Privacy, Public Policy, and the Future of Hosting
Editor’s Note: In advance of his appearance at HostingCon 2011 our COO, Christian Dawson, today published the following blog post on the HostingCon blog. If after reading, you want to learn more and find yourself in the San Diego area on Monday August 8th, use the discount code “AssociationPlanMonday” to register for HostingCon and receive $60 off either a full conference pass (with or without lunch) or $60 off a single day pass for Monday. Hope to see you there.
The hosting industry in the United States, and the security of private data in general, is under threat. Legislation that is making its way through Congress represents a sea change in the way our government has regulated data in our country. HR 1981 – for instance – would dramatically increase the logging and data retention rules for hosting companies, allowing the government access to the online habits of countless Americans.
The status quo up to this moment is represented by 1998′s Digital Millennium Copyright Act and 1996′s Communications Decency Act, which are not without problems, but which have been generally very beneficial for our industry. Throughout its history the hosting industry has mostly been allowed to operate under fairly business-friendly legislation, including of course 1998′s Internet Tax Freedom Act, which is up for renewal in 2014.
It’s easy to see how lucky we were to have had Internet legislation forged in a period where lawmakers saw the tremendous potential of the Internet economy and were able to develop pro-Internet business policies to foster and protect the industries that were propping it up and giving the Internet economy life. Lawmakers didn’t sit down with hosting providers, but they were careful not to over-regulate the industry, likely out of fear that if they did the Internet would never realize its great potential.
Fast forward to today and you can see that the landscape has changed. What do most people think of when they think of the Internet? They think of Amazon, Facebook and Google and companies like that – hardly the small mom-and-pop that needs to be protected from over-regulation. And indeed today we are older and wiser about the real threats that the Internet poses regarding security, privacy and the management of intellectual property. It isn’t 1996 or 1998 anymore.
But the hosting industry isn’t made up of Googles and Facebooks, it’s made up of small to medium service businesses. So as new bills hit the floor of Congress, such as last year’s net neutrality bills or this year’s PROTECT IP bill, we need to start getting worried – because we have no voice at the table.
S 968, the so-called PROTECT-IP Act, contains Safe Harbor provisions for the credit card and advertising industries, but no Safe Harbor for hosts. This means that even if hosts do comply with the provisions of the bill, they still may be sued. Further, the bill uses words like ‘expeditiously’ that are so open to interpretation they are simply invitations to litigation. And other bills, primarily security breach bills, don’t take into account the hosting industry at all, and as a result create regulatory gaps that will likely lead to significant confusion about enforcement and enforcement targets.
Those of us in leadership positions within the web hosting industry must come together and find ways to make our voices heard, or we will have only ourselves to blame when legislation gets passed that destroys our businesses.
But could that really happen? All we really need to do is look at what has happened already, both here and in other countries.
In the United Kingdom web hosts actually have a solid collective voice in the public affairs arm of the London Internet Exchange, or LINX. When Parliament implemented the Data Retention (EC Directive) Regulations of 2007, they used their collective voice to explain what role the hosting community could play in the government’s data retention efforts without setting a prohibitively expensive bar to providing hosting services within the UK. The law as originally written could have put most web hosts out of business. Not only were the web hosters able to help walk back an untenable piece of legislation, but their success in doing so is being used to shape the EU’s efforts in data retention as well.
It’s not hard to see government regulation coming in and resetting the bar so that only those with deep pockets could fund a web hosting operation. I’m not saying we’ll end up with a hosting landscape that looks like Australia’s broadband market with Telstra at the top and everybody else regulated out of existence, but we do need to be careful. Cloud in particular has lots of lawmakers worried, especially because it promises to untether data even from a physical location. One reaction is likely to be regulation designed to foster data protection.
While there’s definitely a need to talk about data protection or even data retention in a legal context, I’m afraid those charged with the task of regulating our industry simply don’t understand us well enough to do so. That’s why I firmly believe that we need to come together with a collective voice so that we can weigh in on these issues that will so greatly affect us.
I’ve been in the hosting industry for well over a dozen years now, and I’ve been a vocal public advocate for and against various pieces of legislation in the past. This year, I had the honor of being asked to testify on Capitol Hill. Google invited me to come and speak out against the proposed COICA law that was then making it’s way through Congress. I was sadly unable to attend, but for a moment I was pleased that somebody was out there advocating on our behalf.
But here’s the thing – big guys like Apple, Microsoft, Google and Amazon have their advocates lobbying Congress. Their voice is being heard. What happens when their business interests don’t align with ours? And what will come of that?
From August 8th through August 10th the web hosting industry will have its big yearly conference down in San Diego – HostingCon. On Monday, August 8th at 10:00 AM I will be moderating a panel discussion, “Small Business & Big Government: Public Policy and the Hosting Industry.” We will be discussing public policy and the future not only of the hosting industry but of the freedom of content on the Internet.
I am excited to have 3 fantastic panelists who will join me for what I think will be an enlightening hour for all attendees:
David McClure – President of the US Internet Industry Association
Suzy Fulton – General Counsel for Softlayer
Abigail Phillips – Senior Staff Attorney for the Electronic Frontier Foundation
These people know the threats that are in front of us, and it should be a great talk.
