This action by Louis Vuitton Malletier follows a similar action taken against Ebay in 2008 where the designer was awarded 62.3 million for damages due to knockoff products by a French court. They also undertook action with Versign and other domain names to transfer ownership of copycat domains products such as 7starhandbags.com over to their control. And they are currently in a court case against Google for allowing adwords advertisers to bid for their trademark terms. The company has taken a very proactive stance in preventing its brand from being diluted in any fashion.

For the web host provider this verdict again throws the whole question of web host liability to the forefront. Section 512 of the Online Copyright Infringement Liability Limitation Act (OCILLA) “safe harbor provision” of 1998 and Section 230 of the Communications Decency act of 1996 (CDA) have been used by hosting providers to provide protection in copyright and web content legal cases. The first law provides for protection if the hosting company did not know about a copyright violation, took steps to remove the item when informed about the infraction and did not have a direct reward financially from the violation. The second law provides protection for hosting services from material published on their websites, such as articles, pictures and related material.

Both of these laws have come under attack with mixed results. The Communications Decency Act has been under attack in legal cases such as Ramey v. Darkside and the famous Carafano v. Metrosplash.com Inc. (“Star Trek”) case. With both these cases the CDA withstood the legal attack granting hosting providers protection for the content place on their hosting servers. That legal defense remains intact for hosting providers.

The second piece of legislation the Online Copyright Infringement Liability Act “safe harbor” provision has not held up that well though in court. There was the one billion dollar “Viacom vs Google (Youtube) lawsuit of 2007 over Youtube videos , and the Lenz v Universal Music Corp case which involved a baby video and copyrighted music as examples of recent lawsuits. Although the act was upheld in both of these cases there has been a active movement to curtail the legal strength of the provisions such as through the proposed Consumer Broadband and Digital Television Promotion Act, Balance act and other reforms.

The bottom line for web hosting providers is to keep a tab on your web hosting and follow the legal cases on internet content and copyright law. Cases such as this show that the best defense is awareness of your business and the changing legal world.

As reported to us by Cheap Website Hosting, HostGator, a Houston, Texas area provider of web hosting services has been ranked as the 239th fastest-growing privately owned company in the United states on the Inc. 5000 list for 2009.

HostGator’s revenues grew by 896% during the 2005 through 2008 period. The 2009 Inc. 5000 list measured revenues during that period of United States-based, privately held, for profit, independent companies having had revenues of at least $200,000 from 2005 and having at least $2 million in 2008, according to a PRWEB press release of August 25, 2009.

Ranked 20th in the category of Business Products & Services nationally, HostGator was also ranked 6th in the Houston-SugarLand-Baytown area of the state of Texas.

Despite the previous year, 2008 Inc. 5000 ranking of 21 overall with HostGator’s 2007 revenue figures of $18.7 million, the privately owned web hosting company has seen nearly doubled revenue figures in the period from 2007 to 2008 – to the impressive $34.2 million.

According to HostGator.com Affiliate Director, Jay Weissman, the web hosting firm has seen substantial growth in every area of service offered. HostGator’s hosting service areas include shared hosting, reseller hosting, and dedicated servers.

The company provides hosting for over 2.2 million websites and supports more than 50,000 resellers worldwide. Not only does HostGator offer technical support 24 hours each day, seven days of the week, its leading edge web hosting tools include free billing software for its resellers and an access to a library of 4,500 high quality web templates, free of charge.

According to Chad Bean, CMO of HostGator.com, “A big portion of our growth has definitely come from small to medium-sized businesses understanding the value in having their own web site to be competitive in today’s marketplace.”

Just how are their clients using what HostGator offers them to have an edge in the tough marketplace of today? “Individuals are also able to utilize our services to generate extra income from online advertising and promotion,” Bean explains.

In the struggling economy, unemployment in the United States has risen to 9.4% in July of 2009, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, as compared to 5.7% in July of last year.

Not only has HostGator’s clients benefited from this company’s smart brand of web hosting. The firm’s continue success has allowed it to add over 100 new positions. In this growth environment, highly skilled technicians and systems’ administrators have been added to the thriving business’ payroll.

With a sassy slogan, “We eat up the competition,” HostGator’s brilliant blue and gold munching alligator mascot makes for an eye-catching ad that remains with the web hosting shopper.

Offering a site-building demo for the uninitiated web hosting consumer, and free domain, file, database and script transfers, the company provides a competitive price point of $7.95 per month for its popular feature-rich hosting plan. In January, HostGator began providing customers who purchased their business hosting package, a toll-free number at no charge through VOIPo, voice-over-IP service.

HostGator has won numerous industry awards during its over five years in business, including HostCritique.com Best Reseller Host Award, WHreviews Honest Host Award, and WebhostMagazine.com Highest Level of Recommendation.

