Results 1 to 20 of 20
  1. #1
    Join Date
    Nov 2011
    Location
    Chicago or Florida
    Posts
    179

    Reseller Business Liability for Customer TOS Violations

    Can anyone comment on reseller liability (in a business sense) relating to reseller-customer web host TOS violations. Specifically, say I get a reseller account at some web hosting company. I then set up a marketing company, get some customers, and provide billing/tech support. One of my customers starts spamming or posts content that violates my host's TOS. Do most/all/some web hosts realize they need to shut down only my customer or is it common for them to shut me down completely (including my good customers)?

    The reason I ask is it seems to me that there is a gray area here for anyone who considers reselling rather than running their own servers. Unless you can be confident the host will properly enforce any shut down action, you risk losing rule-abiding customers.

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Nov 2011
    Location
    Chicago or Florida
    Posts
    179
    I started reading the Hostgator TOS. Here is a quote:

    HostGator will hold any reseller responsible for any of their clients actions that violate the law or the terms of service.
    IMHO this should give tremendous pause to any of their resellers unless you personally know/administer every account.

    I would love to know about hosts (if you can't post here please PM me) who understand and respect my concern.

  3. #3
    Join Date
    Nov 2011
    Location
    Chicago or Florida
    Posts
    179
    From Bluehost:

    In the event that a Reseller or a Reseller's user is determined to be in violation of the Terms of Service, the Reseller shall, upon receipt of notice of the violation, take prompt action to ensure that the account in question is updated to be in full compliance with the Terms of Service.
    That's a little better though I would love some affirming sentence here like "if the Reseller fulfills this requirement he shall not be deemed in violation of the TOS."

  4. #4
    Join Date
    Mar 2009
    Location
    Singapore
    Posts
    2,637
    It actually depends on what the terms the companies set. For most companies they will only suspend your customer sites and instruct you to terminate or remove the content within 24-72 hours. It's a rare situation that they will be suspending your whole reseller unless you are the abusive account.

    It all depends, read before you signup. Easy trick

  5. #5
    Join Date
    Feb 2005
    Location
    Australia
    Posts
    5,849
    Like it or not, ultimately you are going to be held responsible for the clients you sign up. And while most reseller providers will only suspend the spammer client on the first occasion, if it starts to become a repeating pattern any decent provider would show you the door. This isn't just about resellers either - even on a VPS or dedicated server, no upstream provider enjoys the hassle of delisting their IPs that have been blacklisted for spam.

    Instead of looking for "understanding" providers you should be more concerned about how to prevent the problem in the first place. eg. not offering free or anonymous accounts, verifying contact details and limiting outgoing mail.
    Chris

    "Some problems are so complex that you have to be highly intelligent and well informed just to be undecided about them." - Laurence J. Peter

  6. #6
    Join Date
    Mar 2009
    Location
    Miami, Florida
    Posts
    20,777
    In most cases, the company will just suspend the offending site unless the issue is caused by gross neglect of the reseller

    Also, when did BlueHost start offering reseller packages?
    Keith I Myers
    KMyers.me The rantings of a lunatic
    Join me on Technical.chat

  7. #7
    Join Date
    Nov 2011
    Location
    Chicago or Florida
    Posts
    179
    Quote Originally Posted by foobic View Post
    Instead of looking for "understanding" providers you should be more concerned about how to prevent the problem in the first place. eg. not offering free or anonymous accounts, verifying contact details and limiting outgoing mail.
    Please be aware that I said "understand . . . this concern." I did not say "understanding." I think you may be changing the context of what I said with the way you quote me. I think you may also be implying that I am somehow not wanting to act in good faith which is simply not true.

    I am looking for fairness. A reseller TOS should articulate the responsibilities of a reseller (monitor accounts, enforce rules, handle support, etc) and also the responsibilities of the ISP. If a reseller spends time and money to build a hosting resale business and makes an honest and good faith effort to follow the ISP's rules (which are generally just common sense for the cost of the service), he should not have to live in fear that one idiot customer who while searching the internet for ways to increase traffic finds a site willing to sell him a "perfectly legal double opt-in mailing list" to spam for 20 bucks. This has to simply be inevitable in the web hosting business.

    Verifying details and limiting outgoing email will not render any host immune to abuse nor will any other measure. Based on the Hostgator example term above, the host has immediate grounds to terminate the reseller and all the reseller's business based on their own arbitrary reading of the situation. To me this is unconscionable but I don't think it's worth running a business hoping a judge might agree. Moreover, just think about the potential liability a reseller may face (or just the overbearing anger) if a whole array of websites go down based on no fault of his own.