Directly following the panel discussion, I will be facilitating an open discussion in a meeting we’re calling “Help Found A Hosting Industry Association” at noon. This will be the start of the ‘Save Hosting’ movement, an idea that I look forward to debuting there at the show.
We’ve already seen a ton of early interest in this meeting, and I hope that everybody will show up and join the initial working group to get things off the ground.
The hosting industry is important. It is one of the most overlooked engines for our global economy, driving business productivity and visibility. But we’re invisible right now on a national political stage. That’s why I think the time is right for a hosting industry association to make sure that we don’t become victims of the continued growth of the Internet economy as others with deep pockets step in to make sure their voices are heard.
So what hosting providers should do, honestly, is come to my panel at 10 on Monday, August 8th at HostingCon and then to the working group later that day at noon. Get involved and help us get this started. I hope to see you there.
-Christian
Check out the cPanel Podcast Interview with ServInt’s Christian Dawson!
Earlier this year at HostingCon 2010, cPanel’s Lindsey White sat down for a chat with our COO Christian Dawson. They discussed his presentation at HostingCon, “Oh My God, We’re All Gonna Die”, and his general take on current state of the hosting world.
Is it just me, or does Christian sound like he’s being interviewed on NPR? :-)
You can listen directly from the cPanel’s podcast page, or you can download the podcast directly below.
I’m Headed to LinuxCon!
One of the best parts of my job is being able to go places and meet our partners, our peers and our clients face to face, be it in meetings or at conferences, speaking engagements and events.
It’s funny, despite how much closer the Internet brings us, sometimes the tech industry can seem oddly impersonal. Well, we take things personally at ServInt. Our customers come to us in search of a partner, someone who has genuine concern –and in some ways a vested interest — in their success.
After all, few things are as personal as one’s livelihood, and all of us at ServInt take our role in the lives of our clients seriously. Our service and our technology power thousands of businesses around the world. People trust us with the foundation of their day to day lives online and they expect us to take that role seriously.
That’s why I’m proud to be one of the public faces of ServInt. I’ve logged plenty of travel time under my belt to make sure that people know we’re a living, breathing group of caring and hardworking people.
Tomorrow I have a fun stack of meetings up in Boston at LinuxCon, which is run by our partners at The Linux Foundation.
If you’re in town and want to sit down and chat, let me know!
“Oh My God We’re All Gonna Die” – HostingCon 2010
A couple weeks back, I mentioned that I would be speaking at the HostingCon 2010 conference in Austin, TX. I also mentioned that I would post the presentation here for all to see after the conference and I want to make good on my word. The presentation is posted below (after the jump).
The title of my presentation is “Oh My God We’re All Gonna Die”. While the title is intentionally provocative, the message is, I think, pretty optimistic. Our industry is changing rapidly, while we’ll be forced to innovate and compete on a whole new scale, it will mean a leaner operation for businesses and better and more affordable services for end users.
Since there is no video of the presentation (sorry about that), I’ll try and sum it up as best as I can here.
My HostingCon Presentation: “Oh My God We’re All Gonna Die…”
As you may have heard, I’ll be speaking at HostingCon 2010 next week in balmy, beautiful, and weird Austin, TX. I love Austin and am really looking forward to mingling with friends and industry colleagues, but I thought I’d mention something about my presentation before I hopped on a plane to the Lone Star State.
The name of my presentation is:
“Oh My God We’re All Gonna Die: The Future of Webhosting…and What We Can Do About It.”
Now, I admit the title is a bit provocative, but I want to be clear that what I think is going to happen to our industry in the next few years will completely transform the landscape of the web.
What this presentation will spell out are what I believe to be the coming shifts in web hosting and web infrastructure in the next few years. Like the automotive industry more than a century ago, the web is a chaotic marketplace with competing platforms and standards.
Whether it’s Windows and Linux, WebM vs OGG vs H.264, or Open vs Proprietary, the movers and shakers on the web are still arguing over foundational issues. We are only now beginning to see a crystallization of standards, and along with it we’re seeing the entrance of technology behemoths creating and promptly capturing entire segments of the internet economy.
I’ll be out of the office for a few days after I give my presentation, but I’ll be sure to post it here for all to see as soon as I’m back and am looking forward to your thoughts and feedback.
Questions? Comments? Leave a comment below, Like us on Facebook, and follow us on Twitter!
Follow Christian Dawson on Twitter.
Green Retrofitting: Corporate Responsibility That Makes Sense
Challenges Are Catalysts for Innovation
Yesterday, I wrote about a new direction for ServInt’s social media outreach. Basically, I explained that a lot of companies, ServInt included, spend too much time talking about themselves and not enough time talking about their customers. I made a new rule saying that we’d talk more about you .
So, naturally, I’m going to kick that off by talking about us .
Earth Week 2010 is coming to a close and as such I thought it appropriate to reflect on a few of our specific accomplishments in green technology. In our more than 15 year history, we’ve been relatively silent trailblazers. We are pioneers in dedicated and VPS hosting and we were one of the first hosts to actively work on improving inefficient and environmentally troubling urban infrastructure. With that being said, there are some unique challenges that we face precisely because of our status as trailblazers.
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