Hi, not sure if this is in the right forum, and my thoughts probably won't be expressed as clearly as I hope (I'm pretty sleepy :o ) So I just want you to get the idea.

We all know that most of us in the WHT forums do not agree with hosts putting unlimited on their features, mainly hard drive space and bandwidth. Well I read recently in a thread that the honest and upfront hosts are getting probably less sales than the UNLIMITED ones. This makes sense, but isn't right.

Well, I just had the idea (This might already exist, been there done that, ect but I don't know :) ) to have a sort of alliance between hosts who are upfront and honest. The alliance could have a webpage, educating the webhosting consumer on why UNLIMITED features are pretty much always scams. Member hosts could have a little emblem or seal, that they could put on their website saying "Honest Upfront Host" or something like that.

What do you think? Would anyone be interested in something like that? Has it already been done, or exist? Have I been clear ? :cartman: Thanks :D

Andrew Capobianco

I do remember a discussion a while back about a set of standards for web hosts, written by web hosts. A good idea if you ask me. Adding a seal to the webpages of hosts' that actually complied would take it one setp further, helping customer confidence in a particular host. Of course you'd also have to have a system to verify a host that places the seal is actually part of the "alliance", to stop those dishonest hosts that would place the seal on their page and not actually be part of it. Great idea, I think this industry does need to be cleaned up a lot.

eMegaWeb.com Hosting is the best and most affordable hosting service in the world for the options you get. We offer unlimited web space for as low as $7.50 a month. This is impossible to beat. Other hosting sites charge twice or even three times as much for the exact same options you get here! If you don't agree, we'll give you a full refund.

http://emegaweb.com/hosting/

Isn't this your company????

:eek: :blush: :confused:

:cartman: :cartman: :cartman: :cartman:

Since there is no such thing as "Unlimited" I think it would be better for such hosts to impose limits, however high they may be.
It would probably improve sales.

Originally posted by UmBillyCord


http://emegaweb.com/hosting/

Isn't this your company????

:eek: :blush: :confused:

:cartman: :cartman: :cartman: :cartman:

An unlimited host against unlimited web hosting :rolleyes: :D

hehe, i knew this would happen

Yes, reseller for webhost.fm .
We have been since 99, we just use what they list for thier features.

Setup Our own Dell Server at NAC.net Monday, in the process of moving all accounts away from webhost.fm and being a reseller forever! :D

Our new plans have exact measurements on everything: amount of space per pop3 account, bandwidth, space for databases, you name it.

Hope this clears things up, should have the totally new site up in a few weeks with new plans. We have learned a lot in the past few years, we will be totally different.

Way to go :)

Our new plans have exact measurements on everything: amount of space per pop3 account, bandwidth, space for databases, you name it.

Hope this clears things up, should have the totally new site up in a few weeks with new plans. We have learned a lot in the past few years, we will be totally different.

So you have reached a new level of clarity, repented, cleaned yourself of any guilt, and now want to brand host who did what you do (soon to be did I guess) as loser scum???? ;)

Just checking.

I seriously doubt that having a consortium of web hosting companies will do anything to combat "unlimited."
The word is used to prey on the weak (greedy) and the uneducated/ uninformed.
What person who believes what they've heard about unlimited is going to believe a bunch of web hosts telling them it's wrong??? "Buy ours for more money. You'll save in the long run. Hey! At least we're truthful."

In a perfect world your theory is sound. And I'm all for it.
But, alas, just like "unlimited" a "perfect world" is another myth.

Its more to inform the webhosting consumers and promote the hosts that are honest, not necessarily to slam the current hosts that are doing unlimited.

When we first started eMegaWeb, it was mainly to just get ourselves good hosting and maybe make a little bit of money. We then really started to like reselling webhosting and became addicted to it. :D We had no idea at the start about the UNLIMITED scam, WHT taught us that. Now there can be a place people can see this, and maybe not make the same move we did at the start, and look for resellers that don't offer unlimited. Or the bad guys could say, "Wow, so the unlimited scam really does work" and do it their own way lol.
Hope this clarifies more.

Originally posted by rewdog
Its more to inform the webhosting consumers and promote the hosts that are honest. . . . . . .We then really started to like reselling webhosting and became addicted to it. :D We had no idea at the start about the UNLIMITED scam, WHT taught us that. . . . . . . . .Don't get me wrong here. I basically agree with you.
I just have this habit of taking the oposite side of things and opening up discussion.
With that said. . . . .

