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  1. #1

    Thumbs down HostGator & Attracta

    A short while back, a new group of cPanel icons appeared in my VPS account with HostGator. There was no prior announcement of what they were, so I was curious.

    I clicked one of the SEO icons to see what it did, and was taken to the Attracta site and exhorted to sign up for various things that I didn't want.

    That was enough for me. I closed that browser window and decided to never use the new cPanel icons.

    Then, the emails began. I never entered any information, so they had to get my email address from HostGator. The messages insult your intelligence by telling you that you signed-up for their service. Typical spam behavior.

    They also state that you agree to their terms of service by using their tools. They don't provide a simple way to unsubscribe, but instead require you to log in to an account that you have not created in order to manage your contact information. This was becoming a real "tar baby".

    I went into WHM and disabled the entire group of Attracta cPanel icons, and sent my objections to this scammy behavior to HostGator.

    I later saw a forum posting from HG apologizing for the implementation and stating that Attracta signups would be opt-in in the future. That touch of wisdom was a bit late.

    HostGator has been a pretty decent host so far, but this Attracta fiasco was an example of seriously bad judgement on the part of HG.

    Legitimate software does not behave like this stuff does. This is the way scam software works. They should have known better than to do this to their customers.

    Brigand

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Dec 2011
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    Were you given no warning that new icons would appear? It seems suspicious that they would turn up without Hostgator mentioning it in some way.

  3. #3
    You are getting me worried now, I actually signed up to Attracta and it seemed fine. Didn't get a single e-mail from them.

    Also their reviews don't seem THAT bad...

  4. #4
    Quote Originally Posted by 1llusion View Post
    You are getting me worried now, I actually signed up to Attracta and it seemed fine. Didn't get a single e-mail from them.

    Also their reviews don't seem THAT bad...
    This is not even about the Attracta service, which I have never used. This is about the bad way it was foisted upon the customers of HostGator.

    Scammy manipulation is not the way legitimate businesses operate.

  5. #5
    Join Date
    Oct 2007
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    4,332
    Quote Originally Posted by 1llusion View Post
    You are getting me worried now, I actually signed up to Attracta and it seemed fine. Didn't get a single e-mail from them.

    Also their reviews don't seem THAT bad...
    It seem like the OP is mainly complaining about his hosting provider instead of Attracta's services. You should not worry too much about this.
    [ James Lee - Cloud & Web Hosting Specialist 10+ Years WHT Veteran]

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  6. #6
    Attracta is being bundled into cPanel as a default service. That could be why you suddenly saw it without notice.
    http://www.cpanel.net/2011/10/cpanel...-attracta.html

  7. #7
    Join Date
    Nov 2009
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    Quote Originally Posted by TimeisMoney View Post
    Attracta is being bundled into cPanel as a default service. That could be why you suddenly saw it without notice.
    http://www.cpanel.net/2011/10/cpanel...-attracta.html
    Exactly, Also I believe they get the email address from with cPanel its self... So HG have no blame in matter at all...
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  8. #8
    Quote Originally Posted by TimeisMoney View Post
    Attracta is being bundled into cPanel as a default service. That could be why you suddenly saw it without notice.
    It is coming in cPanel, but this instance is a HostGator issue. They wouldn't have apologized if it wasn't. Hopefully, the cPanel implementation won't be as obnoxious as the one HostGator ran with.

  9. #9
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    Quote Originally Posted by Brigand View Post
    It is coming in cPanel, but this instance is a HostGator issue. They wouldn't have apologized if it wasn't. Hopefully, the cPanel implementation won't be as obnoxious as the one HostGator ran with.
    Its already in cPanel from the sounds of it or else you would of manually needed to install it on the VPS if it wasnt...

    Again none of this is to do with Hostgator cPanel is not their product.
    UK Based Proactive Server Management.
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  10. #10
    Quote Originally Posted by cd/home View Post
    Its already in cPanel from the sounds of it or else you would of manually needed to install it on the VPS if it wasnt...

    Again none of this is to do with Hostgator cPanel is not their product.
    HostGator says they did it, so either they are lying or you are wrong.

  11. #11
    It was suggested by another HostGator customer that we may have been the test group for the upcoming cPanel implementation. That sounds possible. Hopefully, their implementation will be better conceived as a result of our misfortune.

  12. #12
    Join Date
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    Quote Originally Posted by Brigand View Post
    HostGator says they did it
    Sounds rather interesting that their just installing things into clients cPanels without any prior consent...

    What have they said about this exactly?
    UK Based Proactive Server Management.
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  13. #13

  14. #14
    Join Date
    Jun 2005
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    3,455
    Quote Originally Posted by TimeisMoney View Post
    Attracta is being bundled into cPanel as a default service. That could be why you suddenly saw it without notice.
    http://www.cpanel.net/2011/10/cpanel...-attracta.html
    That is not true. Its not a default. Its an extra addon and you need to enable it via WHM.

    cPanel would never put as a default third party tools. Its optional and the server admin can integrate it to their cPanel services or not.

    If the OP had it in their WHM, it means someone activated the option for him and from what I read HostGator did it. I suppose he has a managed VPS where they have access to it.

    This is not different to them putting their banner in the 404 error pages of their customers. Honestly I think its intrusive. The VPS client should be asked before enabling extra icons or services in his VPS, not enable them by default.

    Nothing that is a third party or extra should be installed without the customers consent over it.

  15. #15
    Join Date
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    Quote Originally Posted by nibb View Post
    I suppose he has a managed VPS where they have access to it.
    This applies to every account type at HostGator. It includes VPS and Dedicated servers.

    We're happy to announce we've recently rolled out Attracta SEO Tools on our VPS and Dedicated hosting solutions.
    http://forums.hostgator.com/introduc...d-t160199.html

    They are even working with Attracta to let people resell it:
    http://forums.hostgator.com/introduc...m-t161729.html
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  16. #16
    Join Date
    Jan 2011
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    884
    Quote Originally Posted by Brigand View Post
    HostGator says they did it, so either they are lying or you are wrong.
    They said it will be in cPanel for everyone shortly, they were just one of the first to receive it. Due to the email issue they went out of their way to help the third party vendor by creating a splash page to allow opt-ins.

  17. #17
    Quote Originally Posted by JaJae View Post
    Due to the email issue they went out of their way to help the third party vendor by creating a splash page to allow opt-ins.
    Right. They went 'out of their way' to fix their own screwup.

  18. #18

    attracta is deleting my robots.txt settings

    I never enrolled in attracta, and was never informed by HG that this system was in place on my shared hosting. I happened to look at my robots.txt files for my different domains and discovered that attracta had preempted them, so that my custom setting were no longer being read! I have not been able to delete the file: it keeps coming back. I have a support ticket in to HG, and will report to this thread if there is anything useful.

  19. #19
    Join Date
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    Quote Originally Posted by nibb View Post
    ...
    This is not different to them putting their banner in the 404 error pages of their customers. Honestly I think its intrusive. The VPS client should be asked before enabling extra icons or services in his VPS, not enable them by default.
    ...
    Was going to say, this pretty much sounds like hostgator, except usually they're banking off your visitors either to the 404, parking, etc rather than making you a victim of it (which wouldn't be that hard as they already have your information on file and could sell to 'partners' if they wanted).


    Quote Originally Posted by Brigand View Post
    Right. They went 'out of their way' to fix their own screwup.
    LOL I wonder how much commission they got so far from the screwup?
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