Business Bureau.

A company mailing from DROA, French Internet Registry, Domain Renewal Group or Company Directory, was also done in order to achieve domain slamming.  The FTC charged Internet Listing Service with sending fake invoices to small business and others, listing the existing domain name of the consumers Website or a slight variation on the domain name in 2010.

There have also been the Trademark and Domain Name Scams, where consumers receive fake warnings of usurpers of internet domain names. The warnings are received as phony “Trademark Office” Notices from the “United States Trademark Agency".

I guess it safe to say it will continue. Its a shame that the CIRA whois for Renewdomain.ca doesn't reveal the domain owner's name!

 

HostJury compiles discount web hosting coupons and special offerings by various web hosts. As always we recommend that while price may be a consideration, it should only be one of the many factored into your research. Page load speeds, additional features, good communication, and a fast knowledgeable support team will always top saving a few cents per day... And as always, HostJury makes no recommendation or endorsement of the listed providers. The web hosts are presented in no particular order. Still saving a few cents is really hot and what's better than some Dedicated Server Deals Steals! 

ServerPronto

 

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SingleHop Dedicated Servers 

 

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CoolHandle

  

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NetHosting

 

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HostJury compiles discount web hosting coupons and special offerings by various hosts. As always we recommend that while price may be a consideration when choosing a web host, it should only be one of the many factored into your research. Page load speeds, additional features, good communication, and a fast knowledgeable support team will always top saving a few cents per day... And as always, HostJury makes no recommendation or endorsement of any of the listed providers. 

HostJury compiles discount web hosting coupons and special offerings by various hosts. As always we recommend that while price may be a consideration when choosing a web host, it should only be one of the many factored into your research. Page load speeds, additional features, good communication, and a fast knowledgeable support team will always top saving a few cents per day... And as always, HostJury makes no recommendation or endorsement of the listed providers. The web hosts are presented in no particular order.  Still saving a few cents is really hot and a great way to offset the increased costs of running air conditioning!

 

BigCommerce

 

Click image to open link in new window. Receive up to $100 in Google AdWords Credit When You Purchase a BigCommerce Plan. No Coupon Code Necessary. Offer Applied at Checkout.  

 

BigRock 

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EasySpace 

 

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JaguarPC

 

Click image to open link in new window. JaguarPC is currently running a double space, bandwidth and ram promotion on all VPSes.

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MyHosting

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Network Solutions

 

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Coupons may also be found on review pages of many of the web hosts reviewed on HostJury. In the right column in the related blog post section. More coupons coming shortly!