In September of 2008, a press release reported that the blue gator was “going green” in effect, by its purchase of “Green-e certified Renewable Energy Credits (RECs) from a Texas wind farm representing 130 percent of the electricity used to both power and cool all of its shared and reseller servers…”

Apparently this forward-thinking web hosting company, founded in a dorm room at Florida Atlantic University in 2002 by President and CEO Brent Oxley is not about to rest on its laurels.

This company was founded 5 years ago specializes in managed hosting. It offers a host of services which includes; dedicated servers, visualization, and cloud computing. They know how to leverage their technology inside a world-class infrastructure. Because of their level of support it enables their business partners regardless of size to save money. The partners doing business with them have eliminated costly upfront investments. The companies save on operating expenses thus allowing them to focus on the core aspects of their organization.

Millions of websites and many web solutions are products of the vision of Layer Technologies. They host millions of websites and they offer a plethora of web solutions. The many applications tendered by them include Software as a Service and SQL Server. They also offer content distribution among many other applications. They have one of the biggest customer bases in the technical industry. Their solutions assist small start-up companies, medium ventures, and some of the most lucrative organizations and consulting businesses worldwide.

Inc. Magazine 5000 is the leading informant to learn about new private companies that are rising- stars. Investors and other speculators use this list annually to find out who is profiting and still growing in this economy. Due to their incredible growth rate of 441%, Layered Technologies is moving to the top of the Inc. 5000 list. During the past 3 years they have grown exponentially.

Layered has done what we all learn in business 101, develop a strong research and development arm in your company. They did just that, they invested in R & D. Once they identified the new trends and needs, they implemented the new solutions with vigor offering current solutions in real time to their clients. These technologies and features helped them to stay in the top 10 global web hosting providers. Layered Tech rose from being a regionally identified hosting provider. They are now a world-wide web host with millions of websites. Its infrastructure is scalable powering numerous internet applications.

Specifically they are located in over 120 countries with thousands of clients. They provide dedicated server solutions. There top-tier data centers have made them one of the powerhouses in the web hosting industry. They have solutions that are both affordable and flexible. The operating systems used by Layered Tech have a multifaceted solution allowing them to deliver an optimum product to all.

They offer multiple levels of managed services. They customize many of the hosted environments using their services. Layered Technologies offers hardware solutions for its clients. The also propose network, backup and remote access options to its clients.

The Inc., 5000 list has been viewed by many as a report card on the economy. For the companies that made the list, their aggregate revenue for 2009 increased by $29 billion since 2008. Layered Tech has created more than one million jobs. In this economy they are the super star!

Certainly web hosting businesses such as GoDaddy.com with their commercials featuring the likes of sports stars Danica Patrick and Chad Ochocinco. However the most profitable web hosting enterprises may be ones that you have never heard of or are at least flying under the radar. An example of a web hosting company that has seen their profit soar would be HostGator.  HostGator is a web hosting company based out of Houston, Texas that has seen their profit increase by almost nine hundred percent over the last four years. HostGator has been profiled by several news sources which entrepreneurs follow with great interest including Inc.com. Some of the tips out there about making profits off of your website include getting involved in affiliate programs.

Some web hosting services promote the idea of affiliate programs, while others scorn the idea.   A successful web hosting business embraces change and the ideas that their customers bring to the table. HostGator is also known for their ever expanding bandwidth and consistency, continuity among their executives.

An untapped aspect of HostGator’s business is the reselling of web hosting. Every time an old website design is sold to a new customer, a company like HostGator turns a profit. With the success that political campaigns have seen in regards to fundraising, the need for web hosting in the political world will surely not slow down either. Barack Obama was able to raise millions of dollars through his website, mainly from every day people just sitting there on their lap tops. The same can be said for John McCain’s campaign and they would not have been able to do that if it were not for their web hosting partners. The political website ActBlue just crossed the one hundred million dollar mark in fundraising which was good news for the web hosting world as well. This is because a good portion of those dollars are also went to the web hosting company that supports ActBlue. This proves once again that the world of web hosting can be quite lucrative.

It is amazing to see web hosting companies be able to turn such handsome profits. Some of the lawsuits that web hosting companies can face over “squatting” issues in cyber space are often viewed as frivolous and not beneficial. Bruce Springsteen was involved in a recent lawsuit involving cyber squatting and the usage of his name. Now obviously the two parties involved in the cyber squatting case are going to be going after each other mainly. This does not mean that the web hosting firm does not have to hire its own attorneys and thus cut into its own finances and time.

