Robbing Your Customers
October 10, 2007 on 2:24 pm | In Business, Musings, Promotions, Rants, Tech News by Josh Jones |
It’s something we like to do every day!
Yep, the secret to our crazy low prices and amazing ferraris, finally revealed:
We take your billing address and go to your homes at night to steal your jewelry, plasma TVs, and all valuable toiletries!
Not to mention all the credit card numbers we get fund our wild vegas benders (roulette is a great way to launder money) and illicit basketball leagues!
(Damn PayPal and Google Checkout, not sharing the credit card info with us!)
Yeah, overall it’s a pretty sweet scheme we’ve had these past 10 years; and now that we’ve gone into hiding you’ll never catch us, coppers!
Okay Okay Okay
Although I admit what we’ve been doing has been pretty bad, it pales in comparison to what I just found out one of our favorite competitors Lunarpages just did to rob their customers.
According to this thread at Web Hosting Talk, Lunarpages a few days ago turned the default 404 pages for all sites they host (who haven’t specifically customized them already) to one of those ultra-sleazy “domain parking”-style setups. It still happening right now… and here’s an example of a 404 page on a site some poor shmoe has hosted by them, aeroeco.net!
I’m impressed! So roundabout, so complex, so sneaky! We only ever do the simple stuff like read our customers email for blackmail material, or kidnap their pets and their kids.
Maybe Lunarpages doesn’t agree, and maybe it doesn’t seem sooo bad to you, but what they’re doing is outright theft. It’s the Internet equivalent of shoplifting.
For websites, traffic is everything. Stealing a site’s traffic is nothing less than web homicide!
You see, anybody who got a default 404 error before this change, probably just backed up to the site they were on and continued. But now, it seems probable they’ll end up clicking one of the links they see there, or possibly use the “search this site” form, which does nothing of the sort! It searches “http://searchportal.information.com/” instead and Lunarpages gets a kickback!
Of course, Go Daddy has been doing stuff like this for ages.. if you register a domain with them and don’t set anything up on it you’re going to get a lame page filled with lame affiliate links. But at least with parked domains, it’s not like there’s an actual site up that you’re injecting content into! Not to mention, they’re Go Daddy. We’d expect nothing less from them!
And, remember the time four years ago where VeriSign tried exactly this with every non-registered domain? ICANN made them stop less than a week later, after a huge (by Internet nerd standards) public outcry.
These sorts of scams (and the entire domain parking industry) are just a server variant to good old desktop spyware that changes your default search engine or dns error pages on your browser. But just because they’re not surreptitiously installing anything on end users computers doesn’t mean it’s not crooked.
(Oh, speaking of crooked.. yesterday our cool anti-spam site spam.la stopped working, as though the domain had expired. Looking it up, it was paid through July 2008 though! Upon contacting the registry, it turns out that although we had paid Domain Discover to renew the domain in July, they had never paid the registry! Yet another creative way to rob your customers that we should try sometime!)
Why, Lunarpages, Why?
I’m guessing it’s the money?
But come on guys, is it really worth it? How much money are we talking about?
I remember one time when this skeezy SEO guy was asking me “How many domains do you guys host?” I told him “zillions”. He said, “How many are parked?” I said, “I dunno, some fraction of a zillion?” He said: “Do you like to make money?” And I said, “I dunno, it depends…” To which he said, “Do you like to make money?” To which I said, “It depends, is the money one dollar and how much **** do I have to suck to get it?”
Okay, I didn’t really say that, but it was what I was thinking. And in a real tough, bad-ass voice too.
It’s obviously a stupid question, “Do you like to make money?” The question is, “Would you do X if I paid you $Y?“
Lunarpages must be hurting pretty bad right now to sink this low. I also noticed they dropped their 1-800 number and only have a 1-714 now! Shoulda been like us, and not offered phone support in the first place, eh?!
But, I gotta give them a break. It’s easy to be all high and mighty and to “Don’t be evil” when you’re rolling in the dough like Google. But the ethics get a lot murkier when the choice is between stealing a tiny bit of traffic from your customers and selling your first born.
(Take Yahoo! for example. Back in 2000 (stock price $100) we tried to advertise with them, and they were all high and mighty about “no animation, no hard sell, no general trashiness.” Now (stock price $28), their site is covered in expanding flash ads, including some for… gasp… Lunarpages!)
Who are your customers?
It’s a good question!
And I don’t mean, are they small businesses, web designers, women, dwarfs, fifth graders, deaf, or asian? I mean, are your customers “People who need a website host” or are your customers “People who pay for traffic”? It seems Lunarpages is trying to get both.
But, you can’t have both. You really have to choose just one and stick with it!
It’s pretty simple in the beginning… your customers are the people (or businesses) who pay for your product (or service). But then later, as you grow, you start to realize that entire “customer base”… that “audience”… is a potential “product” in and of itself. And there are plenty of other types of “customers” who will pay handsomly for it.
Don’t fall for it!
Because your customers don’t like being a product! And, when they finally catch on that they’re PAYING to be SOLD, they’ll vamoose! And you’ll be done… stuck without customers or product!
Just yesteday there was some talk of eBay pissing off its sellers by putting targeted Google ads on their listings… effectively trying to steal their customers’ customers.
This is actually an interesting case.. because who are eBay’s customers, really? Is it the sellers, who directly pay Ebay? Or is it the shoppers, who are the originators of that money the sellers then use to pay eBay?
I’d say, it’s the shoppers. Because even though auction sites are sort of a weird “chicken and the egg” problem, in actuality, it’s just an “egg” problem, and the egg is shoppers.
Because, one thing I’ve learned in this world, is that if you’ve got people trying to spend money, you’ll have no problem finding people trying to take it!
So actually, I’d say eBay is probably fine putting those ads in. If they can help the shoppers find what they’re looking for, even if it’s not through an auction on eBay itself, they’ll be satisfied and come back. The “power sellers” can go suck an egg.. if they leave there’ll be plenty of other sellers who aren’t quite as proud to fill the void.
What to do?
Well, being completely unbiased in the matter, I say vote with your feet!
Any Lunarpages customers who want to switch to DreamHost, we’ll be happy to have you… and we promise to never, never, ever, ever, do anything of this sort, ever! You’re already paying us for hosting.. that should really be enough! (And Lunarpages, if you’re hurting so bad.. just raise prices!)
P.S. Use the promo code LOONEYPAGES when you sign up and get your first year completely free.. it works for current Lunarpages customers only!
October 10th, 2007 at 2:44 pm
I am sure COMMUNISTS soon will come here say that it isn’t fair and that you are STEALING customers from Lunarpages.
October 10th, 2007 at 2:55 pm
Now THAT is a smiting that would even make The Lord envious… awesome usage of the power of post!
October 10th, 2007 at 3:11 pm
It’s even dirtier than as outlined here…
They made the change with NO ANNOUNCEMENT to their customers… some discovered it and began to raise hell in their forum. People were questioning the legality of the change (since the ad pages hijack their domain name and make it look as if it is THEIR OWN domain that is endorsing these “search results”) and LunarPages then snuck a change into their TOS… which, BTW, actually has THE BALLS to say that customers may use these wonderful SQUATTERLY error pages AT NO EXTRA COST!!! How SUPER FUCKIN NICE OF THEM!!!!!
So VERY QUICKLY after the outcry on the Lunar Pages Support Forum, the SPINELESS mods moved the discussion to the HIDDEN Reviews and Feedback section that one must have 10 posts in order to view… which does a LOT OF GOOD for those who are looking into the service and want to read some REVIEWS!
They commanded that the thread only be used to give instructions on creating custom error pages and NOT TO VOICE DISCONTENT, but it didn’t matter, because very soon it would be DELETED ALTOGETHER with no further mention of the DOMAIN SQUATTER error pages allowed… with mods around the clock ready to delete anything that tried to slip through.
There are many, many customers… and common sense would say MOST who will never even know that this has happened because they don’t spend HOURS a day hanging out on theirs or any other hosting forum… it is these customers that LUNAR PAGES is PREYING ON, and PRAYING FOR!
Lunar Pages Is Of The DEVIL! (and THAT’s what I think you should change the title of this blog post too!)
October 10th, 2007 at 3:25 pm
While we’re on the topic of Lunarpages, we never did hear back from them about this…
http://blog.dreamhost.com/2007/05/21/the-gloves-are-off/
One can only assume that on top of everything else, they’re also lousy basketball players.
- Jeff @ DreamHost
October 10th, 2007 at 3:35 pm
Yeah, if their forum mods (which also seem to be tech reps) are any indication, they are definitely a bunch of weenies.
October 10th, 2007 at 3:42 pm
This is one of my favorite blog posts of the year - anywhere! I became aware of the “custom error pages fiasco” while doing some development work on behalf of a Lunarpages customer.
