Dec 9, 2005 : The webhost industry: week reviewBy Philbert Shih

📅 December 9, 2005 - This week's industry news saw a prominent industry player lead a class action lawsuit against search giant Google and the surprising end for a well-known hosting brand. Meanwhile, there were noteworthy hires, an acquisition and releases of several important software upgrades.


On Thursday, North Carolina-based Web Host AIT announced that it had taken over as the lead plaintiff in a class action lawsuit that accuses Google of breach of contract and unfair business practices. The company takes over for ClickDefense, which filed the original complaint on June 24, 2005. AIT alleges that Google has not taken steps to reduce click fraud on its pay-per-click advertisements despite the fact that is aware of the problem. The negligence, AIT says, has cost it hundreds of thousands of dollars. Google says is still in the process of determining how it will handle the allegations.

And on Wednesday, Affinity Internet confirmed that it would launch new hosting brand Gate.com in January. Gate.com will replace Affinity's low-cost HostSave brand and is targeted at more technically savvy hosting customers such as Web designers and developers. According to the site's current contents, Gate.com will offer domain names, email, Windows hosting, Unix hosting and dedicated servers. The Unix and Windows plans range in price from $9.95 to $49.95 per month, while a Unix and Window dedicated server are priced at $79 and $109 per month respectively. Gate.com is currently in beta testing.

Also on Wednesday, Web host Digital North announced that it had acquired DSL.net's ISP division Vector Internet Services or VISI in a deal with worth $3.3 million cash. The newly merged company will be known as VISI and creates Minnesota's second largest hosting company, behind publicly listed Digital River.

The changes at Interland continued on Tuesday with the appointments of Judy Hackett and Vikas Rijsinghani to the positions of chief marketing officer and chief technology officer. The hires come just weeks after the company downsized its staff by 38 percent and reduced its management team from seven to four. Most of the cuts were made as a result of the September sale of its dedicated hosting division to Peer 1 Network.

And it was reported on Monday that Peer 1 named Fabio M. Banducci its executive vice president. Banducci, formerly a director at Haywood Securities, will work with newly appointed CEO Lance Tracey and the rest of the executive management team.

The week also saw the release of updates to several software solutions used by Web hosts.

On Monday, Ensim released version 4.1 of the Ensim Pro for Linux control panel. The solution's new features include in-box migration, de-coupling of the operating system, scheduled service restarts, enhanced upgrading, an open API for Power Tools, enhanced automation and management and support for Miva Merchant 4 and 5. Ensim says the improvements are designed to help Web hosts reduce costs and increase flexibility.

Microsoft released its latest update to the Windows Server 2003 operating platform on Wednesday. Windows Server 2003 R2's additions include includes new capabilities in branch-office management, identity and access management, virtualization, data storage and Web platform technologies.And on Thursday, SWsoft released an update for SiteBuilder for Windows, just months after the product's introduction in early September. Version 2.0 features new modules, e-commerce and blog capabilities, plan and site management and reseller support for the Windows hosting platform. SWsoft says the solution continues to be available free of charge and will be integrated with the Plesk for Windows control panel later this month.Several recurring themes and the end of the road for a well-established hosting brand marked the week's news. But perhaps the biggest story was AIT taking over a class action lawsuit against Google. With pay-per-click advertising a substantial part of many Web host's marketing budgets, developments in this story will merit close attention in the weeks ahead.