Don't you think rewdog that you, yourself, would be in a poor postition?
If you started something like you're talking about, there will be those that dig up this sordid past of yours and you will have to defend why you were offering unlimited for two or three years. And now how it has become something offered by evil and coruupt indiduals since you've opted for the "defined usages" plans. :rolleyes:

When a host comes back from the 'dark side' I think you have to cut them a bit of slack. True, the current/past offerings touted the 'u' word ::shudder:: - but look at it as one more host at least trying not to b.s. the customer and shifting in the right direction.

:beer:

Originally posted by Chicken
When a host comes back from the 'dark side' I think you have to cut them a bit of slack. True, the current/past offerings touted the 'u' word ::shudder:: - but look at it as one more host at least trying not to b.s. the customer and shifting in the right direction.. . .He could maybe even swing it to his advantage. . . . .

"Yes Lord . . . :bawling: I have sinned . . . . :bawling: I now see the error of my once blasphemous ways . . . .:bawling: . . . . . . . and so on :bawling: . . . .and so on :bawling: . . . . ."

Good point soft, and I've thought a bit about that. I would want some other people to help me and probably wouldn't put it under the eMegaWeb.com name, but maybe I would. I need to do more thinking :stickout

But that is more details. I'd really just like to know how many hosts would be interested in a thing like that, if at least 4 or 5 are in favor of it, I think it would be good to do it.

A site somewhere that lists the rules that hosts can link to or cite or whatever. Has a membership listng on it so referred people can cross check, etc.

Something along the lines of W3 but for hosting.

Sounds damn good to me.

I'd be willing to help.

Originally posted by Cyberpunk
A site somewhere that lists the rules that hosts can link to or cite or whatever. Has a membership listng on it so referred people can cross check, etc.. Remember, of course, that if you do that someone following the link from your hosting company's site to this "alliance" site is presented with a handy list of a group of your competitors who are "certified" to be "honest and upfront."

I'm not a reseller yet but plan to be in the upcoming months. I am sick and tired of seeing consumers in all industries getting screwed over by the wording of products in ads. I think such a system would be a great idea and add a sense of legitimecy to hosts. However, why only stop at preventing the unlimited stuff here are some more ideas to enlarge the scope of the idea:

Obviously membership should be based on following the guidelines but what if the guidelines also included a customer satisfaction clause. Not in the sense that customers have to be treated likes Gods and get blah blah blah, rather in the ***** sense, protection against fraud. In order to be a member you must have a readily available TOS on your site, not display anything as being "unlimited" and answer to customer complaints.

Each member site will display a link and banner of "certified by the consortium of web hosts" or something. If a customer has a complaint and after 30 days cannot resolve it with their host they can bring it to the attention of the consortium which can make a desicion based on information provided by the customer and host(who will be required to answer or forfeit membership). The decision will ofcourse hold no legal power however if it requests the host make ammends they must do so inorder to remain a member(just like the BBB will say company A answered complaints so they are in good standing).

A system would have to be put in place to prevent anyone from displaying the logo and link but thet can be discussed later.

Now, in order for customers to learn of this it has to be advertised somehow (not necessarily paid, this is only awareness) so newsgroups, search engines and the like (in other words the places people would go to search for a host anyway).

A membership fee can also be put in place so expenses like hosting(it cannot be hosted on a member site as that would be a conflict of interest) and advertisements can be paid.

(wow, this is my longest post)

What are your thoughts?


BTW
anyone in the US who knows alot about computer hardware prices, tune to any home shopping channel and watch their computer shows where they oooh and aww over $900 computers which they claim are worth $4000 (you know the ones, $50 printer included, $40 camera, that one)

enjoy

Nice ideas, I agree with JayC that a list would make competition, which isn't really what I would want.

Anyhow, I realize that for this to be respectable, quite a bit of work will need to put into it. I unfortunately don't have a ton of time to spend on this and to have to review hosts and update the site frequently isn't gonna work for me. I mainly just wanted to get the idea out there so maybe a batch of you who feel strongly about the subject could go for it. Don't get me wrong, I'd still be in it, but we all know its not fair to have a service that doesn't get updated and maintained.

time is a big consideration, but if several people, say 20, can get involved the time commitment wont be so bad. After the initial site design only one person of the "founders" would be needed to initially review a site applying for membership, to see if they list anything unlimited and have a TOS, won't take too long. Once a complaint is brought for review an e-mail would be sent to all members informing them that they should visit the site, review each side's case and decide with one.

It can work, I'd be willing to help, would anyone else be interested?

JayC, we can make it so there is no list of hosts, rather you can search for a specific host to see if they are certified.