I’ll admit that I was pretty shocked when I saw what they had done (after borking a url), and I went to the read the whole Lunarpages TOS. Wow. Frankly, it’s a TOS I could to which I could never agree, and not solely because of the error page issue (though that *is* a huge problem with me).
Sections 6.1 and 6.2 (under section 6 “6 OWNERSHIP OF INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY; CONFIDENTIALITY”) are also absurd.
Read literally, 6.1 precludes you from allowing access to the services to a developer you hire to help you (”You further agree not to provide access to the Lunarpages services to any third party.”)
6.1 also could be construed to prevent you from sharing “workaround”, ‘methodolgoes for using the service, and “fixes” with others (” Any and all right or title to any engineering, coding, programming or customer service work around or other modification of the Lunarpages service shall also remain the sole property or Lunarpages.”)
6.2 is just as onerous, in my opinion:
“…you may have access to certain information and materials relating to the Lunarpages business, customers, software technology and marketing which Lunarpages treats as confidential (hereinafter “Confidential Information”). You agree to at all times during the term of this agreement and otherwise as set forth herein: (i) hold in confidence, and not disclose or reveal to any person or entity, any “Confidential Information” without the express prior written consent of Lunarpages; and (ii) not use or disclose any of the “Confidential Information” for any purpose at any time, other than pursuant to your rights under this agreement for the purpose intended.”
This puts the burden on *you* to determine what information “Lunarpages treats as confidential (hereinafter “Confidential Information).”, as it is not specified what, precisely that information is. To my way of thinking, any information they allow a customer to have is, by its very nature, *not* “confidential”.
And get this part: those “restrictions” (whatever they may be, outlive your association with the service - “These obligations shall continue indefinitely for so long as the Confidential Information is a trade secret under applicable law and shall continue for three (3) years following termination of this Agreement with respect to Confidential Information, which does not rise to the level of a trade secret.”
Really! Trying to suppress free discussion of an ex-customer’s experiences with the service here, are we?
It also looks to me as though “voting with your feet” might not even save a Lunarpages refugee from the tentacles of their lawyers, given section 11 of their TOS:
“11 SURVIVAL
Sections 1, 3 through 6, 8, 9, 10, 12, 13, and 15 through 21, inclusive, of this agreement shall survive the termination of this agreement and shall remain in full force and effect after any such termination. ”
I’m wondering if they used the same legal counsel to prepare their TOS as they use for certain other legal work? I see what looks to me to be a lot of the same thinking evidenced in their TOS as was evidenced by another recent “brilliant” legal tactic (see blog.dreamhost.com - “The Gloves Are Off”).
October 10th, 2007 at 4:29 pm
Regarding the “I stole from WalMart” sign, is it still cruel and unusual punishment if you don’t believe there’s any social stigma involved in stealing from WalMart?
October 10th, 2007 at 4:40 pm
Lunarpages must be in trouble.
First they removed the toll free number, then they take down live chat, even for the dedicated customers, started charging for the formerly free managed hosting for dedicated, they fired a ton of staff with no warning, they closed phone support on the weekends, and cut back the hours they offered phone support during the week, raised domain registration prices, and now this.
Lunarpages suck.
October 10th, 2007 at 4:46 pm
Er that should have read Lunarpages sucks.
October 10th, 2007 at 5:27 pm
I’d love to hear how many time the “LOONEYPAGES” promo code gets used. Sucks to be lunarpages! :D
October 10th, 2007 at 5:31 pm
Darn, I missed the promotion by a day! Even then, I am so anxious to leave Lunarpages, missing out on the discount doesn’t bother me that much. I’m already going to lose some money since my contract doesn’t end until next year.
I’ve been through a lot with them but this last incident was the last straw. I already implemented custom error pages so my site wouldn’t display these sketchy pages any way. What bothered me was the sneaky way they did this and their exploitation of customers who were unaware of the change and had no custom error pages.
Before this oh-so-popular change, they implemented a policy where affiliates would get paid after three sales. If someone signs up one person a year, that’s a three year wait to get paid.
Seeing how they shafted their biggest cheerleaders (affiliates) and their sneaky exploitation of customers, I didn’t want to stick around to see what other money-grubbing tactics this desperate company was going to unleash upon us.
I’m looking forward to completing my move to DreamHost. :)
October 10th, 2007 at 5:51 pm
Hey Former Looney,
I’d be surprised if the code has expired…they just posted it today! If that doesn’t work you can use my referral discount: MPDISCOUNT
That gives you $90 OF. I think a 1 Year plan is a little over $100 so you get a year for like twenty bucks plus a free domain, and then you get to join me in happy customer land. I’ve been with Dreamhost for over 8 years. As a web developer I’m really annoyed anytime I have to help people using a different host.
October 10th, 2007 at 5:51 pm
I tried to use the promotional code, but it said it was for “refugees only”.
I’m definitely a refugee, but I’m not sure how I prove that on the sign up page. ^_^;
October 10th, 2007 at 5:53 pm
Erp, that’s $90 OFF, as in ninety free dollars off of any plan over 1 year (doesn’t work for month-to-month accounts). Thanks.
October 10th, 2007 at 6:26 pm
http://img.la/1/3e3d12bb4944e2001019646232d10f6f/noodle.gif
October 10th, 2007 at 6:31 pm
Thanks for the offer, mahalie. :) What I had meant about missing out on the promotion was that I already put in my order yesterday. I got a discount from a Lunarpages connection that saved me a lot of money so I didn’t lose out *too* much.
I wish moving hosts wasn’t so hard.
October 10th, 2007 at 6:46 pm
Mahali, this isn’t the place to spam codes — especially a crappy $90 one. Dreamhost offers a free year, and your idea of helping is making a $7 profit.
If the code doesn’t work, just contact Dreamhost and they’ll get it worked out for you. I wouldn’t use any others posted here as they are pure spam.
October 10th, 2007 at 6:53 pm
[...] Read this Dreamhost blog entry for more info. [...]
October 10th, 2007 at 6:56 pm
I tried the LOONEYPAGES promo code to try to sign up but it says Promo code only valid for refugees. I am a Lunapage client as of now. just look up the whois for vernsdidj.com and you will see it.
October 10th, 2007 at 6:57 pm
1,
Dreamhost is unable to override the coupon system so if the Lunarpages refugee code doesn’t work you’re out of luck.
October 10th, 2007 at 7:08 pm
Ah, you actually have to choose “transfer domain and registration” for the looneypages code to work.. you can enter a fake auth code if you don’t REALLY want to transfer your registration to us.
October 10th, 2007 at 7:28 pm
Many thanks, Josh!
October 10th, 2007 at 8:24 pm
Josh, you should edit that information (how to make the coupon code work) into the article!
October 10th, 2007 at 8:52 pm
you guys are ingenious
October 10th, 2007 at 10:51 pm
[...] a move to lure away customers from their competitor, DreamHost is now offering one year of free hosting for Lunarpages refugees who want to escape this sleazy [...]
October 10th, 2007 at 11:17 pm
[...] WHT and possibly other web hosting forums, and even other hosting companies have taken noticed and acted cleverly (btw, good one [...]
October 11th, 2007 at 12:58 am
[...] Robbing Your Customers. Explicación de las técnicas sucias empleadas por el hoster anterior (Lunarpages) y otras para robar clientes. [...]
October 11th, 2007 at 2:34 am
Thanks Josh, Now signed up as a DreamHost memeber. *S* forum name Darth AkSarBen elsewhere. I got an email from DreamHost, probably auto generated, saying to click on a link to effect the transfer, and to not transfer (which I don’t want) do nothing ie don’t reply.
So just ignore that particular email right? Later on I can transfer if I want, it is just that this one domain was less than 60 days from being re-registered.
Vern
vernon at vernsdidj.com
October 11th, 2007 at 3:17 am
[...] have said it better myself” file, check out Josh Jone’s post, “Robbing Your Customers” on the DreamHost Blog (and find out how to get a FREE year of web hosting if you are a [...]
October 11th, 2007 at 5:38 am
dreamhost, i hope you outlive me. thanks josh, this is one of your finest posts.
i have a client now (i’m a coding robot) who is set on signing up with lunarpages. it’s sad though because it’s very hard to make people realize that there are better hosts when they are blindsighted by ads proclaiming “#1 HOST” and believing that nonsense?! have you all seen that on the lunarpages front page at the bottom? #1 in everything. how about that? oh i’m sure it’s on the up and up. no site would ever PAY (or provide, use your imagination… favors) to have tiny image awards. but hey, they make me feel relaxed and well, gee, awful nice to know that lunarpages is the #1 host on the web. now how do i transfer my dreamhost account since 2002 with 10+ domains? stop, stop, stop… don’t tell me how, you want me to get all hari-kari on my noggin?
all this does not surprise me. recently a client insisted on hosting with GoFatty (yes, that’s a pun) because they had seen commercials on television. I mentioned to the client alternatives in hosting providers but no sell and no go, the horse blinders were on and I think racing in the clients’ mind was something to the effect, “what? well, they can’t be very good if they don’t have a commercial on tv and a racing car, don’t you think, huh, huh??”
it’s just like trying to convince someone to try the coffee roaster next door to the starbucks. brands get tattooed on the brain and they, ooohhhhh, make us feel so comfortable and… safe.
i like brands and i look pretty damn good these levis jeans and they fit well, like dreamhost.
thanks again for being a straight up hosting company and not dicking us around. it’s folks like you that can go home at night and live with yourself.
