DreamHost

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DreamHost
Type Private company
Founded Claremont, California 1996
Headquarters Los Angeles, California, USA
Key people Dallas Bethune, Josh Jones, Michael Rodriguez, Sage Weil
Industry Domain Registrar, Web hosting service
Products Web services
Website http://www.dreamhost.com

DreamHost is a Los Angeles-based web hosting provider and domain name registrar. It is the web hosting branch of New Dream Network, LLC, founded in April 1996 by Dallas Bethune, Josh Jones, Michael Rodriguez and Sage Weil, undergraduate students at Harvey Mudd College in Claremont, California.

Contents

[edit] Web hosting

A screenshot of the post March 2007 DreamHost Control Panel
A screenshot of the post March 2007 DreamHost Control Panel

DreamHost hosts around 700,000 domain names[1] on a network of mainly Debian GNU/Linux-based servers.[2] The company has deployed a unique control panel, devised by their own programmers [3], that includes integrated billing and support ticket systems. The majority of hosted domains exist within a shared hosting environment, with a small percentage of customers on dedicated servers. All accounts can have shell access. Initially available by invitation only,[4] DreamHost also offers a virtual private server service using Linux-VServer.[5] The company offers customer support by telephone (on a call-back basis only), as well as email-based support.

[edit] Domain registration

DreamHost is an ICANN-accredited[6] domain name registrar. The company previously operated the .la top-level domain, allocated to the country of Laos, which it marketed as a domain for the city of Los Angeles. It stopped operating it in April 2006 because it reportedly received only "one registration a day".[7]

[edit] Transparency

DreamHost is notable for being unusually transparent about its business practices, with staff contributing to a popular blog.[8][9] A disastrous power outage incident[10] in August of 2006 led to a frank account of what happened by Josh Jones that set a particular tone for the future. It was followed by the creation of a status site dedicated to detailing server maintenance and outages.[11][12]

[edit] Billing issue

On January 15, 2008, the billing system was mistakenly used to bill users up to December 2008. Josh Jones had intended to bill any accounts that had failed to be billed in late December 2007 due to an upgrade discrepancy, but he entered "2008" instead of "2007".[13] This resulted in erroneous charges of $2.1 million, out of the $9.6 million in total that was billed.[14]

Most users were inconvenienced, especially those who had automatic billing enabled, causing bank accounts and credit cards to become overdrawn or incur charges.[15] Many accounts were automatically suspended due to an inability to pay the erroneous bill, which led their websites to go down. The comic tone in which Jones announced the error drew criticism,[16] and some users have canceled their accounts.[17] As DreamHost tried to undo the billing, some accounts that were not billed received refunds, while accounts that were billed did not receive them.[14][13]

[edit] References

  1. ^ Top Web Hosts Worldwide. WebHosting.Info. Retrieved on 2008-05-19.
  2. ^ DreamHost's feature glossary
  3. ^ Web-based account administration
  4. ^ What a CON
  5. ^ DreamHost Private Servers
  6. ^ List of ICANN-Accredited Registrars
  7. ^ DreamHost Newsletter, February 2006
  8. ^ Honesty, transparency can offset customer service disasters
  9. ^ Netcraft site report showing site ranking of DreamHost's blog
  10. ^ LA Hosting Providers Slowed by Power Problems
  11. ^ Anatomy of an ongoing disaster
  12. ^ DreamHost Status Blog
  13. ^ a b Matthew Sparkes. "Typo causes $7,500,000 mistake", PC Pro, 2008-01-17. Retrieved on 2008-01-19. 
  14. ^ a b Josh Jones (2008-01-17). The Final Update. DreamHost. Retrieved on 2008-01-18.
  15. ^ Austin Modine. "Dreamhost billing cock-up shocks customer bank accounts", The Register, 2008-01-15. Retrieved on 2008-01-18. 
  16. ^ Linda Rosencrance. "Web hosting provider uses Homer Simpson to notify livid customers of $7.6M overcharge", Computerworld, 2008-01-16. Retrieved on 2008-01-18. 
  17. ^ Juan Carlos Perez (2008-01-15). Update: Billing nightmare for DreamHost customers. InfoWorld. Retrieved on 2008-01-18.

[edit] External links

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