Mr Ronan’s winning program was “Pubstop”, a web-based navigation tool which will find any of Britain’s top 200 pubs (as picked by the Guardian newspaper and published on their website) that are close to a motor route of your choosing. Drivers simply enter their point of origin and their destination, and Pubstop will calculate the route and find any of the award-winning pubs handy to their journey. Drivers can even re-calculate their driving directions to route the journey past one of the pubs at the click of a button, allowing the trip to be broken up with a pit stop for a quick pint or a pub meal, a tempting alternative to an overpriced pack of limp service station sandwiches. Mr Ronan’s entry was judged the winner of the First Ever Pub Mashup Competition by an expert judging panel made up of 34SP.com employees who enjoy going to pubs, and who are all undoubtedly authorities on all things related to public houses. The victorious Mr Ronan takes home 150 pounds in cash and a year’s worth of virtual private server hosting from 34SP.com.

A high level of interest in the web hosting firm’s challenge meant Mr Ronan’s entry faced stiff competition from a number of other submissions. Runners-up in the First Ever Pub Mashup Competition included Keane Ingram’s entry “The Sam Smith’s Challenge”, a map directing budget-conscious drinkers to all of the cheap and charming but elusive Sam Smith’s pubs in London, and Ollie O’Brien’s “A Map of UK Scenicness… and Pubs”, a program that combines scenicness data from MySociety with OpenStreetMap’s road map and its known pub locations. Stuart Melling, the co-founder of 34SP.com, said that deciding on a winner had been a difficult process, partly due to the number of entries the company received, but also “mainly due to the fact that we’d been in the pub all day, and our vision was a bit blurry.” However the panel persevered, and “in the end we feel that the best pub mashups won” he said.

And just in case there should be any concern about a program which directs people in charge of motor motor vehicles towards drinking establishments, the Pubstop web page carries a warning about the dangers of drinking and driving. While London taxi driver George Smith, the first person ever to be convicted of drunk driving, may have got away with a fine of just 25 shillings, the website warns the penalties today are a bit harsher. Those in charge of the vehicle are advised to stick to non-alcoholic drinks during their pub refreshment stops.

It used to be that one had to build a site and then register with search engines or wait for the engine spiders to find it. If you were unwilling to wait for the said spiders to do their job, paid registration services were available. These registration services cost varying amounts and played favorites depending on how much was paid to register any given site. The more money you signed up with, the better your chances to get a hit. Sad but true. With web hosting, one gains a free search capability that will help make any given business a success without the expense or trouble of the process involving search engine registration. Signing up with a host will makes any site extra visible with minimal expense. Web hosting sites can also offer services to the business entrepreneur and the small web entry category. One can appear under an umbrella of titles and search terms. In this case, web hosting sites may be a clear advantage. Most host sites will also handle issues concerning transfer of files and information and even the script to accommodate response forms.

Does it seem invasive to have a host supervising your own site or to allow your site to link to other resources? As long as these are trusted sources there should not be a problem. CRM software and applications have become so complex that it is a given for any simpler sites to take advantage of central sites such as web hosts to handle the details. Do some research to find which one suits your product or service. Moving forward, web hosting services will become more common as more and more individuals research and begin the design of their own sites and require the scripting and performance needed for home businesses without the need to hire a specific resource. A web host will be the resource.

Any topics or ads you can attach to your site are always a good draw. A web hosting site can help in this area. In general the more topics your web site is associated with, the better for Google hits, etc. Up to date trends and news should be at the top of your list. Even when you haven’t had the time to personally update your site, an outside host can keep the site current and within parameters for new material updates and give it a fresh look. A really excellent web host will hook you up with the latest information and articles in the area of your industry or product. Cheaper and better than engine registration, it’s an area well worth considering.

Through HostingCon, sales vice president Chris Sheridan laid out his company’s game plan. The big news is welcomed by customers signed up and using eNom. The parent company has been testing their newest offering during an introductory period. Their initial trial was done through two sites. www.namecheap.com and www.merchantcircle.com, both proved incredibly successful providing extras to sweeten the deal, like content sites and online merchants. The testing proved launching RichContent a support network of their web hosting services was ready for late August.

The RichContent Service network was presented during Mr. Sheridan’s seminar “Leveraging Content to Differentiate Your Hosting Business.” As with the original domain business, the purpose of this platform is to offer clients something extra to lure customers to their sites. The object is to enhance the user friendly sites that will grow the client database, repeat sales, and old and new customer sign-ups. RichContent service is fashioned on a syndication engine. The actual web network encompasses over thirty of parent company Demand Media’s acquired sites. A couple of those sites www.expertvillage and www.ehow.com are geared towards the consumer taking tentative steps into the world of “do it yourself” experts. Innovative, as always the parent internet companies that launched RichContent experimented with the “try it before you buy it,” mindset. It works well with selling cars and even better to get customers to your internet web host site. Clientele can take the new service for a thirty day free spin before they decide to sign up.