OF
October 11th, 2007 at 5:40 am
P.S. - LUNARPAGES SUCKS
October 11th, 2007 at 6:21 am
Amen.
October 11th, 2007 at 7:37 am
Challange To DreamHost………
haha, let me get this straight.
Lunarpages has been offering FREE webhosting (no strings attached) for ALL schools k-12 in the US for the past 3 years. We now allow our customers to participate in that program by not altering their 404 error pages and leaving them as “default” (they can change them anytime they wish to not participate) whereby any proceeds are used to assist in supporting this program.
If that is robbery, meybe you should move to afganistan or Iran.
I challange Dreamhost to develope a program that gives back to the community (they could start with trying to give back to their customers with some support?)
oh ya, and this is the best post ever josh….keep comming up with more delusional BS to try to gimmik ppl into using DH, have another beer, play another game of pool…seems like you been up all night this time.
October 11th, 2007 at 7:41 am
Challange To DreamHost………
http://www.lunarpages.com/education/
October 11th, 2007 at 8:05 am
Am I the only one who finds it totally ironic that the forum link (http://www.lunarforums.com/forum) gives me a 404 page?
October 11th, 2007 at 8:07 am
DreamHost already offers completely free web hosting to all charitable 501(c)(3) non-profit organizations.
DreamHost also collects and fully matches donations from its customers on behalf of two charitable organizations each quarter and has done so for the past several years.
DreamHost does all of this without altering the content of their customers’ domains.
October 11th, 2007 at 8:26 am
Lunarpages Says:
“I challange Dreamhost to develope a program that gives back to the community”
Dreamhost offeres free webhosting to ANY non-profit.
http://wiki.dreamhost.com/Non-profit_Discount
And when Dreamhost had multiple packages, it was the largest (Strictly Business) package that was offered.
“(they could start with trying to give back to their customers with some support?)”
Dreamhost gives me AWESOME support. I have had all of my support requests dealt with very promptly and very much to my satisfaction.
“We now allow our customers to participate in that program by not altering their 404 error pages and leaving them as “default””
And do you CLEARLY and VISIBLY let them know this up front? You “allow” them to participate, “at no additional charge” (per Lunarpages TOS)? How sweet of you. Dreamhost, as I have shown, offers ALL non-profits free hosting, but they don’t try to sneak a way for me to pay for it through SCUMMY DOMAIN SQUATTER sites, they just pay for it out of their own profits, straight up.
You Lunarpages people obviously occupy a different moral plane, one that I am very grateful not to share. You’re like The Bush administration, trying to justify bullshit deeds with weak moral platitudes, and people like your mod, Mitch The Bitch are like Shawn Hannity, cheering them on and helping them to cover their tracks when needed.
You lost your challenge before you even made it.
October 11th, 2007 at 8:26 am
Well this just goes to show what a bunch of uninformed desperate “pool playing, beer drinking” sort of outfit Dreamhost actually are.
Did you get bored of trashing your office and boasting of your eviction already? I suspect rather than being evicted you chose to move and put out the same style of garbage on your blog as this. “oh look at us fooling around in the midst of disaster, what a cool bunch of guys we are.” insert cute gnome on a truck here
Hostgator did this kind of thing months ago and I remember the same outcry at the time, and many others will doubtless follow suit.
Stop trying to fool people into thinking you are the coolest and most honest when in fact the old “double bluff” routine is being presented here.
IMHO Lunarpages did nothing wrong, on the contrary it looks to me like a pure business decision any informed and well advised company would implement.
These pages are not “stolen” and anyone who understands the most basic properties of the .htaccess file can remove them in a second.
Any monitery gain is being directed into educational funding. (pity is wasn’t around when you guys were in the 6th grade huh? You may have learned a little.)
Looks like they even have FAQ’s on the subject, so your “techs” can maybe read that for some pointers.
I’m staying with Lunarpages and personally feel that my site is safe in the hands of a company that actually know how to manage a large business.
As far as I know they have not been “evicted” at any time, and rather than fool around trying to trash the reputation of competitors, they are too busy looking after customers and opening new datcenters, installing new servers daily.
Stop playing at being a host and get yourselves into gear and one day you may be fit to call yourselves competition.
Who is the loser here? I hope you don’t have too many mirrors in your new office. :)
October 11th, 2007 at 8:34 am
Sure you do . . .
and you also try to turn, an evolving customer based program from LP (a way for our customers to get involved in giving back to the cummunity) into a twisted spin that sounds evil and will ultimately ONLY benefit DH.
wow, thats very creative and noble of you….you guys are so awesome.
October 11th, 2007 at 8:49 am
“oh look at us fooling around in the midst of disaster, what a cool bunch of guys we are.”
What disaster? Having to move offices? That’s no “disaster”, that’s just some shit that’s got to be done. Disaster is having the entire webhosting community think you are of The Devil for hijacking domain names, giving said domain names the appearance of endorsing SCUMMY DOMAIN SQUATTER AD PAGES.
“a pure business decision any informed and well advised company would implement.”
Sure, in this day and age when almost all businesses sell their souls AND their customers, it’s par for the course. Thank The Lord that there are some truly moral holdouts like Dreamhost though, who actually have something strange to modern society called integrity.
“a way for our customers to get involved in giving back to the cummunity”
How bout doing it straight up and ASK if they want to be involved, not try to fool them into involvement and then offer them a way out when you get caught?
Here in my Dreamhost panel is the button for giving to charity, with a revolving CHOICE of charities to give to, but it is not siphoned off of any DOMAIN SQUATTER ADS… it is WILLING in the truest sense.
October 11th, 2007 at 8:57 am
the fact of the matter is…..
ANYONE who would complain about a program that GIVES 100% proceeds to our public education system in America,
A) is probably not an American.
B) wishes they were not an American.
C) or has something to personally gain from it.
(oh ya…move to DH cause if you host with LP they may try to get you to participate in education)
keep rambling, . . you make DH look really outstanding.
have you run out of promotional gimmicks?
seriously…..
October 11th, 2007 at 9:05 am
Haha!! LP coming here trying to offer up any kind of challenge is a real joke.
I challenge LP to post here without making grammatical and spelling errors. Not very professional. Is it actually LP doing the posting? Surely LP would know of their competition well enough to already know about their contribution to charity and such?
I’d rather not have LP come here and try telling me, as a CUSTOMER, that I shouldn’t be upset that they’d try and use my domain name in the way that they have. Sorry, I’m not willing to have my site name associated with “Christian Singles”, “Dating” and such, nor do I want to have to change my error page to make sure I’m not a part of it. Staying with LP means I support the practice, which I do NOT.
I also refuse to support a company that sent me a warning on their forums for merely stating my distaste over the situation, and then removing just about every post I made afterwards, even if it had nothing to do with the 404 pages. To top it off, they even changed it where you can send no more than one PM per hour. (oh wait, they did change that to two per hour when I complained that I couldn’t reply to the mod’s request that I send them a PM because of their silly limit.)
All in all, LP has shown a complete lack of respect for their paying customers. If they’d do this behind our backs, how could we trust them not to do worst? No thanks.
October 11th, 2007 at 9:10 am
“What disaster? Having to move offices? That’s no “disaster”, that’s just some shit that’s got to be done.”
If I were so without wherewithal that I lost my business premises, I would consider it a disaster.
“that’s just some shit that’s got to be done”
Yes I seem to remember that profanity was another reason for your alleged demise.
“SCUMMY” I checked that one as as it does no appear in the dictionary, but I’m sure you mean is as some sort of derogatory remark.
“truly moral holdouts like Dreamhost”
It reads more like an attempt to launch an ill thought out, ill educated smear campaign on a long upstanding member of the webhosting community. Get real.
This whole blog smells of a poor and may I say not surprisingly pathetic attempt to besmirch a competitor.
Grow up guys, your reputation of being a bunch of children just went up a notch or two.
October 11th, 2007 at 9:21 am
This entire topic would have more credibility if a recently terminated employee (laziness) and that same employee’s friend’s were not behind it.
note to x-employee: ask DH for a job, they seem like a perfect fit. remember when they we’re trying to lure LP employee’s to come to work for them citing “we get to drink and play pool all day”.
note to DH: nice try fella’s, but have you really ran out of promotional gimmick’s?
anyone that would bash a company for creating a program that give’s 100% free webhosting to public school system’s……and anyone that would try to take up that banner and run with it….
well, that needs no comment
have a nice day, and better luck next time.
