# BBB alternative for hosting industry



## drmike (Jun 30, 2013)

Real quick post here 

What do others in the community think about a new company for the hosting industry that would offer a place for complaints from customers, means of resolving them, apply different factors into a rating for the host and offer some basis of validating a hosting company is legitimate and business worthy?   Think of that last part of a real VERIFIED status that would be accompanied with graphics and reusable stuff to stand offers out elsewhere and provide something good to the consumer up front?

It would per se be somewhat like the Better Business Bureau, but would go far beyond what they do and focus purely on hosting and related companies.

This would be, from the ground up --- brand new.

Other folks see the need and benefits?  

Discuss below.


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## NodeBytes (Jun 30, 2013)

I'd like to see a deadpool section on VPSWiki - Maybe we can bother @mun to add this


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## SeriesN (Jun 30, 2013)

Maybe it can be operated by group of hosting vets who are selected via public vote from fellow holsters? And key will.change hands every year to new group of people. Verified seal for hosters/providers etc. I think I kinda like this idea. And with recent multi company syndrome, this might be useful.


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## NodeBytes (Jun 30, 2013)

SeriesN said:


> Maybe it can be operated by group of hosting vets who are selected via public vote from fellow holsters?


Great idea. Possibly even just vetted VPS users and those of us with lots of experience in VPS use who can tell the difference between ioping and dd and where these are applicable and BS.


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## rds100 (Jun 30, 2013)

I smell corruption and "highest bidder gets best rating"


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## SeriesN (Jun 30, 2013)

bcarlsonmedia said:


> Great idea. Possibly even just vetted VPS users and those of us with lots of experience in VPS use who can tell the difference between ioping and dd and where these are applicable and BS.


I don't think corporate world would be managed by end users . Kinda like how local chamber of commerce works. Like, every business can be a part of it and etc.... End users benefit would be added 3rd party vetting/verification.


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## SeriesN (Jun 30, 2013)

rds100 said:


> I smell corruption and "highest bidder gets best rating"


Our government is corrupted but it still works majority of time. This should be more of a committee instead of selected individual.


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## NodeBytes (Jun 30, 2013)

buffalooed said:


> complaints from customers, means of resolving them, apply different factors into a rating for the host and offer some basis of validating a hosting company is legitimate and business worthy?






rds100 said:


> I smell corruption and "highest bidder gets best rating"



That's what the factors of the rating are for.


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## NodeBytes (Jun 30, 2013)

Just gonna say, sometimes I see favoritism between providers.

Gotta be careful of that as well.


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## rds100 (Jun 30, 2013)

Yes, but can these customers be verified somehow? Some providers will just pay for tons of fake reviews, as they do today on WHT and other places.


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## NodeBytes (Jun 30, 2013)

rds100 said:


> Yes, but can these customers be verified somehow? Some providers will just pay for tons of fake reviews, as they do today on WHT and other places.


Good point.


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## drmike (Jun 30, 2013)

rds100 said:


> I smell corruption and "highest bidder gets best rating"



I am weary of any hierarchy.  All folks in power seem to inevitably let that power/role corrupt their better judgment.

I proposed this because I had been mentally dancing with the idea for a while.  I see too much fraud, lies and deception by hosting cartels.  No one outside of myself and a few others do much to validate who is what.  The original Lowendadmin did a bit of digging and that slowed the bad companies then from overtaking LET/LEB.  Some of the clashes were legendary and have lingered/been confirmed by same deeds of same parties until recently.

There is a need is for being able to say and display a verification emblem / graphic that means something and use that anywhere you post/offer.    On that emblem linkage to a breakout profile and general public details and all sorts of useful stuff about your business.

Yes, we'd interface with problem customers too like the BBB does.  Formal process and attempt to get mutual satisfaction for the customer and the company involved.

I'd probably formulate several different key indicators that would be calculated actively based on different things.  So it would double as a directory of companies offering various data services as well.


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## Marc M. (Jun 30, 2013)

How long before corruption rears its ugly head?

Lol @ a rating system. I wonder how that's gonna work. Even the BBB is corrupt and can barely keep functioning, mostly because of presure from the media and businsses that they've screwed in the past, trying to extort fees from them for an A+ rating. I mean I see Banks (mostly) and Credit Card companies that should have a big fat *F*- get away with an A/A+!!!

Now, considering the pyramid style organization of the hosting industry, the nerd cartels, the anonymity so many cling on to... well... good luck with that. I always say to people how naive and uneducated they are when they sign up with a provider that they don't know anything about, but trust their personal information and data without even thinking twice about it, just because they got a coupon and can get a VPS/Shared hosting for next to nothing.

