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Domain: interland.com

Stories and comments across the archive that link to interland.com.

Stories · 2

  1. Why is Hosted Disk Space So Expensive?

    Ask · Storage · · posted by Cliff · from the are-backups-and-bandwidth-really-THAT-expensive dept. · 110 comments
    dhclab49 asks: "Recently, I wrote a data-driven web application for a customer, and when it came time for them to select a hosting company, what I found was that most hosting companies charge a LOT for disk space. Most of them have accounts for $10-$30 per month, a bit more if you add in a database account. However, they almost all limit you to around 250MB of disk space, with extra space costing like $1/month per additional MB of storage. The app I wrote manages the customer's workflow and is meant to allow them to generate PDF documents and store them online, so I really need a few gigs. In an era where hard disks cost about a buck a gig and are getting cheaper by the day, how can hosting companies charge $1000 per gigabyte per YEAR?! And are there any alternatives out there for hosting a data-driven website at a reliable datacenter with a few GB of space for under $500/mo?"

  2. Cert Slamming, or, Desperate Companies Behaving Badly

    Internet · · posted by ryuzaki0 · from the must-suck-to-suck dept. · 186 comments
    the special sauce writes "A few months back, our customers (we run a regional ISP) started receiving deceptive domain renewal notices from Verisign and Verisign partners such as Interland. A couple of our customers temporarily lost their domains in the process as the registrant, contact information and hosting company was all changed. Yesterday, I received an e-mail from a customer. He was forwarding a "reminder" e-mail he had received. It was an SSL certificate "renewal" notice from a UK company, Comodo. It instructed him to "upgrade" his current certificate (issued by Equifax) before it expired." More information on this charming practice follows... the special sauce Continues: "For those who don't know, Equifax was just bought out by GeoTrust, who offers a QuickSSL product. Comodo's e-mail was advertising an "InstantSSL" product, which I myself mistook for the GeoTrust product on first reading the e-mail. When I realized my mistake, I contacted Comodo and inquired as to their relationships with Equifax and GeoTrust and how they came by my customer's information. The response: "We have no relationship with Equifax or GeoTrust. The information on a certificate is public information which we have used to inform this company that they have an option when they come to buy their certificate."

    My interpretation: Comodo is harvesting contact information from certificates in bad faith, to market a competing product. Furthermore, I think they have targeted Equifax customers because the company was just bought out. In any buyout, confusion exists as to the "new" company's identity. I think they are offering a product whose name is confusing similar to a GeoTrust's product. The language in their e-mail does everything possible to obfuscate the fact that they are not affiliated with Equifax, encouraging customers to "renew" and "upgrade" their certificates. In reality, if my customer had clicked the links in the e-mail, he would have been purchasing a new certificate from a company with which he had no previous relationship.

    So I ask, is this not cert slamming? I don't expect this to be as big a problem as Verisign's domain slamming: we simply host less certificates than domains so it is easier to warn all of our customers with secured web sites. Nevertheless, I've reported the practice to the FTC."