October 11th, 2007 at 9:21 am
I figured Josh’s eviction joke would create ammo for some people. It was exactly that, a joke. He makes a lot of them. We were not evicted, our lease was up. I’m told the building elected not to renew the lease (I guess they didn’t like drums and bass?) At any rate, it was not due to failure to pay or any of the usual things people think about when they hear “eviction.”
October 11th, 2007 at 9:22 am
Talk about the pot calling the kettle black, Gnome.
You’ve honestly never heard of the word “Scummy”. You should at least check to make sure it isn’t in the dictionary before saying it isn’t.
“scummy
adjective
1. of the most contemptible kind; “abject cowardice”; “a low stunt to pull”; “a low-down sneak”; “his miserable treatment of his family”; “You miserable skunk!”; “a scummy rabble”; “a scurvy trick” [syn: abject]
2. covered with scum; “the scummy surface of the polluted pond”
WordNet® 3.0, © 2006 by Princeton University.”
As far as a “pathetic attempt to besmirch a competitor”, I’d say it isn’t so pathetic considering it is actually working. ;)
October 11th, 2007 at 9:27 am
//anyone that would bash a company for creating a program that give’s 100% free webhosting to public school system’s……//
You guys used to do that already without having to rely on placing ADFARMS on your customer pages. Why should I have to support Christian Singles in order to provide webhosting for public school systems? It doesn’t add up.
If I want to support a charity, give me the option to do it myself. An opt IN. I already donate to charitable causes, so why do I need LP to decide what those charitable causes should be?
These silly posts are only hurting you guys more. Are you so blind that you wouldn’t realize that?
October 11th, 2007 at 9:40 am
This whole discussion is so funny it hurts!
The folks at Lunarpages have grievously miscalculated with their 404 scam (now masquerading as altruism). Assuming the comments made by “Lunarpages” above are legitimate, they have turned a public relations disaster into a public relations clusterfu*k. Lunarpages is now a laughing stock in the web hosting community.
Sometimes schadenfreude feels better than sex.
October 11th, 2007 at 9:45 am
“It was exactly that, a joke. He makes a lot of them”
So does Joan Rivers, but she makes more sense and is actually funny.
Yes, he is a bit of a joke huh?
Of course! Yes I forgot to research “scummy” in the world famous WordNet® 3.0, © 2006 by Princeton University.”
How negligent of me, I’m sure I can find it in the odd Sam Spade novel too ;)
“As far as a “pathetic attempt to besmirch a competitor”, I’d say it isn’t so pathetic considering it is actually working. ;)”
I’m sorry I missed it in this morning news, it’s working where exactly? Dreamhost’s blog? “Pathetic” still stands :)
I’m sure people reading this blog will reach their own conclusions, anyone with any intelligence will surely see the transparency of it’s purpose and the object behind it.
As someone mentioned earlier, nice try guys, but please try and get it right next time, maybe your illustrious blogger can stay off the beer long enough to put a decent assault together.
I had better stop here or I may be accused of turning your own tactics against you, that would be a shame as you are doing a pretty good job of that on your own.
October 11th, 2007 at 9:50 am
In my defense, I didn’t claim the joke was funny or made a lot of sense!
October 11th, 2007 at 10:00 am
//Of course! Yes I forgot to research “scummy” in the world famous WordNet® 3.0, © 2006 by Princeton University.”
How negligent of me, I’m sure I can find it in the odd Sam Spade novel too ;)//
That wasn’t the only dictionary “scummy” can be found. Would you prefer the Merriam-Webster dictionary? It is there too. Can you find a single dictionary where it *isn’t* located?
//I’m sorry I missed it in this morning news, it’s working where exactly? Dreamhost’s blog? “Pathetic” still stands :)//
It is working because many of Lunarpages customers are taking Dreamhost up on their offer. You’d think my meaning would be rather obvious. Guess not.
//I’m sure people reading this blog will reach their own conclusions, anyone with any intelligence will surely see the transparency of it’s purpose and the object behind it.//
You mean people couldn’t possibly catch on that Dreamhost is taking advantage of this chance to bring in some more customers? Of COURSE they are! They’re being rather smart about it. It is good business sense, which I don’t blame them for in the least.
//As someone mentioned earlier, nice try guys, but please try and get it right next time//
Maybe try taking your own advice. And read a few dictionaries while you’re at it. Having a large vocabulary can be both fun AND educational! And chicks will LIKE you!
October 11th, 2007 at 10:06 am
I found the eviction joke post to be pretty funny. Thank The Lord for businesses like Dreamhost, rare as they are, who refuse to give in to society’s insane brainwashed mandate of pretentious “professional” posturing… give me some good ol organic human beings any day.
October 11th, 2007 at 10:13 am
I dunno, VOO. If some of these posts are indeed by LP, I’d hardly call them professional. ;)
October 11th, 2007 at 10:19 am
“Having a large vocabulary can be both fun AND educational! And chicks will LIKE you!”
Ah so it’s you behind all the emails advertising meds and enlargements huh? You’re kind of assuming a lot there ;)
I’ll leave you to it guys, some of us have work to do.
October 11th, 2007 at 10:38 am
I read through all the bickering back and forth… and seriously, LP fans, your arguments are just lame. The only way this 404 page issue could be remotely positive is if your customers check a box that says “Yes, I’d like to help support LP as they serve the community by allowing LP access to my 404 pages.” Or something like that. Changing everyone’s domain without asking? Sleazy. No way around it.
October 11th, 2007 at 10:49 am
Lunarpages if you feel Josh’s blog states any untrue facts it is something you should deal with via official means. Otherwise you aren’t doing yourself any favors.
There is mention of Dreamhost being childish yet Lunarpages comes on here flaming DH i think it’s 6 of one and half a dozen of the other. Apart from Josh’s comments are backed up and seem to be correct.
DH thrives itself on being “different” and unlike all the other hosts in suits. This is one of the reasons I am with DH and am happy with their service.
The customer support is more than satisfactory as I am the UK I feel no need to be using phone support and emails always get things sorted quicker anyway.
Hosting with a “professional” company then having them advertise on space which “I” am paying for on a domain “I” am paying for would be enough for me to move my hosting to another company.
October 11th, 2007 at 10:50 am
//Ah so it’s you behind all the emails advertising meds and enlargements huh? You’re kind of assuming a lot there ;)//
Well, considering I AM a “chick”, I don’t need to assume. Girls DO actually like guys that are intelligent enough to carry an argument. Hard to believe, huh?
//I’ll leave you to it guys, some of us have work to do.//
Sorry, you’re right. No one else could possibly have a job and post here at the same time. I can’t refute that logic - you win!
(hey, guess what! “Refute” is also in the dictionary!!)
October 11th, 2007 at 10:52 am
Have you guys heard of http://www.webhostasp.com
1) They’ve been redirecting all 404 pages to their homepage since the day they were setup.
2) If you discontinue your account there, you WON’T GET YOUR DOMAIN BACK!!!
WTF *&%$!#@!!!!!
October 11th, 2007 at 10:59 am
Uh oh, it’s on like Donkey Kong!!
Seriously, I think there’s only one way to settle this thing, once and for all.
On the courts!
Any time, any place.. your choice guys!
In fact, you can even pick the competition:
basketball?
ping pong?
arm wrestling?
bomberman live?
tallest average height of company founders?
You name it, we’re there!
October 11th, 2007 at 11:29 am
tallest average height of company founders it is!!
apparently you never met max :-)
ok, so here’s the deal. what was well intentioned turned out to be ill thought out. if ANYONE thinks it is sleazy, we want no part of it. It was meant to come out of testing tomorrow and go live with announcements on Friday.
The 404 error program has been scraped.
October 11th, 2007 at 11:49 am
“what was well intentioned turned out to be ill thought out. if ANYONE thinks it is sleazy, we want no part of it.”
Sure. So why didn’t you say that when people were bitching on your forums about it rather than deleting the threads and silencing any protests that you could, even on other forums where you had “embedded” reps?
“It was meant to come out of testing tomorrow and go live with announcements on Friday.”
Sure… easy claim to make after the level of outcry you’ve drawn… again, why didn’t you make this statement when it was first brought up on your forums, rather than deleting threads and banning users who mentioned it?
I’m glad for your customers, and for your customer’s customers sake, but you are still a scummy business ran by scummy people.
October 11th, 2007 at 11:51 am
> The 404 error program has been scraped.
We’re glad to hear it.
- Jeff @ DreamHost
October 11th, 2007 at 11:56 am
“The 404 error program has been scraped.”
