What Makes a Web Hosting Provider Great and Trustworthy - Know Your Provider - Part 1

Web Hosting represents an essential need for most companies, organizations, professionals and individuals. Everything needs a Web Hosting infrastructure. Everyone needs one or more product categories (Cloud Servers, Dedicated Servers, VPS Servers, GPU Servers, Shared Hosting, Game Servers, Mac Mini/Pro, Wordpress Hosting and Colocation Services) to host their applications, databases, emails, backups, files or just to host their websites for their online presence. The complexity the Web Hosting Industry and the huge number of Web Hosting providers and available offers makes purchase decision very hard for customers and prospects.

In this series of “What Makes a Web Hosting Provider Great and Trustworthy”, we will be sharing some of the elements that make a Web Hosting provider great. This is part of the WebHostingTrustIndex™ which will be gradually integrated into our Web Hosting Search and Comparison Engine “WebHostingSaver.com”

Based on the The Web Hosting Pyramid of Needs™, there are many elements that help a Web Hosting provider to be great and trustworthy.

The Know Your Client (KYC) form is a standard form in the financial services industry that ensures advisors know detailed information about their clients’ risk tolerance, investment knowledge and financial position. KYC forms protect both clients and financial institutions. To learn more about the KYC, visit these references investopedia, Pwc

Using the same concept, Web Hosting customers need to know their providers (partners). “Know Your Provider (KYP)” in order to build long term business relationships. This ensures a win-win relationship for both parties.

In this first part, we will focus on the Legal elements which all professional Web Hosting providers have to provide in their website.

Tip: To be easily found by customers and visitors, All the legal documents have to be accessible from the main page of the provider’s website. The legal documents can also organized in a separate section within the website.

1) Terms of Service (ToS)

Terms of service (also known as terms of use and terms and conditions, commonly abbreviated as TOS or ToS, ToU or T&C) are rules by which one must agree to abide in order to use a service. Terms of service can also be merely a disclaimer, especially regarding the use of websites.

The Terms of Service Agreement is mainly used for legal purposes by Web Hosting Providers.

A legitimate terms-of-service agreement is legally binding and may be subject to change. Companies can enforce the terms by refusing service. Customers can enforce by filing a suit or arbitration case if they can show they were actually harmed by a breach of the terms. There is a heightened risk of data going astray during corporate changes, including mergers, divestitures, buyouts, downsizing, etc., when data can be transferred improperly.

Your can learn more about the Terms of Service here - source.

These are some examples of the Terms of Service documents from Web Hosting providers:

2) Privacy Policy

A privacy policy is a statement or a legal document (in privacy law) that discloses some or all of the ways a party gathers, uses, discloses, and manages a customer or client’s data. It fulfills a legal requirement to protect a customer or client’s privacy.

Personal information can be anything that can be used to identify an individual, not limited to the person’s name, address, date of birth, marital status, contact information, etc.

In the case of a business it is often a statement that declares a party’s policy on how it collects, stores, shares and releases personal information it collects. It informs the client what specific information is collected, and whether it is kept confidential, shared with partners, or sold to other firms or enterprises. Privacy policies typically represent a broader, more generalized treatment, as opposed to data use statements, which tend to be more detailed and specific.

Your can learn more about the Privacy Policy here - source.

Check this article where we have shared A Quick Way to Analyze Any Privacy Policy - How to Get an AI-Powered Summary using Polisis.

These are some examples of the Privacy Policies from Web Hosting providers:

3) Acceptable Use Policy (AUP)

An acceptable use policy (AUP), acceptable usage policy or fair use policy, is a set of rules applied by the owner, creator or administrator of a network, website, or service, that restrict the ways in which the network, website or system may be used and sets guidelines as to how it should be used. AUP documents are written for corporations, businesses, universities, schools, internet service providers (ISPs), and website owners, often to reduce the potential for legal action that may be taken by a user, and often with little prospect of enforcement.

Your can learn more about the Acceptable Use Policy here - source.

These are some examples of the Acceptable Use Policies from Web Hosting providers:

4) Any other Legal Documents (Policies, Compliance, Agreements, etc)

Additional Legal documents can be available based on the type of services or the geographic location of the provider.

Affiliate Program Agreement
Domain Name Transfer Agreement
Refund Policy
Trademark/Copyright Infringement
Subpoena Policy
etc.

These are some examples of Additional Legal Documents from Web Hosting Providers:

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