Host Provider Business Practices & Shameless Plug
First off, I'm not defending Host Gator (less business for them means more for me or other eGO partners), but you could not sue them (see Terms of Service below)
Every host company has Ts & Cs, an AUP, or a TOS. Most of those say the exact same thing. The difference between a good provider and a poor provider is how they handle problems when they arise.
Host Gator should never have removed content w/o first contacting eGO, but they were within their rights to do so. Yes, the business/professional plan included many unlimited features, but anyone who works on servers knows that you can't offer this without over subscribing their machines. You can't make money unless you do that. This is how they make money and to protect the other customers they remove sites that use high CPU. Right or wrong this is what they do.
Take the eGO website for example. This site uses between 5% and 40% of this web servers available CPU, 15% average, depending on site load, day of the week, game server activity, and special events. Rather than selling based on the max CPU used I sell based on the average used. So instead of 2 customers I can sell up to 6 customers per server. Now, here is where hosts get tricky. 6 customers won't pay for a server and provide profit so you depend on oversubscription and the fact that most people won't use 15% of the CPU. Places like GoDaddy and Host Gator will put 100s of customers on one box. For 99% of small sites this is fine, but when you get a popular and ever growing site like eGO you consume more resources than planned.
Is this right?... HELL NO, but it is a norm in the industry.
So what sets companies apart. Companies like Host Gator don't care that they just lost $5 - $13 per month because they're still making at least $1300 per month on the web server w/o our business.
eGO has grown so much over the last two years which is why they use many dedicated servers and trusted hosting partners like DGX. Companies like DGX or SoftLayer remember that customers make the business. Host Gator is dealing in volume with the average customer spending $5. SoftLayer deals with customers paying $100s. DGX splits the difference... We don't charge a lot, we don't over subscribe, and we never terminate w/o cause or ample notice.
Shameless Plug said:
If you're using Host Gator and you want to support eGO then I suggest pulling your business away from them and going with a customer friendly hosting provider.
**cough** DGX **cough**
If you have a Host Gator Dedicated Server and you want to support eGO then I suggest pulling your business away from them and going with a customer friendly hosting provider.
**cough** SoftLayer **cough**
http://www.hostgator.com/tos.shtml said:
5.) Backups and Data Loss
Your use of this service is at your sole risk. Our backup service is provided to you as a courtesy. HostGator is not responsible for files and/or data residing on your account. You agree to take full responsibility for files and data transferred and to maintain all appropriate backup of files and data stored on HostGator servers.
6.) Cancellations and Refunds
HostGator reserves the right to cancel the account at any time with or without notice.
7. Resource Usage
User may not: a) Use 25% or more of system resources for longer then 90 seconds. There are numerous activities that could cause such problems; these include: CGI scripts, FTP, PHP, HTTP, etc.
b) Run stand-alone, unattended server-side processes at any point in time on the server. This includes any and all daemons, such as IRCD.
c) Run any type of web spider or indexer (including Google Cash / AdSpy) on shared servers.
d) Run any software that interfaces with an IRC (Internet Relay Chat) network.
e) Run any bit torrent application, tracker, or client. You may link to legal torrents off-site, but may not host or store them on our shared servers.
f) Participate in any file-sharing/peer-to-peer activities
g) Run any gaming servers such as counter-strike, half-life, battlefield1942, etc
h) Run cron entries with intervals of less than 15 minutes When using PHP include functions for including a local file, include the local file rather than the URL. Instead of include("http://yourdomain.com/include.php") use include("include.php")
15.) Disclaimer
HostGator shall not be responsible for any damages your business may suffer. HostGator makes no warranties of any kind, expressed or implied for services we provide. HostGator disclaims any warranty or merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. This includes loss of data resulting from delays, no deliveries, wrong delivery, and any and all service interruptions caused by HostGator and its employees.
17.) Changes to the TOS
HostGator reserves the right to revise its policies at any time without notice.