And BTW, it is very funny that you used the word SCRAPED, because the domain squatter pages were only one step above scraper pages!
October 11th, 2007 at 12:09 pm
I am Canadian and I do not want Lunarpages to pick my charity for me. If you are going to hijack my 404 page then I want to link to legitimate sites and be able to pick from several charities.
And secondly, how about announcing the scrapping on your own forums. I little apology would go a long way. Funny how we have to post on a competitors site in order to be hear by our own hosting company.
Between this site and this one:
http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?t=640058
we certainly are letting our voices be heard.
October 11th, 2007 at 12:15 pm
Hilarious. LP’s posts here are almost as silly as the idea of stealing traffic from paying customers.
It’s hard to backtrack when you’ve become famous for forum censorship on the topic, and rewriting the TOS after the fact.
There is no way anyone with common sense would try to call that act well intentioned.
Expecting people to “opt out” by reclaiming their own 404 pages puts you in the same class as “opt out” spammers. Congratulations!
Too bad that brilliant logic doesn’t work everywhere in life. We could just walk around punching people in the face until they opt out. How else could we know that people don’t like being punched in the face?
October 11th, 2007 at 12:19 pm
“Too bad that brilliant logic doesn’t work everywhere in life. We could just walk around punching people in the face until they opt out. How else could we know that people don’t like being punched in the face?”
That is a seriously brilliant analogy… good job forming it into such a potent comparison!
October 11th, 2007 at 12:33 pm
“This entire topic would have more credibility if a recently terminated employee (laziness) and that same employee’s friend’s were not behind it.”
I would like the record to show that I am in no way associated with Dreamhost, other than being a very happy customer who values what they give me in both function and principle.
October 11th, 2007 at 12:37 pm
“I would like the record to show that I am in no way associated with Dreamhost, other than being a very happy customer who values what they give me in both function and principle.”
That goes for me too. :)
October 11th, 2007 at 12:37 pm
Dreamhost: Cool job, glad I found you guys.
Lunarpages: “The 404 error program has been scraped.”
Too late, after banning me, my company, and never responding to our questions I’ve canceled my account :P
Now time to go talk to the boss about moving the company site.
October 11th, 2007 at 12:41 pm
I agree with the others. I was threatened with being banned from the forums for just mentioning the 404 pages, and asking why they kept deleting my posts when I felt that they were legitimate questions.
They even moved (hid) the thread in their feedback section, but then wouldn’t allow people to post actual feedback - I continued to have my posts deleted.
That really isn’t the right way to go about treating your customers.
October 11th, 2007 at 1:06 pm
Lunarpages,
Scrapping the plan at this point is too little to late.
If it were a test, why go to the trouble of changing the TOS? How is showing spam on a paying customer’s site, regardless of beneficiary, be considered noble? The fact that you can say that you “allow [y]our customers to participate in that program” without their informed consent only shows that you lack ethics or possess a warped sense of it.
I’m still moving to DreamHost to avoid future “ill thought out” schemes from Lunarpages.
October 11th, 2007 at 4:06 pm
Hey josh, speaking of robbing your customers, do you think you could get a support person to respond to my requests? All day the site has been down and now they’ve locked out my ssh and ftp account so I can’t even try to figure out how to fix things because your techs won’t - am I running a p2p web service? GIving out links to full mp3 albums? No, I have a blog - an f-ig wordpress blog that had the good fortune of having a post that collegehumor.com and sportsillustrated linked to - and the one day it gets traffic, dreamhost shuts it down - I can’t f-ing believe this - since 5 am today - I will put all the support history out there if somebody doesn’t call me and figure this out - unless it’s dreamhost policy that you can’t have a blog on shared hosting and expect anyone to be able to access it if more than a thousand people come in a day, then this needs to be resolved - insanely ridiculous - I am seething and DH doesn’t seem to care
October 11th, 2007 at 4:07 pm
Is Max tall? Does that mean we’re on for basketball? :D
October 11th, 2007 at 4:18 pm
I’m glad LunarPages had the good sense to back out of the new policy. As bad as the policy itself was, that wasn’t the real problem; it was the LP’s behavior around the policy and its way of handling feedback to it that was the problem. Anyone could come up with a bad policy like that and think it was a good idea for a while, but the fact that it got this far indicates a serious problem somewhere in the leadership.
I’m sure that this is not the end of the company and I hope that they have made appropriate changes in management and/or seriously rethought the company’s relationship with its customers. A well-written public statement to that effect would go a long way towards repairing that damage.
Additionally, you should probably try to reign in your advocates on this forum if they work for you as they made a very poor showing here, both in their rhetoric and in their spelling. They certainly appear to represent LP here.
October 11th, 2007 at 4:38 pm
Internal Server Error
The server encountered an internal error or misconfiguration and was unable to complete your request.
Please contact the server administrator, webmaster@catsandbeer.com and inform them of the time the error occurred, and anything you might have done that may have caused the error.
More information about this error may be available in the server error log.
Additionally, a 404 Not Found error was encountered while trying to use an ErrorDocument to handle the request.
But my ssh account has been disabled so I can’t fucking do a thing and no one from support will reply!
After you finish your smarmy posts about how much better you are than other web hosts maybe you could have someone get back to me? What if I promise to only let twenty people a day read my site, would you restore access? Ten? I just want to make sure I know the limitations of dreamhosting so I don’t get my expectations out of whack - thanks
October 11th, 2007 at 4:44 pm
Your site is working fine from here, Brian!
October 11th, 2007 at 4:46 pm
> I’m sure that this is not the end of the company and I hope
> that they have made appropriate changes in management and/or
> seriously rethought the company’s relationship with its
> customers.
It may very well be a learning experience for them. Sometimes, bad decisions work out that way.
I know that we’ve made our share of blunders at times. Thing is, that is precisely _not_ the time to stick your fingers in your ears and pretend that nothing is happening.
I’m not a Lunarpages customer so I can’t say what happened, but if some of the things we’ve heard - deletion of entire critical forum threads, chastising customers for posting their thoughts, not owning up in public (ie. no blog posts) - are true, that should be the first thing on LP’s plate to fix in my opinion. With any luck, they can come out of this relatively intact and with a better approach.
Trust me, we know - we’ve been there. We’ve done some pretty dumb things ourselves over the years. Somehow, we’ve always muddled through those experiences (mostly) unscathed precisely because we’re willing to let our customers vent and even take us to the woodshed from time to time. Believe it or not, this has helped us avoid making most of those same mistakes twice. It’s a healthy process - and you guys all help us stay sane.
(except for you guys holding the spikey clubs - that’s just cruel…)
- Jeff @ DreamHost
October 11th, 2007 at 4:52 pm
voo, that is a temp page (and the only page) on a site and I got it up there before they locked out my ssh - great way to spend 12 hours today - crash course in vi, shh, .htaccess, fucking up my database by going into guess at changing values directly because I’m out on my own and people are being turned away by the thousands after clicking a link they’ll never click again because the pages never resolve (or just resolve to error pages) - if only my job was trying to be a sysadmin instead, then at least it would make sense that I’ve spent all day doing this - instead, it’s not, and I’ve gotten no real work done b/c on the one day in history my site is getting traffic dreamhost shuts it down and leaves me to try to figure out how to fix it, then shuts me out of that as well - but, yes, dreamhost is great since they have a rec league basketball team and send adorable “funny” mailing list emails once a month - I mean seriously, dreamhost is a great company just not at hosting web pages, I guess
October 11th, 2007 at 4:56 pm
Brian,
Did you by any chance have wp-cache installed and enabled when you still had the wordpress blog up and it started getting hammered?
October 11th, 2007 at 5:02 pm
man, look at that - front page of http://www.collegehumor.com - a budding humor site can’t do much better than that
oh and look, http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2007/extramustard/10/11/hotclicks.1011/index.html
sportsillustrated/cnn.com - I bet that might bring in a few people
maybe they’d subscribe to my feed - maybe they’d bookmark me and come back - maybe they’d read some of my articles - maybe one or two would click an ad?
you know what would be the BEST way to take advantage of this great exposure - have the site (a fucking blog) broken all day - then, when those links are gone tomorrow and traffic goes back to nothing maybe Dreamhost will fix things - maybe that’s the ‘dream’ part - tomorrow I can dream about how great it would have been for my website if it had been online when people came to it - I can dream about how my readership would have grown - and I can dream about support replying to my emails too or helping out - not things like:
Ok well it looks like the permissions on your home directory were set to
600 instead of 751. I corrected that and the site is back online. I’m not
sure exactly how that happened. I don’t see any notes about your site. It
is possible that a tech was working on this and forgot to set it back to
the proper settings, though that is pretty uncommon.
or
Sorry but we can only do so much to keep sites alive that are being
pounded by traffic. I’ve already had to powercycle (meaning reboot) the
server you are on because you ended up crashing it with too high of load,
and right now it still has 212 load. We’ll try to do what we can to keep
it alive, but to make it better withstand the flood:
…
If the site does continue to crash the server, we may need to throttle or
disable the site. We can’t allow one site to cause all customers on the
cupcake server to have slow or inaccessible websites until the traffic
flood stops.
fun - so, yeah, dreamhost is a dream of a host just as long as you don’t get a single text link to your site from popular websites (not slashdot, not even digg or reddit)
I’d take this all offline but dreamhost doesn’t believe in phone support - another dream I guess!