The thing is that there are companies that make billions from hosting every year. They are anywhere from data center networks to domain registrars. And they like how everything is right now. They have influence and power (oh, and did I mention money?!). If they wanted to have the industry regulated they would have lobied for that a long time ago. But they don't. Same thing with a rating system for hosting companies / complaint bureau: if they wanted something like that, it would have existed a long time ago. Competition in the hosting industry is different. Small insignificant providers like us will have to rely on reputation and word of mouth because we don't have the marketing / advertising budgets of the big guys, while they can afford to pay for TV ads (anyone see the latest 1and1 ads?). It's like fast food: the common person doesn't think it through when they see and ad for a .99 cent burito that the fast food chain spent a quarter million dollars to show the ad on TV. They just go out an buy that crap.

Want more scary stuff? Well here it is: up until recently providers like GoDaddy for example delivered abysmal shared hosting and virtual private servers. But with the advent of blade servers like the E5 that can cheaply pack up to 256GB RAM (I know, I know, with an expensive mobo you can install more), with the lowered prices of SSD drives and caching technologies, they won't have to offer a shitty experience anymore. In fact GoDaddy is moving to Xen. Gee, I wonder why...? These mamoth providers won't have to cheat their customers out of their resources anymore in the near future. Then what? Rackspace is still running a ton of old hardware, but on the other hand they have lots of money, so I asume that they will upgrade at some point.

The only thing that comes even remotely close to offering some insight into various hosting businesses is none other than *Server Bear* due to how it colects, compiles and publicaly displays data. Stuart had the right idea with that one.

Anyway, enough ranting for one night :lol:


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## wlanboy (Jun 30, 2013)

Will not work.

You have to have all address and payment information to verify the client is real.

But who will give all customer information to a third party that is involved in the same business?

And what customer will allow it?

Noone.


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## Marc M. (Jun 30, 2013)

wlanboy said:


> Will not work. You have to have all address and payment information to verify the client is real. But who will give all customer information to a third party that is involved in the same business? And what customer will allow it? Noone.


*@wlanboy* actually the BBB does not verify the customer's information, it just forwards the complaint to the business along with the information that information that the complaining customer provides. The BBB does not get involved in verifying personal information. If it's a legal situation where the law needs to get involved or the complaint is about a medial or law professional then the BBB stays out of it (*cough* they don't really do that much *cough*). However the BBB works with business from almost every area of the economy: cell phone providers, banks, credit card companies, car manufacturers, and they all pay membership fees for that BBB seal. That's all good and fine, we have a semi-corupt organization that somehow *cough* semi *cough* works.

Now we get to the interesting part: who will finance this organization? The hosting industry? Cause we all know how that's gonna play out (look at WHT for example) ... :lol:


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## drmike (Jun 30, 2013)

You have to have all address and payment information to verify the client is real. But who will give all customer information to a third party that is involved in the same business?


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## Marc M. (Jun 30, 2013)

*@* no reason to quote your last post, however I agree with it 

Now lets break the tension a bit. Cut scene from the 2006 flick "Tokyo Drift":


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## drmike (Jun 30, 2013)

Marc M. said:


> *@wlanboy* However the BBB works with business from almost every area of the economy: cell phone providers, banks, credit card companies, car manufacturers, and they all pay membership fees for that BBB seal. That's all good and fine, we have a semi-corupt organization that somehow *cough* semi *cough* works.
> 
> Now we get to the interesting part: who will finance this organization? The hosting industry? Cause we all know how that's gonna play out (look at WHT for example) ... :lol:


BBB offers little value in general.  Most consumers have no reason to interact with them and that is very apparent by the lack of complaints filed against huge shady companies with the BBB.

Finance such a thing?  Well certainly shouldn't be a non profit, at least not initially.  It's a viable business model per se.  Financing isn't much to operate such.  Everything is online practically for distributing the info.   Rest of the risk money is to compensate for time for whatever team operates the company.

How does it get funded? Well, that's always a tough one.  Membership works elsewhere.  But I question what anyone gets by paying to be a member of any organization.     Have to give that some thought - products, financing, etc.


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## Marc M. (Jun 30, 2013)

*@* for some reason whenever I see Justin Bieber I'm reminded of all the teenage summer hosts out there. Maybe we could get in touch with him to finance this organization ... he can bankroll it for sure ... that way it'd be neutral... :lol:


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## drmike (Jun 30, 2013)

Marc M. said:


> I see Justin Bieber I'm reminded of all the teenage summer hosts out there


 

I've worked in membership organizations in the past.    While it takes money to do things, most organization like that are fat cats sitting in plush seats.  Very few people and dollars do 80% of the work.  So it's not really expensive to operate.   Very honest business if operated by honest people with right intentions. 

Summer hosts are only one of the industry locust plagues.  Plenty of bad big company experiences people should know/research/have info better before purchasing.  Info that suits their interests and needs.  For instance, a provider might be unmanaged and that should be clear and defined to new non tech customer. 

