I'm going to be using a paid web host for the first time (as soon as I find the right one), and I'm just curious about how strictly most hosting companies enforce the "content" aspects of their terms of service. Don't get me wrong, I'm not going to be posting porn (sorry) ;). But sometimes they reserve the right to cancel an account based on material they deem "objectionable" or "offensive".

My site is basically a humor site (ok, I offer a half-dozen rare Beatles mp3's for download, but only for historical purposes), and occasionally I'll use a word that you can't say on prime time TV. Here's the site (http://snortworld.bla-bla.com/page3.html) if you want to see what I mean.

When a host's TOS says you can't have any content that is "not suitable for minors", how strictly do they normally enforce it, and do they take the context of the material into consideration? Or is every host different?

Most hosts have diffrent attitudes toward what is "acceptable" Reputable hosts will usually contact you before deleting your site. I have never liked hosts that are content nazis; I am a strong believer in freedom of speech and expression.

The best bet is to contact the host and ask them directly and let them review your site.

Emailing beforehand is not always the best.

I had a prospective client email me about MP3's. The MP3's were copyrighted so I asked her if she had permission from the creator.

She crapped me out, saying she thought I was joking at first and that the creator is a friend of hers and...

How was I supposed to know that she had permission? If she had told me, which I was trying to find out, I would of said yes. She didn't have to go aff.

I think companies take the exact same view as mine. If it is not against the law and is not questionable under the 1st amendment. We are not at liberty to say what is right or wrong, the judge is :).

For the most of us:

We hear no evil, feel no evil then we see no evil.

:D

I guess as long as it is legal, and not pornography (this might be due to moral reasons), most hosts will take you in.

Illegal such as warez, illegal mp3 etc.

Basically the hosts are protecting themselves too, if they host an illegal site they can (may) be held liable so they need to cover their ass by kicking yours :)

As for contacting first or not, it's debatable. If something is illegal then it has no business being on the server even 1 second longer. Yes notifying the site owner is a good gesture, but deleting before or after shouldn't be a problem here.

I am sure the site owner should have his/her own local copy somewhere too.

If your site is bashing bin laden or al gore or whatever, although that might be 'objectionable' to some, racist or whatever it is still not illegal and it should be allowed.

Your web site looks ok to me, I don't see a reason why anyone would not host you.

Considering the volume of customers a good hosting company has, most hosts don't go around checking site content. If they happen to notice a customer's site with "questionable" content they may contact the customer. Depends on the situation.

In the case of MP3 and downloads, heavy usage can show up in a system report and draw the host's attention. Again, depends on the situation what if any action the host might take.

Also a AUP or TOS is generally written 'harder' than most hosts really push. The idea is that you hope you never need to use a terms page at all on people, but it still needs to be there spelling out the hard line.

Generally speaking terms of service are just common sense, and follow the rules of courtesy when living in a society, sharing resources with other people, as well as following the letter of the law.

Greg Moore

In general, a host's AUP is written to protect the host. For example, let's say a web site had information about a public figure posted, and that public figure decided to sue the web site for defamation of character. It is almost certain that the host would also be named in the suit.

With a properly-written AUP, the host can go before the judge and say "hey, judge, look - we have an AUP that says that our clients can't defame other people on their web site. If that's what our client did, they did so in violation of our rules, and we shouldn't be sued for that!" and they're going to get dropped from the suit - which is exactly what should happen in those cases.

I don't know of any hosts that police content thoroughly - there'd be no way of doing so. You'd have to look at every single page of every single customer's web site, and you'd have to do it on a regular recurring basis in order to make policing the content of any use. And no one has the time or manpower to do that.

The approach that we take (and I think most hosts do this as well) is that there are basically two ways that we will detect possible AUP violations:

1) We'll notice them ourselves. This sometimes happens if a technician is trying to solve a problem on a site and stumbles upon the violating content. It also can happen randomly (a billing clerk says "gee, that's an interesting domain name, I wonder what that site is all about" and decides to take a look), and it can also happen as a result of the domain name itself (i.e. if you sign up with the domain "amateursexvideos.com", you're going to get noticed quick).

2) Someone points the violating content out to us. This usually comes in the form of an e-mail to our abuse address, and it happens when someone gets offended by something they saw on one of our customer's sites. This actually happens more often than #1.

We do enforce our AUP if we become aware of the violations, but we are not in general content police. Customers might be able to get away with things for quite a while, but eventually we will catch it.

As for the specific web site that you've asked about - I've never terminated a web site for having dirty jokes on it, and I hope I never have to. I just don't think that dirty jokes violate the spirit of our AUP (though they might violate the letter of the AUP, I suppose, I always try to bring some common sense into such issues).

Jason

I guess as long as it is legal, and not pornography (this might be due to moral reasons), most hosts will take you in.

There are actually a lot of reasons why a host might not take a porn site.

One major reason is that porn sites have serious traffic, and a lot of transfer what with all those 1024 x 154 jpegs (I'm exaggerating, but you know what I mean). Most hosts don't want to deal with such heavy traffic that will slow down or crash their other clients' sites.

It's also hard to make money off of such a resource hog.

Another reason is, let's face it, a lot of people who are in that business are also in other kinds of businesses that are, shall we say, less than legal.

Fear of chargebacks, stolen credit cards, false identity are added to the list.

Not to mention the liability factor for site content. I mean, how are you going to verify that all those "girls" are over 18? And if they're not, that's a really, really big "no-no."

And finally, similar to the last paragraph, some sites have "hidden" content that is very illegal, such as selling certain kinds of videos of children.

So, yeah, I guess the moral thing might make that list, but it isn't all about that.