October 11th, 2007 at 5:26 pm
Should I take that as a no, you didn’t have wp-cache installed and enabled?
Also, the Dreamhost wiki has TONS of very informative articles you may want to check out:
http://wiki.dreamhost.com/Expecting_increased_web_traffic
October 11th, 2007 at 5:43 pm
Thanks for that info, VOO… I found it very interesting.
October 11th, 2007 at 5:50 pm
Sadly, the fact is that if a site is especially resource intensive and its owner has not made allowances to deal with unexpectedly heavy traffic, we can and do reserve the right to disable that site or make other arrangements to ensure that other customers are not negatively impacted.
That is, unfortunately, the nature of shared web hosting. For 99% of our customers 99% of the time, it’s not a problem.
For what it’s worth, we regularly have sites appear on Slashdot, Digg, etc. and most stay up with nary a problem. This largely has to do with how the site is structured, precautions their owners take (ie. wp-cache), how well databases are designed, etc.
- Jeff @ DreamHost
October 11th, 2007 at 6:06 pm
Oh yeah, and another thing. From the support correspondence that Brian quoted:
> Sorry but we can only do so much to keep sites alive that
> are being pounded by traffic. I’ve already had to powercycle
> (meaning reboot) the server you are on because you ended up
> crashing it with too high of load, and right now it still
> has 212 load. We’ll try to do what we can to keep
> it alive, but to make it better withstand the flood:
To be honest, if it ever gets to the point where we have to powercycle an entire server because of a single site, literally hundreds of other customers have had to incur at least a few minutes of downtime (and likely hours of slow loading) because of just one site. It shouldn’t even go that far.
It’s a delicate balance, in shared hosting. On one end people get angry because their site is offline when they want it up the most, on the other we have dozens if not hundreds of people suffering from slowdowns or even outages themselves because one guy is using up the server’s resources.
I think you’ll find that we’re a lot more permissive than a lot of other shared hosts (sometimes, to our detriment) but in the end we sometimes there’s only so much we can do before we need to pull the plug or require the use of a static site. We wish Brian the best, but hope others understand the position we are put in as well.
- Jeff @ DreamHost
October 11th, 2007 at 6:34 pm
Jeff,
Max left Lunarpages a long long time ago :(
October 11th, 2007 at 7:03 pm
http://dropoff.dreamhosters.com/monkey.gif
October 11th, 2007 at 7:23 pm
you wish me the best but you a) block me from responding to your post on this site and b) don’t get someone to respond to me even after these postings were THE ONLY thing that got anyone’s attention
look, I get it - let me off dreamhost - fine, PLEASE - I’ve read enough stories now of you holding people’s domains hostage (and files, but I have most of those) - you have my email - please contact me about getting off your server - my site is just a giant error page the day it gets traffic - that means google will be indexing it directly - you’re destroying thousands of hours of work - it’s fine, I’ll leave - just let me - still not one word (except on this blog, and not even then) from dreamhost on me being locked out - you clearly have plans for getting rid of customers - I’ve read about enough experiences all day today - it would be nice if you clued those customers in and LET THEM LEAVE - you want me an ex-dreamhost customer - fine - let me fucking get off dreamhost then
October 11th, 2007 at 7:43 pm
Brian -
I’ve not blocked you from responding to anything. Obviously you’re able to respond - because you just did so. :)
(…maybe you got caught up by our blog’s spam filter before?)
Anyhow, I’m not a part of technical support (I’m writing this in my off time) and don’t want to step on their toes with regard to your specific issue. We do have other customers who also have problems that need tending to, but I will see if I can get a TS’er to expedite the matter.
I can say this, though: If you still wish to close your account you can do so from the web panel (Billing -> Manage Account). Then, write in to tech support and tell them that Jeff C authorized a partial refund for the unused portion of your hosting plan if you are outside of the normal 97 day period (they can check with me if needed).
All that said, though, I honestly believe that your expectations with regard to running unsupported 3rd party software on a shared hosting platform without modification for load-resistance under unusually heavy usage played a large role in this matter. We’ll do what we can, but we absolutely cannot sacrifice stability or performance for other customers.
Anyhow, you will hear from someone soon.
- Jeff @ DreamHost
October 11th, 2007 at 8:10 pm
jeff, you seem like a great guy - appreciate the responses - perhaps read candor for smarm earlier - but listen, this is nothing about expectations or anything - if I could now turn back time to never contact support and let my site be down until people stopped coming I would - now it is an issue that I am blocked out of doing anything to the site - right now I would do cp -r ~/.snaphot/0.nightly/catsandbeer . if I could - but I have been locked out of my ftp and my shell account - I couldn’t even remove wordpress and just put up an index.html page that reads “I give up” and nothing else - I would if I could - I have no way to do anything to the site - I just lost my final very hacky way through which I was editing the .htaccess file through the wordpress admin interface and then did something that was wrong - now that is out - I don’t know - my eyes are sweating - it is a hopeless/helpless feeling - you’re a good dude
October 11th, 2007 at 8:19 pm
and yeah, it was the spam filter, but I took that to mean that my email address had been flagged as a ’spammer’ so then I stewed for hours and came back w/ a different email address - figured I’d have to spoof IP but didn’t
just received a note from customer service - it’s pretty impressive - thank you for greasing the wheels
October 11th, 2007 at 10:11 pm
Heck, I’ll even go buy basketball shoes! I’m tall, that means I’m good, right?
October 12th, 2007 at 5:25 am
I’ve found most of this posting amusing. The replies from LP have been so insanely retarded that I almost split my sides laughing. Your pathetic excuses both for running this error page scam and then scrapping it have made my day.
The reference to an ex-employee and his/her friends being behind all this is equally retarded. Obviously, you’ve not read any of the feedback emails nor postings on your own forums…just deleted them on sight.
The remark as to this certain ex-employee being “lazy”? Really, I kind of doubt that. From what I’ve heard (and I have a few “birds” deep inside your camp ;)) the absurd quota you’ve made mandatory over there for answering tickets is out of this world. Most, if not all of your support people cannot reply with a quality, accurate response in the time frame you’ve set in place. It’s no wonder support has gone down dramatically since you guys re-worked your staffing a while back.
Anyway, you’ve seen the error (pun intended) of your ways but yet, you haven’t done anything to explain this latest garbage to your customers except for this latest pathetic excuse of it being a test. Yeah, well, ok…for those who didn’t have a clue…maybe they’d buy it. Not the rest of us.
I especially liked the way you reached out through one of your employees and had threads squashed (closed) on a web hosting forum (WHC). That was indeed a nice touch. The excuses given there were equally pathetic as well. At least one out there wouldn’t allow you to censor the thread that is still ongoing by the way. WHT allowed it’s visitors/members to continue to spread the word. That was awesome of them.
Anything else you have in mind for grabbing anymore cash? I’d take a pass on it. You’re SO under the microscope now that anything short of just doing the right thing would be business suicide.
Let’s see if you guys over there in LP land can get it right now. Remember, the customer comes first, always has, always will. Stop trying to reinvent the wheel.
October 12th, 2007 at 6:46 am
[...] the web hosting deal, Dreamhost offers a special promo code - “Any Lunarpages customers who want to switch to [...]
October 12th, 2007 at 7:35 am
The guys at:
http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?t=640058&page=16
Quote:
“I have had personal contact with Lunar pages and they assured me today, “the 404 testing we started last week has ceased and we will not be launching this service officially today as we had planned to.”
With that said, Thread Closed.”
I am not at all happy that they closed the topic. They had PERSONAL contact with Lunarpages and closed the topic.
That sucks, where is the official announcement or apology to all the alienated members.
I will no longer be posting on WebhostingTalk, they are obviously in bed with Lunar. They probably closed the topic on request.
Where the hell can we go to tell people this has not concluded yet.
October 12th, 2007 at 7:53 am
I believe there will be a forum on lprefugees.com when it is finished.
October 12th, 2007 at 8:20 am
Yep… WHT closing the thread DOES look a little suspicious. I can easily envision a conversation looking similar to this:
Lunarpages: Please, who’s dick do we have to suck to get THAT thread deleted?
WHT: We can’t DELETE the thread, for any less than $5000… that would be TOO obvious.
Lunarpages: What can we get for $500?
