I would like to get other hosts opinions about customers that purchase a shared hosting account and then they sign on all of their friends.

I have been seeing a lot of this on sites I visit that are asking about hosting. I always vsit the current site if they have one and I have seen posts about "hey if you need a site let me know and I will create and add on for you." One even got booted from his current host because of it.

I have one customer that asked my permisson to add-on a friends domain and I was glad he asked and gave permission as long as he stayed within his plan.

Just curious to see what other hosts think or do about this.

Well I dont think it really matters as they would still have their plan limitations, and would have to upgrade is extra space or bandwidth is needed for either sites.

I would rather people had their own plans but I have limits on the number of add on domains for different shared plans so people cant start their own hosting "company" from a shared account :lol:

Im sure people have tried in the past...

Yea, as long as they don't go over there disk space and or bandwidth I see no issues with it. I only do resellers now so not in the shared hosting business anymore... My current shared accounts don't have that access but if they requested for add-on domains I would either let them or tell them to upgrade to a reseller account.

Very true, I know to have to track that kind of stuff would be a nightmare. I just couldn't believe it when I visited a particular site he was blasting his host and it had to do with him hosting some friends, so I was curious about how much it happens. I am sure with teenagers and the limited funds they have it would be more prevalent than adults. I notice gamers like to do it too.

We address the following points:

* clients cannot **resell** the space. They can host friends or other organisations for free using their account's addon domains, but they cannot resell that space to other people.
* clients are ultimately responsible for any content that their friends upload, or any actions that their friends may take. If they offer to host someone and that someone then sends spam or tries to hack our servers, the client can lose their account. No appeals taking the form of "but it wasn't me!!!" will be given any weight. They receive one warning (if it's a warnable offence), then the account can be terminated if it happens again.
* if clients regularly exceed their resources (for example, more than two consecutive months, or more than four times in a calendar year) they will be asked to upgrade their account to a larger plan or their hosting contract may be terminated. This one has actually been in effect for some time, and was unrelated to the situation you're describing; but we wanted some protection in place for the .05% of clients who don't pay attention to their resource usage and actually do use it all, repeatedly.

I personally have seen this happen with a college student who eventually moved on to get their own server at a low-cost DC. He was hosting several friends, using 15 addon domains...but the entire account never exceeded the disk space or bandwidth resources, and there were never any attempts to cause problems on the server.

Hi Lesli, thanks I was wanting to say hello to you when I saw you post the other day, so let me say now welcome.

Those are some nice points you made, as I figured whatever is one the domain follows the same rules as usual. I have been very fortunate no one has gone over their limits yet, though a couple come pretty close sometimes.

Yes this would be my only concern, but I have terminated one account for spam, won't be afraid to terminate another. I am an easy going host but not when it comes to violating the terms.

Good tip, thanks.

Again nice to finally get to say hello to you.

Hi Freckle,

What we've recently done is post a special notice in the introductory client email, pointing them to this section of our member FAQ. They then know right upfront that if they want to host friends and family on subdomains, they're more than welcome - but the ultimate responsibility will be theirs. It's almost a common-sense move, but some of Scribehost's target group is fairly new to paid hosting, so they don't know what they can and cannot do. Posting this notice and directing everyone to read it lets all sides know exactly what's what.

And - definitely - if someone violates your TOS, they need either a careful talking-with or account termination. Granted there are folks who may spam out if ignorance...but there are plenty more who will just try to get away with as much as they possibly can before getting the boot.

I'm the main staff poster in our client forums, and I try to create a place where people feel like they can ask any question and not get rebuffed or treated like an ignorant n00b. It doesn't always work...but, eh. You do what you can. When many of our clients have questions about "what constitutes spam" or "what constitutes a copyright violation" (we host a few sizeable fansites, including one that's doing the subdomain hosting mentioned above), they tend to ask in email or support tickets. Kind of like they're embarrassed to be asking. They're perfectly fine asking about subdomain usage and about image hosting in the forums, though.

oh I agree, I love the ones that ask, no matter how they ask. At least then they can become well informed.

I will add that piece of information about the sub and add on domains to my forum area, that is where I have the FAQ located, never thought of listing it there but what better place.

Nice to hear you stay in touch on your forums, many hosts tend to start their and then drift away. I intend to do my best to always be within reach on the forum especially to make sure mis-information isn't listed and then touted as the gospel elsewhere which can frequently happen on forums.

Thanks again, you are a wealth of information and we will all learn so much from you here.

Lesli you made some really important points and Im sure they will help a lot of hosts who are thinking about this kind of thing.
This is a very helpful thread with great information

All good we see it as if they buy a plan they can use the resources as they see fit - as in distribution. So if they use up subdomains/add-ons or parked then they paid for it.

If any of the 'sub-letters' breach or take the account over it's limits they can fight it out amongst themselves to see who pays the unsuspend costs.

My Policy is:

If they pay, I let them have the extra domain, but in my reseller, not their own. I maintain the sites, I add to panel. They pay for space they use.

Hasen't happened to me but I can guess that it is an upcoming problem.