Demand Media the parent company has branched out with syndication everywhere on the net. It is one of the paramount internet businesses since May 2006. Demand Media, now has physical offices in Santa Monica, CA, New York, NY, Austin, TX and even in London England. The reach of their internet expansion, is all encompassing. Their Studio division gets about 3 billion hit’s a day from creative writers and the people in search of the always informative www.ehow.com. RichContent service has platform components in Demand Media’s Blogburst which carries close to seven thousand blogs per day through parent acquisition Pluck. www.pluck.com.

The net grows daily and, so does RichContent with three hundred plus subject based categories containing more than 3,000 bits of new data content per day. This is astounding growth when you stop to consider four million blogs, videos and articles are being generated on the web during a single day of operation.. The way that RichContent works is the customers who have hosted pages will simply embed two generated codes on their site. These codes are called widgets. The widget is really a programmed tag loaded with smart technology. It will check the customer’s site looking for URL‘s. These embedded tags trigger the smart technology to examine Demand Media’s huge saved blog library, or related files. The idea is to take visitors to the best related sites to fulfill his, or her specific needs. This automation makes web navigation a snap, helping keep the visitor riveted to the hosting site. The idea behind RichContent is to help generate more business for the reseller’s site. This is, in no way, suppose to be competive to the seller’s site. Like a busy spider, eNom and Parent company Demand Media cover the world with the web.

Other reputable, big-time World news sites are available like CNN, and New York Times. Tried and true, these very reliable organizations welcome comments from online readers, too. The interactivity adds a special appeal with a hundred some opinions written by John or Jane Q. public – real people in real time.

The democracy of the Internet, viral marketing, and billions of readers opens the door to news organizations of all kinds. Some are start up organizations; others have years of experience with hard copy news to bring to the Internet.

Multiple languages are offered with more being added to the list on a regular basis.

Fledgling news organizations are out there, too. These often claim a political or religious platform, and a reader knows to expect a certain bias to be there. These may offer a smaller, cozier rendition of the World news, and a more personal approach to dealing with clientele, as well. Even local small town newspapers have website news for their viewing public.

Hard copy news is gradually migrating to the Internet – some organizations carry both a printed version and an Internet version of World News. Dot com. has become a very attractive way to get your news.

The unique position that Google, or any Internet news hosting service, has over traditional news is:

1. Speed

No folding up pages and arranging the folds of newsprint paper when you turn the page. Although many people state a singular preference for the tactile characteristic of a traditional newspaper, these folks may be missing out on more than they know. Exchanging the news in your lap with news on the laptop is just a click away.

2. Services

Again, for the sacrifice of a little tactile gratification, there are many, many choices of news outlets whose feature writers offer the same news with perhaps a slightly different take. The wide variety of news site offerings helps readers with forming an objective opinion.

The reader doesn’t get subconsciously influenced when the democracy of a huge selection of sources is readily available everywhere in the dot com. world. Subscriptions, updates, news flashes can become a daily part of of the ritual of opening the email.

3. Diversity

A reader may choose to view different topics from different sources. A news viewer may prefer to go to one site for recipes, hobbies, and commentary. When looking for the fastest breaking news, the reader may prefer a bigger news organization, like Google.

Google gives the reader a place to link to other favorite newsreaders with up to 24 links for one article. More than this, Google also offers available RSS feeds that remember your favorite topics.

Still more: archives offer up stories dating back to 200 years ago!

Worried about accuracy standards? Why? Google offers links to whatever other sites report about your preferred topic of interest. There’s an inherent system of checks and balances this way.

When there are so many quickly clickable resources for news, the competition is high. Accuracy, quality, and many other desirable features have got to be in place. Google’s got all the coverage from the smallest news reader to the Google giant sized news readers, and it’s ready to serve your preference, too.

This SPAM involvement ranges from using .cn domains to the actual hosting of it.  Either way, it would seem that the Chinese government may not be fully aware, but if you are like me, you know that China is a synonym for SPAM.  So, why would their government not be attuned to it?

Much of the SPAM activity revolves around the principle that the hosting and support services for spammers are simply not looking at what their customers are doing.  And for a good reason.  Spamming is a lucrative business when scaled large, so hosting services are happy with good business.

In fact, as of just a few years ago, Verio used to host entire spam farm clusters here in the USA as I had a good friend quit working there when they continued to send the SPAM.  He said he was going to report Verio for knowingly doing this, so they fired him.  Spamming can be good money.

And at $0.15 a domain name, and “bulletproof” hosting (which won’t be taken down even if someone complains), China is possibly the best option for spammers; or in some cases, for those that run a botnet even.

As less and less companies around the world are willing to host SPAM servers, China gets more and more business.  This lack of options can easily raise hosting rates, which in turn may dampen spammers ability to send as much SPAM.