    Web hosts can't guarantee all their pre-screened customers will follow the rules so how can they expect the same from a reseller? These sorts of terms are simply a sucker's game. (Maybe that's just the nature of web hosting where everything is "unlimited" and free?)

    Unless there are reputable reseller programs that articulate not only the rights of the host but also the reseller, it seems foolish to me for anyone to be a reseller rather than getting a VPS and a CPanel license. Unless, of course, you consider yourself a particularly lucky person.

  8. #8
    Join Date
    Nov 2011
    Location
    Chicago or Florida
    Posts
    179
    From the k-disk.net TOS (since he was nice enough to reply to my post):

    Depending on the seriousness of the infraction, we will issue you a Written Notice of the infraction. You will have 24-48 hours to confront your customer and remove the restricted content or suspend the customers account. If the infraction is in serious violation of our terms of service, then we may suspend the account on the root level.
    That's actually a lot better than the first two. Making an effort to let me resolve the situation is nice. I wish however that you could add a final sentence like "If we suspend the account at the root level we will make an attempt to preserve all non-offending sub-accounts in working order." If you couple that with a "we will make no attempt to take over your customer accounts unless you have violated the terms of this agreement/ignored our warnings/etc" it would be my dream reseller terms.

  9. #9
    Join Date
    Nov 2011
    Location
    Chicago or Florida
    Posts
    179
    Here's InnoHosting (which happens to be a very popular company advertised on this site:

    4.1 The reseller/VPS customer is liable and responsible for all actions of their account and subaccounts created by the reseller/VPS customer. As the reseller/VPS customer you agree to accept all responsibility and liability for your actions and the actions of your subusers either directly or indirectly.

    4.2 Terms of Service violations as a result of a subuser account being exploited with or without knowledge will be the responsibility of the reseller/VPS account holder.

    4.2a Resellers & VPS customers are responsible for the content of the accounts they create. If those accounts are hacked/abused, the reseller will be accountable for all costs and liability.

    . . .

    4.4 The legal liability and legal responsibility of the subaccounts of the reseller/VPS belongs to the reseller/VPS customer.

    4.5 InnoHosting reserves the right to financially charge the reseller/VPS customer for any contract violation.

    4.6 If an IP assigned to a VPS client is blocked and/or blacklisted, InnoHosting will impose a non-negotiable $100.00 penalty fee payable within 24hrs. InnoHosting reserves the right to take further action should this bill remain unpaid.
    Lol what clowns.

  10. #10
    Join Date
    Feb 2005
    Location
    Australia
    Posts
    5,849
    Quote Originally Posted by clijunkie View Post
    Please be aware that I said "understand . . . this concern." I did not say "understanding." I think you may be changing the context of what I said with the way you quote me. I think you may also be implying that I am somehow not wanting to act in good faith which is simply not true.
    No, that wasn't my intent. I just think you're placing way too much importance on the precise wording of the ToS. (But congratulations on being one of the few to read them ). As a general rule a hosting provider's ToS is written in their own favour - to give them the right to terminate your account if they feel the need. I doubt you'll find any ToS that aren't like that, nor any decent provider that will terminate you for no reason if you act in good faith. IOW, there isn't a direct link between the wording of the ToS and what actions the provider will take in any particular circumstances.

    But again, in case the point isn't getting through, you will be held responsible for your clients' behaviour.

    Unless there are reputable reseller programs that articulate not only the rights of the host but also the reseller, it seems foolish to me for anyone to be a reseller rather than getting a VPS and a CPanel license.
    Again, a VPS doesn't offer any immunity from this. If your VPS starts to send spam you must deal with it or expect to be terminated.

    Unless, of course, you consider yourself a particularly lucky person.
    Keep in mind that account termination for a spamming client is just one possible disaster scenario - there are many others, as a browse around these forums shows. IMO, having good backups can improve your luck greatly.
    Last edited by foobic; 11-24-2011 at 04:28 AM. Reason: additional
    Chris

    "Some problems are so complex that you have to be highly intelligent and well informed just to be undecided about them." - Laurence J. Peter

  11. #11
    Join Date
    Nov 2011
    Location
    Chicago or Florida
    Posts
    179
    Quote Originally Posted by foobic View Post
    IMO, having good backups can improve your luck greatly.
    Haha I imagine it can This is a great point.

