Some of my resellers pay for their account and offer their hosting for free. As we limit only the disk space and the BW, but not the domain names number, some free resellers ended with 100 accounts in a matter of weeks.

We have as much as 10 times more problem with these free customers than with the regular customers. The people hosted for free tend to use their account to spam, to host illegal wesites, to use their account to learn programming CGI... just problems!

I am considering to update our TOS to prevent further resellers from using their account to host people for free. What do you think about this? Do you allow you resellers to offer free hosting service?

Thank you for sharing!

Tell the resellers that they are responsible for what their clients are doing and that the whole account will be suspended if any further spam is sent.

If you don't like it then update your TOS and get rid of anyone who breaks them. Your other clients shouldn't have to suffer because one, or more, resellers on a server are causing problems by hosting free sites.

Hello,

I don't suggest to include "Free hosting is not allowed" in the TOS. This is a common business stragtegy to offer free service to get customers.

Of course I would rather to promote $1.00 hosting for first 3 months or first 6 months to attract customers.

I agree with Steve, Hold your Resellers responsible for your TOS, not your resellers end users. Your reseller agreed to your TOS, their end users did not. So if their end user spams, then suspend/fine the reseller.


I don't think that I've EVER had to suspend/delete a resellers end user account in the past 2 years. My resellers know my TOS, and they make sure their TOS matches mine.

If a reseller is constantly violating your TOS by not screening accounts well enough (be it free or paid hosting), you absolutely have the right to discontinue service. We've never had this problem with reseller clients though.

You should tell the reseller to monitor all free accounts and make sure they are not spamming or hosting anything illegal. If you get any problems because of the free accounts, you should tell the reseller to stop providing free hosting accounts.
The reseller should also have strict regulations for these accounts.

You could also disallow free hosting, but you will lose some clients if you include this in your TOS.

I hope this helps.

Thank you for your concen. I have many resellers but these problems are only with 2 of them. I did not included such limitation in my TOS just because It never happend to me to imagine a guy paying three figure price every year just to host other people for free.

I am preparing a mailing for all my resellers to explain that they are responsible for any problem or violation comming from their end users.

I would limit the number of domains they have, it's what HTTPme did and it seems to have worked well!

Originally posted by AnyDemo
Hello,

I don't suggest to include "Free hosting is not allowed" in the TOS. This is a common business stragtegy to offer free service to get customers.

Of course I would rather to promote $1.00 hosting for first 3 months or first 6 months to attract customers.

He is saying that the clients are just giving it away, not part of any promotion, but just as a free web host.

This causes problems for other users on the server, so I would add something in your TOS not allowing resellers to give away free hosting, and notify your 2 customers who are currently doing this of the new change.

This is not at all good to have Free and paid accounts on same server.
Ofcourse you paid clients are goiing to get distrub because of free hostings.

You should update your reseller not to do so.
and take him responcible all his accounts.
your reseller is your direct client not his end customers.

so you can start giving warning first couple of times and if resellers don't agree or respond then go and delete his account.
no mercy for such resellers. or may be in future data center will discontinue your server.