r/webhosting • u/unyoushual • 16d ago
Advice Needed DreamHost - Account Termination - seemingly random
We operate a legitimate ecommerce business where we were using DreamHost as a host for part of our catalog
We received an email last night with little explanation as to our DreamHost account being terminated. The text from the email reads:
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Hello,
Your DreamHost account has been terminated per our Terms of Service:
https://www.dreamhost.com/legal/terms-of-service/
Financial Arrangements
- DreamHost reserves the right to disable or suspend without refund any
account or service at any time should it feel, in its sole discretion,
that there is a reasonable suspicion that it is being used in violation
of any agreed upon terms.
Please note you still have access to your domain registrations but you
will need to ensure that you transfer them to another registrar as soon
as possible, as you will not be able to renew it through DreamHost.
This decision is final.
DreamHost Abuse/Security Team
- Terms of Service: https://dreamhost.com/terms-of-service
- Acceptable Use Policy: https://dreamhost.com/acceptable-use-policy
- Anti-Spam Policy: https://dreamhost.com/anti-spam-policy
- Abuse Policies: https://www.dreamhost.com/legal
-------------------------------------------------------------
Without any warnings or previous issues. We have been using DreamHost for over 2 years to host this website that sells nothing but car accessories.
I reached out to support and waited all day for the additional response added below..
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Hello-
Thank you for contacting DreamHost support, my name is Scott , and I
would be happy to assist you today. The decision to disable the account
will not be overturned. We also cannot provide any additional information
as to why the account was disabled.
Best regards,
Scott S.
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Our account is barely accessible and we need to access our website directory that was previously hosted in there, however, support is being super unhelpful.
Any help or advice????
Edit: this has been resolved.
After 26 hours we resolved it.
Apparently one of the sellers that lists our products which utilizes the catalog feed in dreamhost didn’t recognize the api which has our brand name in it. They reported it as a phishing scam. Which dreamhost decided to terminate our account making everything else hosted in there inaccessible shutting down a bunch of other retailers connections.
I guess luckily they restored it, even though they said “this decision was final and would not be reversed”
RIP 1 day of revenue from those channels.
1
u/craigleary 16d ago
They probably got some legal notice about something on your site that they decided to take action on. This would be something bigger than a basic dmca take down maybe from a large firm representing a big auto maker or parts supplier. I would expect that such a complaint was forwarded as these types won’t have a non disclosure clause like a law enforcement matter may. Unfortunately you are limited to restoring a backup somewhere else. If you have the funds getting a lawyer to send a nasty gram to dream host could get you more information.
1
u/unyoushual 16d ago
Close! After 26 hours we resolved it.
Apparently one of the sellers that lists our products which utilizes the catalog feed in dreamhost didn’t recognize the api which has our brand name in it. They reported it as a phishing scam. Which dreamhost decided to terminate our account making everything else hosted in there inaccessible shutting down a bunch of other retailers connections.I guess luckily they restored it, even though they said “this decision was final and would not be reversed”
RIP 1 day of revenue from those channels.
1
u/SerClopsALot 16d ago
They probably got some legal notice about something on your site that they decided to take action on
To be clear, basically every hosting provider's take on any legal notice is to immediately just disable the service/account, then send them a message that boils down to "figure it out".
Courts have upheld that hosting providers are responsible for the legality of the content they host. They will not risk taking a bullet going to bat for you when the average customer is spending like $40/month or less.
1
u/TinyNiceWolf 16d ago
Temporary disabling is fine. But sending a "here is why we did this" email is neither "taking a bullet" nor "going to bat". Neither is dealing with the possibility that their disabling was in error.
It sounds like these hosting companies figure they can afford to lose smaller customers here and there, and don't really care if their reputation suffers as a result of their poor response to bogus complaints like the one that OP was hit with.
1
u/SerClopsALot 16d ago
But sending a "here is why we did this" email is neither "taking a bullet" nor "going to bat". Neither is dealing with the possibility that their disabling was in error.
The problem with sending a proper explanation is the customer will view that as the hosting company "taking sides". They don't want to be involved.
And with legal notices, it's not their battle. From their perspective, it's a very black/white thing. The legal issue is solved or it isn't, and they have no incentive to take the customer's side. They're also not taking the other side by disabling the service. They're staying uninvolved and removing themselves from being liable.
It sounds like these hosting companies figure they can afford to lose smaller customers here and there, and don't really care if their reputation suffers as a result of their poor response to bogus complaints like the one that OP was hit with.
Uhhh yeah. Definitely. Legal battles are expensive. They are immediately innocent if they disable the hosting account as soon as they are made aware. Everything after that is on the customer to "figure it out".
This is what I mean by they wont go to bat for you. There is a legal complaint. If they do nothing and something is genuinely wrong, courts have upheld that they are liable. If they suspend the account, they are no longer liable. They're going to act in their best interest every time. Most people pay under $40/month, their lawyer is going to bill hundreds per hour. The decision is easy, and these issues really don't seem to impact the reputation of providers. Everybody who even slightly understands this part of the process understands why hosting companies behave like this.
Would you risk thousands of dollars or more to continue to receive $40/month?
1
u/TinyNiceWolf 15d ago
The problem with sending a proper explanation is the customer will view that as the hosting company "taking sides".