WHT: Ha! Our annoying text ads produce that in a week anyways.
Lunarpages: $1000? AND I suck a dick at the next HostingCon?
WHT? Is this Mitch?
Lunarpages? No, this is Amy, the head witch, and I have false teeth, if you know what I’m sayin.
WHT? OK… for $1000 and a dick sucking I can lock the thread and it will disappear slowly into the backpages.
Lunarpages: Can you hold the check till next month?
WHT: Sure.
Lunarpages: Done.
WHT: k
I never post there to begin with because all they do is try to funnel you into bedroom operation reseller accts, each of which pays for the right to put their link in their sig and talk themselves up and The Evil Overselling Dreamhost down.
October 12th, 2007 at 8:22 am
DreamHost wins over LP ;)
October 12th, 2007 at 9:13 am
I am very unhappy that a mod here has closed:
http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?t=640058&page=16
The issue is not resolved until Lunarpages makes an announcement and we get an apology.
Please do not close this topic or we will have to make our own forum for our voice to be heard. How can Webhosting Talk close a perfectly good topic. We broke no rules and closing the topic is totally uncalled for.
Where do we have to go to speak our minds without censorship!!!!
I was hoping Webhosting Talk was such a place but obviously you too are in bed with the hosting companies.
Very disappointing
I made a copy of this post - lets see how long it lasts before it is closed or deleted.
Sad, sad, sad
October 12th, 2007 at 9:14 am
Sorry, I posted the comment above on WebhostingTalk.com and I meant their mods not yours.
Just to clarify
October 12th, 2007 at 9:26 am
> I was hoping Webhosting Talk was such a place but
> obviously you too are in bed with the hosting companies.
Let me make this clear, for the record:
DreamHost did not have sexual relations with that web site, WebHostingTalk.
Though if we had, we’d be the best ever. Honest.
- Jeff @ DreamHost (DreamHost - you know, those guys of “Web Hosts Gone Wild” fame?)
October 12th, 2007 at 10:54 am
To be fair to Lunarpages’ owners, more than likely none of this was really their fault… they probably weren’t raised right by their parents to begin with and are just allowing the only Tao that they know to flow through them. Hopefully they are open to being shown a better way of being as humans and will have the strength of will to follow it.
When you realize that this world is full of corruption, please do not just jump on the bandwagon… that is not something to be followed, but rather something to be fought with every resource you have, both internal and external.
October 12th, 2007 at 11:32 am
“VOO Says:
October 12th, 2007 at 8:20 am
Yep… WHT closing the thread DOES look a little suspicious. I can easily envision a conversation looking similar to this:
Lunarpages: Please, who’s dick…………….”
I personally find that disgusting, I came on here to read the blogs before signing up and I’m glad I did.
I would not want to be asscociated with a host that allows filth like that in a blog.
What if my children were to come on here to see what their mothers site is like and the read filth like that.
I’m sorry Dreamhost, I will go look elsewhere for hosting and will draw this to the attention of everyone I know also.
To “VOO” a joke is a joke and there are some interesting valid points in this blog, but it looks like you just blew any credibility out of the winodow.
October 12th, 2007 at 12:03 pm
Dh hopeful,
If you were concerned for your kids you would have web filtering software enabled which would have filtered out content such as you are complaining about. Parents need to take an active role in protecting their children. DH needs to cater to everyone and not just the under 6 years of age crowd.
October 12th, 2007 at 12:06 pm
How do you know VOO isn’t one of your children in disguise?
October 12th, 2007 at 12:28 pm
[...] you want to procrastinate whatever it is you’re doing and have a laugh read this account of Lunapages misguided insertion of link farms on their customers’ 404 pages. The comments become puerile [...]
October 12th, 2007 at 12:32 pm
Awesome thread. I haven’t seen a flame war like this since bbs chat in 1996. Truly puerile! I’m so glad I could get called a spammer. I’m a real evil bastard for keeping $7 out of the possible $97 for referrals on the discount code I offered. In fact, I have to go now, I made so much money that I’m now going to start my own referral link farms and post flame-bait comments full time instead of working. Wahooo!
October 12th, 2007 at 12:40 pm
WebhostingTalk removed my second topic and sent me a PM
“This thread was destined to be removed because it wasn’t in accordance with WHT policies.”
Funny that all Lunar Topics are being removed.
This forces me to open a forum similar to LunarForumsUncencored.com to speak our minds. Maybe even a second address like ForumsUncensored because it looks to me like almost all Webhosting forums band together.
Simply incredible that they closed the Lunartopic and removed my second one.
DreamHost is going to get a lot of Lunar Refugees out of all of this. They look to me like the only ones able to take criticism and say “Hey I screwed up, lets fix it”
Holy shit, is that to much to ask from Lunarpages
Just issue a damn response and apologize to the members you’ve offended. How the hell can it be that hard to admit you made a mistake. To contact other forums and have those topics closed too is the lowest common denominator.
WebhostingTalk.com SUCKS the big bone and I will never post on that communist site again!!!!! They are no better than Lunarpages.
October 12th, 2007 at 12:49 pm
Dh hopeful signup, I’m sorry about that, I have a problem with reverting back to middle school mentality sometimes in combat against the adulthood which I have found forced upon me. If I were a dick suckin kind of guy I would see if I could suck a little to get that post edited for you, but alas, I am not a dick suckin kind of guy, but maybe you can forgive me since I would have been willing if I were?
October 12th, 2007 at 1:03 pm
Also, Amy (or Mitch The Bitch, as the case may be), if you had any Joshish vision you could make your own Lunarpages Blog post called Dreamhost: Filthy Shithole and expose Dreamhost for allowing such filth, and then offer free hosting to Dreamhost refugees with the NODICKSUCKINGREFERENCESHERE coupon code and take all of Dreamhost’s non-dick sucking reference liking customers!
Voice Of One
October 12th, 2007 at 2:11 pm
I say we remove any dick sucking remarks and get back on topic.
I hate to see the topic degrade like this. I am not sure if people are using the language just to ensure Dreamhost closes the topic and lets it fall into obscurity. Its easy to get caught up (myself included) but hopefully we can stay on track and see if eventually someone at Lunarpages offers us even a hint of an apology.
I would like to see the main parts of this blog preserved so anyone looking the original facts has access to them.
My two cents Canadian (He He… Now worth more than American)
October 12th, 2007 at 2:12 pm
Okay, guys, can we try to keep this at least a little clean?
We’re not ones to assume our customers are 6 year olds but it’d be really nice to keep the amount of vulgarity in here no higher than what can be found Josh posts (as a matter of principle!).
- Jeff @ DreamHost
October 12th, 2007 at 2:14 pm
Mahalie, spamming pieces of trash, like yourself, always have an excuse. But in the end, you’re still just a spamming piece of trash.
I’d suggest that you go back and re-read the TOS. Dreamhost host was giving out something for free, when you greedily jumped in and tried to grab money from people by spamming a LAME promo code.
If you were trying to help, you would have at least made it $97 and matched the thousands of other $97 codes out there, with which you still collect $5 per secondary referral.
Keep pretending to be a decent person if it makes you feel better, but you’re no better than any other lowlife spammer/telemarketer/etc.
October 12th, 2007 at 2:14 pm
Regarding filthy comments, I believe DreamHost has established a fairly long history of standing for the principles of freedom of speech and the 1st Amendment. I personally would prefer such comments be allowed rather than censored. If we reduce the web to only that which is fit for a child, it will become useful only to children. I understand some people have a different value set, however.
October 12th, 2007 at 2:19 pm
If you need more proof that you’re purpose in life is to be a spammer, look how you change your link each time you post, trying to turn this into a directory for deep-linking individual articles on your site.
Hopefully, someone from Dreamhost will remove your spammed promo code & clean up your linking.
October 12th, 2007 at 2:21 pm
Besides, why would children need to be here reading this? It’s a customer blog & you have to 18 to be a customer.
Kids are too busy looking at porn and hooking up with sluts on Myspace to be reading a company blog.
If adults are opening accounts for their kids, then they’re accepting the content on their behalf.
October 12th, 2007 at 4:23 pm
Firstly, most of my accounts are here at dreamhost…i have two accounts at lunarpages. one is a business account that did get the crappy 404 error pages. however, my dedicated account there did not get the crappy 404 error pages.
that said. i still believe in dreamhost!!! i will not move any of my personal accounts from here. i will also try to keep what clients i have here, and continue to promote dreamhost to my new clients.
lunar has a crappy cpanel access. (not on their dedicated, we use plesk there, but on the business account, it’s icky cpanel) it’s hard to get things done there. (i am keeping this clean, since a 6-year-old’s mom might be reading this.)
dreamhost’s web admin panel is far superior. before there are any flame wars here…remember, i use both. i have far more clients here than at lunar.
i also like dreamhost because it does not censor. it allows ‘almost’ any posting style/flame/refute/rant/cursing in its blogs/discussion groups/forums/status sites, etc. I refer to ‘father someone’ for having to put the ‘almost’ in there.
dreamhost doesn’t even filter out ‘i hate dreamhost’ posts.
they are a baby company with a big vision. they will make it, and will change the vision of hosting for current and future hosting companies…and will be the industry leader one day.
