US Authorities Shut Down Over 70,000 Free Hosting Services

What happens when your free hosting service withdraws that service, especially if they withdraw the service without giving you notice? Can’t happen? It just did, for over 70,000 bloggers…

The web hosting company, BurstNet, has said it shut down a blogging platform, Blogetery.com, that was home to over 70,000 bloggers because a “link to terrorist material” an al-Qaeda “hit list” and “bomb-making instructions” was posted to the site.

A spokesperson said “We are limited as to the details we can provide to you, but note that this was a critical matter and the only available option to us was to immediately deactivate the server.”

I’m sorry if your blog was hosted on this server, especially if you’ve lost all your data as it would seem that like affiliateplex there were no backups unless you made your own and downloaded them you your own computer.

If you do insist on using these free server, then read the contact and terms of service very carefully, there is usually a clause that states they can suspend, remove, delete, terminate your account, blog or the complete service whenever, and for whatever, reason (or no reason) they choose…

Your use of the Internet is subject to all applicable local, state, national, and international laws and regulations, Without limiting the other rights available to BurstNET™, BurstNET™ retains the right but not the obligation, in its sole discretion and without prior notice or liability, to restrict and/or terminate your access to the Internet and BurstNET™ if your use of the Internet violates any such laws or regulations, any prohibitions upon your conduct in connection with the Internet raised in this paragraph or otherwise restricts or inhibits any other user from enjoying the Internet or BurstNET™.

Although this is not a good situation for those of you with blogs on this server, maybe it’s a good wakeup call and just maybe some good can come from this.

There are several lessons that can be learned from this scenario:

1. Don’t host your blog on a free server, you have no control and no come back it things go wrong.
2. Always make your own backups and download them from the hosting server. Both mechanical and software problems happen to the best of hosting providers and disasters do happen.
3. Pay a for a good hosting provider especially if you intent to make money from your blog. The few coins you spend will more than pay for themselves with the excellent service hosting provider such as JustHost, iPage, BlueHost, etc. supply. You also get a FREE domain name for life with most so you save a few coins anyway.

Anyway, that’s what you get when you put your blog on a free hosting service operated by who knows! Don’t run that risk. Put your blog on a REAL hosting service that actually manages their business and protects their clients.

• The full story from this article can be found on the BBC Technology News site, 20 July 2010, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-10692501.