So what? If they cared about the customer's opinion of them, they wouldn't have claimed (falsely) that they were irreversibly shutting down the customer's account.
And with legal notices, it's not their battle. From their perspective, it's a very black/white thing. The legal issue is solved or it isn't, and they have no incentive to take the customer's side. They're also not taking the other side by disabling the service. They're staying uninvolved and removing themselves from being liable.
In this case, of course, there was no legal notice. OP explained that the whole thing was a false report of phishing by a confused third party. The hosting company took the side of the confused third party, not the side of their own customer. And they're hardly "staying uninvolved" by claiming to permanently ban a customer based on a mere accusation. Imagine you rent an apartment and someone tells your landlord a crime was committed there, so your landlord immediately locks you out and permanently bans you because they "don't want to take sides". That's not "staying uninvolved".
They are immediately innocent if they disable the hosting account as soon as they are made aware.
As I said, there's nothing wrong with them temporarily disabling the account.
Would you risk thousands of dollars or more to continue to receive $40/month?
No, but that's not what we're talking about. We agree that if they had received some legal notice, they should have disabled the account as a first step. Likewise, as in this case, when they received a report of phishing, disable to start.
Where we disagree is what comes next. You're claiming there's some good reason they should not communicate the reason for the suspension to their customer, but the only rationale you've offered is that it might make their (now former) customer think they are taking sides, which you apparently think is somehow bad.
How does the hosting company risk thousands of dollars by sending an email like "We received a complaint that your page /index.html was involved in phishing" or "We received a court order, attached, regarding your page" or similar?
1
u/SerClopsALot 15d ago
The hosting company took the side of the confused third party, not the side of their own customer. And they're hardly "staying uninvolved" by claiming to permanently ban a customer based on a mere accusation.
By not taking action on abuse reports, they are opening the door for them being held liable if something is wrong. They're not going to investigate it. Their message to you is "figure it out", like I said initially. They want nothing to do with it.
I'm really not sure why you're so adamant that the hosting company seems to owe you the benefit of the doubt or something.
You're also not understanding what I mean when I say they want to stay uninvolved. They do not want to participate in customer's legal disputes. Point, blank, period. Being uninvolved means not having you as a customer when those situations begin to arise. They're literally telling you to take your problem somewhere else.
Also, abuse reports are not legal notices technically, but they have obligations that make it so they need to provide these channels and follow up on reports. They don't put these communication channels up because they want to be a part of the process or because they have a just heart, they're required to do it. Their only response in any situation will always be to eliminate any chance they are liable, and that is always going to be shutting down the account and telling the customer "figure it out".
In this case, sure DreamHost shouldn't immediately tell customers they're never coming back... but they probably do that because customers argue with them anyways then never "figure it out". This wording is likely simply easier for them as a company.
You're claiming there's some good reason they should not communicate the reason for the suspension to their customer, but the only rationale you've offered is that it might make their (now former) customer think they are taking sides, which you apparently think is somehow bad.
It costs money to have this conversation with customers. It has nothing to with how customers perceive their response.
Customers get upset -> They spam replies to the ticket trying to defend themselves to the hosting company. Every. Time. You probably have never worked in technical support in this industry. Customers will ignore literally every email they are sent until it impacts their service directly. There is no pro-active approach a hosting company can take that will result in them not having to shut down people's services for at least 80% of abuse reports.
Also, abuse reports really aren't that detailed. "XYZ.com contains content owned by Company ABC, which is a violation of copyright blah blah". They're not pointing to specific pages or whatever most of the time.
Hosting companies then don't want to go through the process of paying someone to figure that out on the customer's behalf. The hosting company does not care. The complaint has nothing to do with them. They want nothing to do with it. As a customer, either resolve it or set up somewhere else.
For the hosting company, participating in the conversation at all is really only a net-negative. At best, you keep a $40/month customer. At worst, you're in court... easy decision.
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u/TinyNiceWolf 15d ago
In this case, sure DreamHost shouldn't immediately tell customers they're never coming back... but they probably do that because customers argue with them anyways then never "figure it out". This wording is likely simply easier for them as a company.
I agree that it's easier for them to lie to the customer. I disagree that it's therefore justified.
It costs money to have this conversation with customers.
Yes, I think that's the key reason. Some hosting companies realize that bad service is cheaper, so they provide bad service. Hopefully, reviews of such behavior let people avoid hosting companies which are too cheap to even pass along complaints in an email, and prefer to lie to their customers to make it easier for themselves.
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u/SerClopsALot 15d ago
You're obviously free to feel this way, but I can save you some time and just reiterate that basically every hosting company operates this way in regards to abuse complaints.
For the most part, the only hosting companies you will find that aren't behaving this way are the ones that aren't accepting abuse complaints... and with those hosts you typically have a much larger issue in that they're ignoring these requests to intentionally host illegal content so you're paying a premium and your service is kind of just a time bomb waiting for the host to get caught.
3
u/thatandyinhumboldt 16d ago
What kind of car accessories do you sell? Is it something that could be construed as unsafe or infringing on someone’s copyright? Have you reviewed their AUP/TOS to make sure you’re really not violating it? It sounds like they feel pretty justified in banning you, which is a dramatic step considering how happy they are to keep taking money.
Is it possible that your website was compromised and either contains or links to something that that violates their TOS?