  12. #12
    Join Date
    Jun 2010
    Location
    Modesto California
    Posts
    6,858
    I've seen upstreams shut down entire dedicated servers because of one account spamming on the server. Its really going to depend on the company and the situation. I would take the advice foobic gave you and focus on ways to prevent people from abusing accounts created inside of your reseller, because at the end of the day, you will be held responsible.
    Looking for an awesome VPS Offer? CLICK HERE

    "Knowing is not enough, we must apply. Willing is not enough, we must do." – Bruce Lee

  13. #13
    Join Date
    Sep 2003
    Posts
    3,857
    Quote Originally Posted by clijunkie View Post
    Lol what clowns.
    So, for us not to be 'clowns' I suppose we should accept the liability of our clients, why not even include a lawyer free with all our packages so they can do as they please, host what they want, legal or otherwise while we stand ready to spend however much money it takes to defend their unlawful activities?

    The word 'clown' certainly does come to mind.

  14. #14
    Why not be an affiliate instead of a reseller? Unless said host's TOS also puts that liability on the affiliate.

  15. #15
    Join Date
    Dec 2009
    Location
    Greece
    Posts
    802
    The hosting company has to act immediately and suspend the abusive account,to protect the rest of your clients,as well as all the other clients hosted on the server.Then work with you to fix the issue with the client.
    Coming soon...

  16. #16
    Join Date
    May 2009
    Location
    Ft. Lauderdale, Florida
    Posts
    1,783
    If we see the clients heart is in the right place, we will certainly work with them. This has worked well for us in the past and builds trust.

    If we see the clients heart is in the wrong place we take action usually resulting in a nasty post about us or "review" on a forum hehe
    U.S.A. High Resource allocation global cloud hosting serving 310,000 clients since 2008 | Offering both cPanel & DirectAdmin
    WebsitePlex.com | Instant Activation | Alpha, Master, Reseller & Cloud Hosting
    Recurring Affiliate Program Pays 20% of total revenue for life | 30 Day Trial

  17. #17
    Join Date
    Feb 2010
    Location
    Oregon
    Posts
    310
    Coming down hard on the first offense is like using Mace first, before asking them to move! But some do.
    Hostmy1stweb.com - Affordable Web Hosting
    HOSTING l SSL l DOMAINS l MODULES l SUBMISSIONS l AFFILIATES

    Providing low cost "Value" Hosting since 1999

  18. #18
    Join Date
    Oct 2003
    Location
    Scotland, UK
    Posts
    2,916
    Quote Originally Posted by JixHost View Post
    If we see the clients heart is in the right place, we will certainly work with them. This has worked well for us in the past and builds trust.

    If we see the clients heart is in the wrong place we take action usually resulting in a nasty post about us or "review" on a forum hehe
    This was the approach I always adopted. For people starting out, it can often seem a bit crazy and they need a bit of hand holding - it's a learning experience for them. As long as people are acting responsibly and taking comments on board, I think it's important to support them - and this will normally only pay dividends when it comes to upgrading to a larger package, VPS, server etc...!
    Alasdair
    Long time ex-host, ex-billing software owner/developer/support staff. Recent lurker.

  19. #19
    Join Date
    Feb 2008
    Location
    South Florida
    Posts
    108
    I think most good hosts will suspend just the domain / account in question. They should also contact you as the reseller so you are aware of the action being taken.
    Michael Caputa – President – Web Results Inc
    REAL RESULTS FOR REAL REWARDS
    www.webresultsinc.com | follow us @webresultsinc
    design | hosting | e-commerce & shopping carts | app development | fax-to-email | announcer pro

  20. #20
    ... That reminds me to update our ToS to reflect that. Sigh, that means getting the ToS reviewed by Legal. Yay!
    ★ Nicholas @ EidolonHost
    ★ Blesta and InterWorx Reseller. See WebHost Licenses for details.
    ★ We have Let's Encrypt Support

Similar Threads

  1. Replies: 4
    Last Post: 11-13-2011, 06:23 PM
  2. Hostgator.in & Google's Fantastic Business Model
    By bhunkus in forum Web Hosting
    Replies: 9
    Last Post: 11-07-2011, 02:30 AM
  3. Business Model of Master Reseller?
    By Joshy Boi in forum Reseller Hosting
    Replies: 6
    Last Post: 09-26-2010, 04:20 PM
  4. Replies: 7
    Last Post: 08-03-2006, 03:34 AM
  5. Reseller Business Model
    By fairfax in forum Reseller Hosting
    Replies: 15
    Last Post: 06-07-2005, 03:49 AM

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •