Just out of interest, I had the idea awhile back to start some kind of customer monitor system for hosts to share, simular to what insurance companies use to share bad debt people etc with each other. I've started a thread about this to see if any hosts would be interested in such a service, i.e. where details of fraud, bad payers, abusers, spammers etc is held. Obviously there would need to be systems in place to avoid abuse of the system but before spending time and money developing it would be useful to see if hosts would be interested in such a service.

The idea would be that when the host gains a new customer they could enter the system to check if they are logged as doing fraud, spam etc etc.

Look forward to the replies - please feel free to email me at: scott@prowebspace.com if you'd like to talk about this :)

Scott
ProWebSpace.com

I believe your idea is simular to this?

http://www.hostabuse.com

I'm not sure if hostabuse is an active system or not though - i signed up, but no reply...

Jay

I realize that it could assist in curtailing certain activity. However, for two reasons, I would be very hesitant to participate.

First, it violates most privacy statements.

Second, I do not like the sharing of my personal information by insurance companies, since that was the comparative example you gave. It has led to significant abuse and loss of rights by policyholders who have no access to the information shared, no opportunity to dispute it, and no protection against its misuse.

There is just too large a risk in our industry of someone being falsely accused and incurring significant damage to their reputation and ability to do business, because one unscrupulous provider decided to "get" them.

My thoughts too Incognito :)

There may not be a way to develop such a system that would be reliable, but at the moment I'm really just trying to see if putting a lot of time and effort into researching the possibilites of such a system would be used.

The danger of people of putting fake details etc would be a major issue for such a system.

Any thoughts on a process to try and make it do-able ?

I know in the UK that the data protection act makes all companies show their customers what information they hold and I think a simular process would be needed for such a system.

My main idea for starting this was to try and provide protection against fraud for hosts. We don't have a major problem but probably loose around $200-1000 a month due to fraud. Looking at the overall situation this isn't particually large but if it could be reduced by such a system we could spend more time on important issues.

Scott
ProWebSpace.com

I wouldn't use it, as first of all I don't think it would stop kiddies with stolen credit cards, and secondly it would raise concerns of abuse and privacy.

Originally posted by avara
I wouldn't use it, as first of all I don't think it would stop kiddies with stolen credit cards, and secondly it would raise concerns of abuse and privacy.

It's unfortunate that those same concerns havent stopped insurance companies. However, the same is with credit. Actually, there is a site that I cant remember the name to dangit. Anyway, their database works on points. You pass certain info on in encrypted format and their database matches it up with other abuse reports that it's built up. Most often, abusers will usually use the same proxies and same passwords and same usernames. On top of that, they will repetatively use similar throwaway emails (stupidname1@hotmail, stupidname2@hotmail, stupidname3@hotmail, etc). When you get a signup where those match up close enough to a reported abuser, you can deny them service.

If the database got big enough, and enough hosts use it, it could become quite effective. I will see if I can find it again. I was browsing either Abuse.net or Spamcop when I ran across it in their links.

I wouldnt use hostabuse, i tried signing up and i never got a reply.