Another company might claim 24/7 support but take 4 hours on ticket response.  Again something that would be nice to see.

Yes some of it is complicated, based from complaints, potential for issues. But you start and try and perfect as you go


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## Marc M. (Jun 30, 2013)

buffalooed said:


> Yes some of it is complicated, based from complaints, potential for issues. But you start and try and perfect as you go


*@* as you may have noticed, I like to mix it with a bit of humor here and there. Seriously do, I have a few ideas how to do this. I'll PM you. It's an open forum and *anyone* can read it, you know... :lol:


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## drmike (Jun 30, 2013)

Humor is good @Marc M.   like some of the videos   Biebs, ahh well... Not me cup'o tea.

Feel free to PM me.  Open to discussions and ideas.


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## notFound (Jun 30, 2013)

rds100 said:


> I smell corruption and "highest bidder gets best rating"


As long as you can oust this ^ then it can work. You need a nice dispute process too if a provider is listed without a chance to dispute their innocence.


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## D. Strout (Jun 30, 2013)

I am all in favor of this. Despite all the bad that could happen, I think it could work.


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## GVH-Jon (Jun 30, 2013)

Short answer: No.

Even the big guys have some bias.


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## SeriesN (Jun 30, 2013)

Hence it will be a committee based and not one mans show.



GVH-Jon said:


> Short answer: No.
> 
> 
> Even the big guys have some bias.


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## NodeBytes (Jun 30, 2013)

And as others have said, probably not run by providers/those in the hosting industry.


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## XFS_Duke (Jun 30, 2013)

I think it would a good idea. But the issue would be how to get the provider to answer for their issues? A rating system is awesome, A+ through F- and the shields for their sites would be awesome as well. Make a nice image that shows something like what the BBB does. Have a page for each provider with the information for the provider.

I'd think it'd work out as long as EVERYONE is able to have their site on there with no fees or low fee's. The BBB is a little expensive for my liking... Especially for what they "provide"...


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## SeriesN (Jun 30, 2013)

bcarlsonmedia said:


> And as others have said, probably not run by providers/those in the hosting industry.


This will be something for the providers and I don't see how elected providers won't be able to manage this? Reminds me of my good Ol college SGA days.


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## SeriesN (Jun 30, 2013)

Unlike BBB, this won't require huge offices or such. So may be a one-time registration fee on top of a small monthly fee sounds good. Hey, it worked for other committees and groups.



XFS_Duke said:


> I think it would a good idea. But the issue would be how to get the provider to answer for their issues? A rating system is awesome, A+ through F- and the shields for their sites would be awesome as well. Make a nice image that shows something like what the BBB does. Have a page for each provider with the information for the provider.
> 
> 
> I'd think it'd work out as long as EVERYONE is able to have their site on there with no fees or low fee's. The BBB is a little expensive for my liking... Especially for what they "provide"...


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## drmike (Jun 30, 2013)

XFS_Duke said:


> The BBB is a little expensive for my liking... Especially for what they "provide"...


 

Any idea what the current/recent BBB rates are for annual membership?


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## XFS_Duke (Jun 30, 2013)

buffalooed said:


> Any idea what the current/recent BBB rates are for annual membership?


I was told recently that it was something along the lines of $150 or something. I know they offer a monthly payment plan but you have to have been in business for a year and be "approved". I can find out more tomorrow when their office is open. I'm sure it is the price I said above...


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## SeriesN (Jun 30, 2013)

Is that monthly or yearly?



XFS_Duke said:


> I was told recently that it was something along the lines of $150 or something. I know they offer a monthly payment plan but you have to have been in business for a year and be "approved". I can find out more tomorrow when their office is open. I'm sure it is the price I said above...


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## XFS_Duke (Jun 30, 2013)

The price was yearly. But they offer a monthly payment plan to pay off the $150 or however much it was.

I'll find out more tomorrow.


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## drmike (Jun 30, 2013)

> BBB Accreditation Fee Schedule
> 
> 
> 
> ...


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## drmike (Jun 30, 2013)

[SIZE=8.5pt]New members pay an additional one-time enrollment fee of $50.[/SIZE]


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## Master Bo (Jun 30, 2013)

As far as I know, BBB-like approach simply won't work. It will be yet another good review/bad reviewstand, nothing more.

Nothing can change eprsonal experience. I know several people whose reviews I can trust, that's enough for me. All the rest - only 'buy, try, review' approach would work.

Sometimes I thought about 'anonymous testers', who would buy an account at hoster to review, test it for considerable time (all aspects - support quality, stability, security etc), but it takes too much time and is rather an expensive endeavor.

The above kind of testing, by reliable persons, would be the ideal means to select trusted hosters. JMNSHO.


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