I just want to point out, since most who are participating in this thread are relatively new at WHT, that as you'd expect we've been down this road before. A similar discussion also took place just in the past few days, in this thread:

http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?threadid=20229


In that thread I mentioned and posted a link to an older discussion, and within that one is another link to a still-older thread on the topic. I'd suggest you guys take the time to read those three threads, because a lot of the possible pitfalls of this type of project -- as well as some good, positive ideas -- are discussed in detail.

This won't be a webhosting standards program. Just a website that promotes awareness of the Unlimited myths, and gives a great big pat on the back to the hosts who are not going this route.

So, how do we take this further then?

If you are interested in helping at all, or interested and being a member host, please email me at
rew@sc.rr.com

or

ICQ me at 23081216

There are so many ANTI unlimited posts out there, should be easy to round up a good explination why unlimited is wrong to the consumers.

I'm serious. Go read those three threads. Then come back and read this. Go, now. ;)

Originally posted by George
However, why only stop at preventing the unlimited stuff here are some more ideas to enlarge the scope of the idea:Really, I think that kind of "focus drift" would be the downfall. Say you form this organization, with a couple of principles: "unlimited" is bad, and member hosts have to state a time frame in which support requests will be answered. OK, now you have 20 members, all honest and upfront hosts.

A few months later one of your members, representing a hosting venture owned by a small corporation, goes on a rant about a customer complaint about a new small hosting company run by a "15-year-old kid." He suggests that at 15 someone can't enter a legal agreement, so your membership regulations should be "adults only" (Farfetched? You haven't been reading this forum for long). One of your members, a 17-year old responsibly running a company with 100 customers, vehemently disagrees. But can you certify someone who can't legally be held to a contract?

The firestorm branches a little, and someone proposes that you add as a member requirement full disclosure of the ownership of member companies -- and disclosure of a physical address and phone number (Farfetched? No, existing certification organizations do have this requirement). Your smaller members disagree. Big fight, somebody wins, somebody loses. A couple of members drop out in anger. Big deal, those that remain are all good.

Next, somebody suggests that the real problem in the hosting industry is that some companies are driving prices to low. The extreme low-budget hosts, he states, can't possibly afford to support their customers adequately, and aren't even sustainable: they're likely to be out of business within a year (Farfetched? Not if you read those historical threads: the same suggestion was made as one of the membership requirements when this topic came up before). So, are pricing standards important? While we're on the topic, what about "hidden charges" -- some of your members are likely to be charging for things that others are not. How about setup fees? A member claims they are just an attempt to rip off the customers, since they have no relationship to the hosts costs in setting up an account (Farfetched? search this forum; it's been said before). Hosts that charge setup fees, he proposes, can not be certified.


OK, all speculation. But I'd bet, as the old threads show, that you can't put together a list of 10 or 12 criteria that everyone here will agree on. And then get everyone to agree on bylaws, and the procedure to change the membership criteria in the future. And who takes responsibility when someone sues your organization over having been denied membership? Should you just assume it won't happen?

So who does all the work? For nothing? Read those old threads; a lot of enthusiasm but now months later nothing has happened. And what's going to be the benefit? Look at the Web Hosting Guild, now apparently defunct. Big money backers, but never accomplished much at all, and consumers never gave membership much weight at all. What would it take to get respect and credibility from consumers? How much credibility will you maintain when a non-member publicizes the fact that your organization was founded and is run by hosting companies, and claims a conflict of interest?

In all seriousness, if you want to link from your site to something, don't link to some certification organization. Link right here. Send your shoppers and potential customers to WHT, let them learn what the hosting business is about, let them learn that "unlimited" is a scam, let them see your representatives here acting responsibly and helpfully, and (hopefully) demonstrating knowledge of such things as server administration and the hosting industry in general. Educate the consumers, but don't do so with a carefully controlled message from a self-selecting group.


it cannot be hosted on a member site as that would be a conflict of interest.Yeah, put it on one of those low-budget unlimited hosts, you'll save a lot of money.

Originally posted by rewdog
This won't be a webhosting standards program. Just a website that promotes awareness of the Unlimited myths, and gives a great big pat on the back to the hosts who are not going this route. OK. Never mind then. Good idea. :D

JayC, very good points, I guess if such a venture were undertaken, ultimately it would turn into a symposium for members to promote their site and berae others, once they got their chief competition "uncertified", in theory it is a good idea but should probably be started by a neutral party with some kind of national backing like the BBB. I guess that people shopping for hosts should just simply keep the old saying of "let the buyer beware" be their guide (since unfortunately many don't choose to educate themselves first)

Definately interested ...but we should not only set the requirements to no unlimited disk space or bandwidth, but also to server uptime, technical and sales response time, etc.

What hosts are interested in starting something like a "WebHost Alliance"?