In the hosting industry, Mike Witty (right – picture via blog.servint.net/) has one of the more varied jobs imagineable. As Director of Network Compliance at Servint, a VPS host that powers this site and many others, Mike is responsible for handling abuse complaints, overseeing security and making sure that the company complies with all relevant [...]
For the most part, we expect a Web host’s terms of service to be fairly straightforward. Don’t be a spammer, avoid any illegal content and don’t try to host a major site on an “unlimited” account and you should be fine. Unfortunately, it isn’t always that easy. Terms of service are not written for the [...]
Those who had accounts at 3FN recently received a shock when they found that their hosting accounts were completely down. However, it wasn’t a server error, network interruption or even a natural disaster that took the host down, it was the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), which won a permanent injunction against the host in April, [...]
During my day job as a copyright and plagiarism consultant, one of my biggest and most common challenges involves handling spam blogs that are scraping content from users and posting it across the Web for illicit SEO benefit. It is a tough job that doesn’t always go very smoothly, but it is far and away [...]
Abuse policies are one thing that few hosts publicize. They are usually kept quiet, buried in the footer of a host’s site or footnotes in the lengthy legal agreement users sign. Host don’t want you to see them, read them or think about them. But they should. These abuse agreements are the tools that hosts [...]
It’s one of the most frustrating hosting-related problems, especially for a small business. You go to send legitimate email, whether its personal, business or a legitimate mailing list, and find that much of it either bounces back as spam or is promptly placed in the recipient’s junk folder. As both human beings and legitimate marketers, [...]
PhpBB is one of the most popular free message board applications, and Dreamhost offers it as a “one-click” install from your web panel. Like other database dependent web scripts, phpBB can drain server resources — especially on popular sites. Here are some tips to help optimize your phpBB forum on Dreamhost (though, the tips will [...]
Most domain registrars charge $4/year or a similar fee for Whois privacy protection. It’s free at DreamHost, which makes them appealing to some users for domain registrations. Why would you want your WHOIS domain information kept private? – To avoid junk mail & spam. – To keep competitors from reverse engineering your SEO techniques – [...]
If you think a DreamHost customer is behind illegal activities such as spamming, fraud, copyright infringement, etc… your first stop should be the Dreamhost Abuse Center. (Not the forums) The Abuse Center’s purpose is to assist anyone experiencing abusive activities originating from or associated with Dreamhost servers, and also educate DreamHost customers on acceptable practices [...]