Hi am just about to start a reselling account but I have heard that webhosts can be sued. How often does this happen because I don't really want to take that big a risk.

And say for instance I do get a lawsuit against me. Say for instance that someone hacked into my clients website and took information. Who would be responsible? Will I be resonsible or will it be the company that I do reselling with.

The chance of being sued is very very little unless you screw completely up and you don't do that now that you are a visitor of the great hosting forum :)

Regarding your other question it's of course depends on the situation as companies often secure themselves against something like this. But as you being the reseller you aren't allowed to do anything extra to secure your server so that must be the problem of the hosting company you are reselling for and not yours.

Do not keep sensitive information on the web. If you take sensitive information such as charge card info etc, be sure to do so in a secure environment and use encryption.

As far as hacking in and changing a site, your sites are probably not of much interest to hackers, and actually they are crackers. They prefer government sites and big fish types of sites (yahoo.com, ebay.com, etc).

I believe most hosts provide a basically secure service for a reasonable price. Be aware that nothing is 100% secure ever.

You you arent going to do something because your worried about getting sued, then make sure you dont ever go outside of your house again or let anyone in ever again.

The sad fact is you have just as much of a chance of getting sued for something walking to the park then you do of getting sued for hosting websites

These days everyone sues everyone else at the drop of a hat. Merit doesn't matter.

But as Cbaker said, if you're going to let that stop you then you'll never do anything in life.

Yeah thanks for the info guys. I was just curious of how many hosts do actually get sued because of this crazy world we're living in. Ayway it's definately not going to stop me from starting a business.

Thanks.

Other than some well known hosts who seem to have frauded customers, I don't know any host who as yet has been sued because a customer's site was down or some technology failed.

But I'm sure it's coming! :(

Being sued as a web hoster would probably be 1:1000

Lawsuits are not as common as people think they are, a simple lawsuit will require lawyers charging $100+ /hour,
$500 mininum to start up one.

Lawsuits are more common in the corporate world.

And no one would expect someone to sue after ordering hot coffee and spilling it on themselves while driving. But it did happen - and they won!

I wouldn't be overly concerned about it, and would agree that the odds of it happening to any particular host are pretty slim as long as you aren't simply negligent.

A couple of points, though: it's one of the big reasons to consider incorporation of the forming of an LLC. Neither of those constructs, though, guarantee that you'd be free of personal liability in the even of fraud or negligence -- owners or directors of a corporation can be found to be liable for the actions of the corporation.

The financial protection afforded by incorporation may or may not be worth it. If you're living in your parents' basement and the most valuable thing you own is your desktop PC, and you get sued for half a million dollars, your liability will be no more than your net worth -- you'll file bankruptcy and go on.

In the case where you're leasing a dedicated server and the fault is really theirs, don't think that insulates you from being sued. It wouldn't be surprising for both your company and your provider to be named as defendants, or the plaintiffs may sue you as the company they have the relationship with... you'd then have to file suit against your provider, assuming you were to lose.

Im not sure what hosting world you guys live in but i get a new "we are going to sue you " letter once a week at least. its a simple matter of economics the larger you are the better chance the plaintiff feels he would get some money from you, the more sites you host the more people will get P.Oed because of their content. the most popular flavor of the week is "contributary copyright infringment" no i have never been successfully sued, but one day we will get a moronic judge and that record will change.

Steve

The safest server is a server that's turned off and is not connected to the internet :)

If you want to opt out this option,
make them sign a contract, which also states you are not responsible for ....blablabla...

Incorporating or LLC may not protect you as you think!

Hosting and web design generally comes under the heading of personal services, not an actual physical product. As such your actions (or lack thereof) make the product you sell.

Example: If an engineer forms an engineering corp. then makes a bad design, being a corp won't portect him from liability.

You need professional liability insurance, errors and ommissions insurance, etc etc and good luck getting it for web hosting or web design!

(not a legal opinion!)

Originally posted by Eagle
If you want to opt out this option,
make them sign a contract, which also states you are not responsible for ....blablabla...

Good idea, but it's still not protection, just a defense. The customer can always claim misrepresentation, unenforcability, failure to live up to the contract etc etc.

(not a legal opinion!)

I think if you are going to resell you basically are out of the whole suing loop. If someone sues you for downtime you can just pass that along to your provider. Just make sure that you basically cut and copy the providers contract you sign and make your customers sign that. I am sure that will cover you butt. I would also reccomend starting a LLC or Subchapter S corporation to run it under so if you do get sued none of your valuables get taken when you sleeping =).

Actually if someone files a lawsuit against you as a reseller then it is against YOU! You can not pass on a lawsuit, you can in turn sue your reselling provider but you still have to deal with your lawsuit.

Originally posted by Keeg
Im not sure what hosting world you guys live in but i get a new "we are going to sue you " letter once a week at least.
[...]
the most popular flavor of the week is "contributary copyright infringment" Good point; the original post asked about suits in response to someone hacking a server, but there are many other potential legal entanglements that are probably more of a concern.

Anyway, to clarigy a few things: in no way does a disclaimer of responsibility in your terms of service or in a contract mean you can't be sued. Contracts, in fact, typically have a statement to the effect that a finding that any term in the agreement is not valid does not invalidate the whole agreement; the reason for that is because a court or arbitrator can find a clause in an agreement to be unenforceable.

As Jag said, you can't "pass on" a lawsuit. It would be expected, as I said earlier, that your client would sue you even if you are a reseller, because it is you that the client has a relationship with. You'd then try to collect your damages from your upstream provider. Of course, your client could sue anybody they'd like to: your company, your provider company, you personally -- any or all of these, and anyone else if they can come up with half a reason to name them. "Sue everybody and let the court sort it out."

What about cases where the reseller/hoster and the
customer live in different countries ?.

For example, in many cases the reseller/host is based in the US and the customer in Asia/Europe. How will this impact the situation ?. What law will be in force ?.


Matra

Originally posted by Tox
The chance of being sued is very very little unless you screw completely up...........

Agreed. I believe that if there is a problem, and you demonstrate a reasonable effort to solve the problem to your customer....they will opt. to show disappointment either verbally or by switching to another host, but most likely NOT sue.

This theory applies to both small and large scale problems.