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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.

Web hosting

DreamHost hosts around 700,000 domain names on a network of mainly Debian GNU/Linux-based servers. The company has deployed a unique control panel, devised by their own programmers , 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, DreamHost also offers a virtual private server service using Linux-VServer. The company offers customer support by telephone (on a call-back basis only), as well as email-based support.

Domain registration

DreamHost is an ICANN-accredited 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".

Transparency

DreamHost is notable for being unusually transparent about its business practices, with staff contributing to a popular blog. A disastrous power outage incident in August 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.

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". This resulted in erroneous charges of $2.1 million, out of the $9.6 million in total that was billed. In some cases, users who had automatic billing enabled experienced overdraft charges or other fees on their bank accounts and credit cards. 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 and some users canceled their accounts. As DreamHost tried to undo the billing, some accounts that were not billed received refunds while some other accounts that were billed did not receive them.

References

1. "Top Web Hosts Worldwide". WebHosting.Info. Retrieved 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. ^ Matthew Sparkes (2008-01-17). "Typo causes $7,500,000 mistake". PC Pro. Retrieved 2008-01-19. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
14. ^ Josh Jones (2008-01-17). "The Final Update". DreamHost. Retrieved 2008-01-18. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
15. Austin Modine (2008-01-15). "Dreamhost billing cock-up shocks customer bank accounts". The Register. Retrieved 2008-01-18. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
16. Linda Rosencrance (2008-01-16). "Web hosting provider uses Homer Simpson to notify livid customers of $7.6M overcharge". Computerworld. Retrieved 2008-01-18. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
17. Juan Carlos Perez (2008-01-15). "Update: Billing nightmare for DreamHost customers". InfoWorld. Retrieved 2008-01-18. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)

External links

• DreamHost
  • DreamHost Blog, official news
  • DreamHost Discussion Forum for customers
  • DreamHost Status, alerts on system status
  • Wiki.Dreamhost.com, the Community DreamHost Documentation Project

• Employee-owned companies
• Web hosting