Now, Jeff, can I buy stock yet???????????
barbara
October 12th, 2007 at 4:34 pm
ps….i want to be able to use my rewards to buy dreamhost stock…so you guys better figure out a way to do that!!!!!
or else, i will find where “ted” has been hiding himself!
October 12th, 2007 at 7:54 pm
What an interesting blog!! Suffice to say I’ve taken up the dreamhost offer of LOONEYPAGES for the 1 year free host, and, although this might seem a loosing proposition, it really is not. My use of their question/answer to tech support and sales have been mighty speedy. Their answers are informative, useful and well structured. I probably will be with them for many many years, and the word of mouth will also help generate more sales for them in the future.
Congratulaions to Dreamhost.com for being a truly ethical company, and for “allowing” us looserpages refugees a place to come.
My domains and services with Lunarpages was fairly good and straight forward. They have some issues with loging into their cpanel and with their horde webmail that they need to address sometime. But, overall, the sites worked well.
I consider it ILLEGAL to do what they had done. It is not their right to use other peoples paid domains as a launcing of “click here” sites that pay them for someone’s mistake. I for one will gladly join a class action suit against them.
October 13th, 2007 at 4:22 am
I’ve been a happy DreamHost customer for about a year and two months now. DreamHost is awesome and I’ve had absolutely no real problems with them (sure, a few downtimes here and there, but nothing MAJOR).
I think what LooneyPages is doing is completely the wrong way to do it. The service should be completely opt in and Lunarpages doesn’t have the right, or at least shouldn’t have the right to direct business from legitimate websites into unethical businesses and advertising companies who sell mistakes to people.
Although I’ve never been a Lunarpages host, I was almost tempted. However, before DreamHost, I was with ShieldHost (which was possibly one of the worst hosts I’ve been with). I wanted to go with DreamHost at the time but I couldn’t afford it. I’m glad I can now.
Thank you DreamHost, for being such an awesome host, and embracing the Google philosophy - “Don’t be Evil”.
October 13th, 2007 at 8:19 am
NK, dwr, MapleOne, Darth, and anyone else who’s interested, or who have asked me about it. LPRefugees.com Forum is now “open”.
October 13th, 2007 at 3:16 pm
are we dreamhosters…who unfortunately have both lunar and DH accounts aloud to post there?
I am, by far, a DH lover…
and, i would hate for lunar to F&*ck with my 2 sites there.
hmmmm….
October 13th, 2007 at 4:25 pm
@barbara - If you are talking about lprefugees.com, *anyone* can post there. I don’t see any way lunarpages would even havea way to associate you with any of your sites hosted there on the basis of such a post, any more than they could if you posted here (assuming you don’t indicate your lunarpags site anywhere).
October 13th, 2007 at 9:05 pm
Psst, Barbara, “Ted” lives on my desk.
October 15th, 2007 at 5:46 pm
In my opinion, DH and LP both did something wrong. Yes, LP made HUGE mistake by changing the 404 pages, but DH shouldn’t have made a post like this completely bashing them. LP isn’t all that bad, they just made a bad decision. Everyone company makes bad decisions now and again, and DH is no different. However, bashing a rival comapany so blatantly and then attempting to steal their customers with an offer is just as bad as what LP did. I just have to say this has greatly lowered my respect for DH as a company.
October 15th, 2007 at 8:53 pm
@ Anonymous - “LP isn’t all that bad, they just made a bad decision. Everyone company makes bad decisions now and again, and DH is no different.”
That’s nonsense! Of course Lunarpages is not “all bad”, but the 404 hijackings were more than a “bad decision”. That action was deceitful, dishonest, and is evidence of a complete disdain for their customers and domain registrant’s rights to the use of their own domain names in the manner they choose to use them. DH is *very* different in every aspect of this issue that counts.
@anonymous - “However, bashing a rival comapany so blatantly and then attempting to steal their customers with an offer is just as bad as what LP did.”
Companies that screw their customers over *should* be “bashed” as “blatantly” as possible and by whomever has the courage to do it. I don’t believe that just because another company is a competitor they should be immune from criticism of their actions.
What you call “attempting to steal their customers” is just as easily viewed as offering people who have been mistreated an affordable way to remove themselves from the clutches of those that mistreated them. DH gaining customers at the expense of Lunarpages being a side-effect of that offer is “just the breaks” that companies who mishandle their customer relationships need to be prepared for.
@Anonymous -”I just have to say this has greatly lowered my respect for DH as a company.”
That’s fair enough; everyone is entitled to an opinion, and mine is different. I just have to say that DH actions in this matter only reinforced my high opinion of DreamHost and the way they do business. They “stood up” and screamed “foul” when another company in their industry pulled a stunt that was designed to serve the host’s interest over the rights of their hosted customers - and DH were absolutely right, and courageous, to decry this type of conduct in their industry.
October 15th, 2007 at 9:00 pm
“Yes, LP made HUGE mistake by changing the 404 pages. LP isn’t all that bad, they just made a bad decision.”
That’s FAR from the full essence of what has been done… it’s not just that it was ads on 404s… they were VERY shady ads that incorporated the owner’s domain, and the MAIN thing is their attempts to hide it, outright suppressing any mention of it, deleting threads that asked about it, banning users that expressed discontent… and then trying to act like it was with benevolent intention AFTER getting caught. This is beyond a bad decision… it is a truly shady level of dishonesty.
“Everyone company makes bad decisions now and again, and DH is no different.”
Big difference between a bad decision, and an outright nasty series of moves that were so bad they STILL don’t have the balls to openly discuss on their own property.
“However, bashing a rival comapany so blatantly and then attempting to steal their customers with an offer is just as bad as what LP did.”
Nope… ONE is hidden and shady… subterfuge against one’s own customers… the other is wide open, honest, good ol fashioned business that Lunarpages was ASKING for by suppressing… I’d bet anything that if Lunarpages would have allowed open discussion with their customers then the sequence of events that led to this blog posting would have never happened… Dreamhost were messengers of near instant karma in this case… somebody had to do it and really they were the only ones that could or would, and were it not for this then by all appearances Lunarpages would have held out for even longer, doing their best to stop the signal.
October 15th, 2007 at 10:32 pm
There’s nothing bad about DH taking advantage of LP’s egregious series of poor decisions. There is something good in DH’s exposure of it, and we certainly see now that there is an absence of a good, neutral place to discuss the pros and cons of various hosting providers.
But the fact that it’s entirely in DHs interest to take advantage of the situation is neither anti-competitive, nor foul play. It’s not even a cheap shot, as it might be if DH were trying to take advantage of some sort of network troubles (like DH was having last year). In fact, given how entirely out in the open DH’s play for LP refugees has been, and the fact that they’ve provided this forum for discussing it is part of the reason I’m proud to be their customer. They have a very good relationship to their customers.
October 16th, 2007 at 5:31 am
As a LP customer, I cannot agree with you, Anonymous.
They took MY domain name (which isn’t even registered through them), and placed ads I most certainly do not endorse. If I visited a site that had those ads, I would assume they weren’t paying for the hosting.
They deleted my threads on their forums when I asked about why they had done it.
They threatened to BAN me for asking. They DID ban others. We’re talking members who had well over 1000 posts who spent time trying to help other customers when they didn’t have to. Why? Because they asked about the 404 pages.
They changed their TOS AFTER people complained, and worded the TOS to make it sound like they were doing us a favor. Huge kick in the face, that.
After everything became so public (when they obviously hoped no one would notice), they suddenly reversed their decision citing that they were going to tell us all along.
If they were going to tell us all along, how come there still hasn’t been any kind of public announcement? Why are threads still deleted on the forums if it is mentioned? The bit in their 404 has also been removed.
I cannot fault DH for outing them. Look at the replies LP made on this blog itself - extremely unprofessional! Why would I want to support that? They even went on to argue with ME, their customer!
I have the feeling that DH making this blog post helped make LP reverse their decision. I am also thankful that DH provided a way for me to escape from LP’s shady practices without having to pay anything out of pocket. I still had several months left with LP that I had already paid for.
It made the decision VERY easy.
October 16th, 2007 at 7:53 am
[...] came across this post - Robbing Your Customers - and thought it was worth sharing. I hope you find it interesting too and take the time to read [...]
October 16th, 2007 at 8:41 am
Wrong. It’s just LP.
Awwwwwwww… poor LP! Getting bashed just for being lowlife thieves? That’s so wrong!