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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 by 1996 by Dallas Bethune, Josh Jones, Michael Rodriguez and Sage Weil, undergraduate students at Harvey Mudd College in Claremont, California, and registered in 1999 by Michael Rodriguez. DreamHost began hosting customers' sites in 1997.
DreamHost's network consists of Debian GNU/Linux-based servers for customers running on F5 Networks Big IP-based servers. Customers have access to a control panel 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. Telephone-based support is not provided, instead DreamHost has support via IRC and email. DreamHost's staff also contribute to an official blog and a wiki.
Billing issue
On January 15, 2008, the billing system was mistakenly used to bill users for an extra year.
This resulted in erroneous charges of $2.1 million.
In some cases, users who had automatic billing enabled experienced overdraft charges or other fees on their bank accounts and credit cards. A number of accounts were automatically suspended due to an inability to pay the erroneous bill, which led their websites to go down. Some users canceled their accounts.
