Mar 9, 2009 : US Web Hosts Self-Censor: Newsweek

📅 March 9, 2009 - A Newsweek article, which will appear on newsstands next week, has condemned web host BlueHost (bluehost.com 👉 Total Reviews: 100
🙌 Average Rating: 5.6 / 10
👍 Good Reviews: 58
👎 Bad Reviews: 42
👈 Official Responses: 17) for censoring users affiliated with foreign countries, however, this common practice, which has its faults, it can be argued that it is often the only way large web hosts can effectively weed out customers using web hosting for illegal purposes.

The Newsweek article described the situation when Belarus-born Washington DC lawyer Yaraslau Kryvoi got a notice in February from his web hosting firm that the blog he administers for his local Belarussian American Association chapter would be suspended and that he had 10 days to remove his content. This was, in effect, because BlueHost mistakenly throught that Kryvoi was a citizen of a country on the US government's list of rogue states.

Many large web hosts including HostMonster, Blaser Hosting and Biz Builder Hosting explicitly prohibit countries based on the perceived risk of dealing with them. Newsweek rightly implies that this is a form of profiling, however, from a web hosting perspective, eliminating large, troublesome areas helps companies more efficiently police customer websites.

According to its Terms of Service, BlueHost sanctions countries based on the government's economic and trade sanctions. BlueHost states that the US government, through "various of its offices and agencies, ...has determined that, with respect to all or certain commercial activities that would otherwise occur between i) the US, its citizens or residents on the one hand and ii) the governments, citizens, or residents of certain other countries ("Sanctioned Countries") on the other hand, said commercial activities are to be prohibited, embargoed, sanctioned, banned, and/or otherwise excluded."

The countries BlueHosts presently sanctions include Belarus, Burma, Cote d'Ivoire, Cuba, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Iran, Iraq, former Liberian Regime of Charles Taylor, North Korea, Sudan, Syria, Zimbabwe, and countries belonging to "the Balkans."

While ideally, web hosts should be able to account for everything they host, much like newspaper publisher has a responsibility for what is published in their paper, however, as online crime continues to be profitable, criminals will continue to find hosts for their frauds and scams.

For some hosts, imposing rigid rules on international users may be a necessity so that these hosts can keep tabs on their US-approved clients, which can be equally threatening.

The dangers of laissez-faire web hosting were revealed when web hosting provider McColo (mccolo.com), which allegedly hosted some of the Internet's most malicious online scams, went offline in November 2008, reducing the global amount of spam by three quarters according to some estimates.

Again, while Newsweek brings up the point that US hosting companies blacklisting certain rogue states is just as anti-democratic as these purportedly authoritarian states, there are plenty of reputable hosts that will host sites from around the world - though perhaps not for just $6.95 per month.