Is backlink building considered spam? DreamHost apparently thinks so, HostGator?

[Marakatapolis]

Have any of you ever had your account disabled because of your backlink building? I've been building backlinks on profile pages and such and now I am paranoid as hell, as I have DreamHost and I stumbled upon their anti-spam policy this evening, and some parts of it really make me wonder how the hell I am supposed to build backlinks now? See the bold and underlined sentence fragments below, and the "other" section:


Anti-Spam Policy

In the past several years, the Internet has exploded with commercial activity. The breaking down of barriers between businesses and consumers has been facilitated by the rapid development of new technology, removal of 'middlemen', and tax rates favorable to online entrepreneurship.
We at DreamHost are proud to support responsible commerce on the Internet - this is represented in our service offerings and unparalleled support. However, it has become apparent that the same environment that has helped this trend take off has also contributed to numerous cases of fraud and abuse of network resources.


In particular, "spam" has proven to be a major problem for many of our customers and the Internet at large. Spam is a common slang term referring to the sending of unsolicited email, instant messaging, or other communication to a large group of people at once. Variations on this practice include off topic (and usually promotional) messages on bulletin boards, guestbooks, Usenet newsgroups, or chat rooms.


Spam is strictly against our Terms and Conditions, and will result in the immediate disablement without refund of any customers who are found to have used spam in conjunction with their DreamHost account.
The following policy dictates in specific terms what is considered acceptable use of bulk email/messaging by DreamHost:
Subscriptions

1. Mailing list subscribers must specifically opt-into the list they are subscribed to. This applies to both new subscriptions and the bulk addition of addresses already subscribed via other means. Confirmation is handled using a single confirmation message sent to the subscriber's email address. This mailing must contain a URL to the site's privacy policy, a brief description of the mailing list, and a URL that the user must follow to confirm the subscription.
2. Mailing list subscriber information must include the date and time that the subscription was confirmed, as well as the IP address of the subscriber at the time of the subscription. The user must be able to present this information at DreamHost's request.
3. The nature of email address use must be fully disclosed, either on the page the subscription is made from or with a prominent link to the site's Privacy Policy. It must be made reasonably clear how a user's email address will be used and in what circumstances it will be shared.
4. Lists cannot be procured from outside parties unless the email sender has procured a list from an organization that sells or otherwise shares email distribution lists, and all of the following conditions are met:
   
   1. The selling organization maintains a publicly viewable privacy policy disclosing that such sales may occur.
   2. The privacy policy is prominently linked to from the page the subscriber signed up from.
   3. The privacy policy has not changed substantially since the user signed up.
   4. Records are kept of the date, time, IP address, and form location where the subscribing user signed up from.
   5. Lists procured from outside parties must have been consistently handled in a manner comparable to DreamHost policies.
   6. Users cannot populate lists with addresses obtained for a substantially different purpose than was originally disclosed to the user.
   7. All subscriptions must be re-confirmed in the manner described in Subscriptions (Section 1) before being sent bulk email messages.

Mailing Practices

1. Users must not modify the headers of any message in such a way that purposefully obfuscates the origin of the message.
2. Undeliverable addresses must be removed from all future mailings after no more than 5 bounces.
3. Users are responsible for the practices of any affiliate program members they solicit the help of, as if they were hiring an outside advertising agency.
4. Users using either outside advertising companies or 3rd party mailing programs must abide by the same policies and practices as those using DreamHost's own bulk mailing list tools.
5. All mailings must provide clear and simple to follow instructions for opting-out of future mailings, and all reasonable attempts must be made to facilitate the removal of a mailing list subscriber at their request.
6. The user is advised and acknowledges that DreamHost's electronic mail service equipment is located in California. In no event shall the user use DreamHost's equipment in violation of California's anti-spam laws including California Business & Professions Code sections 17538.4 and 17538.45.

Spamware

1. It is strictly prohibited in conjunction with your DreamHost account to sell software designed specifically to facilitate the practice of spamming.

Other

1. Predominately promotional messages must not be posted to bulletin boards, discussion forums, guestbooks, Usenet newsgroups, or any other similar service unless the operator of that service explicitly allows such messages. In the case of Usenet newsgroups, such messages must be specifically allowed in that group's charter.

Disablement

1. DreamHost reserves the right to disable any account at any time should it feel there is a reasonable suspicion that it is being used in conjunction with the practice of spamming.
2. Customers must substantially address all spam related inquiries by DreamHost personnel within 72 hours. Failure to respond within a reasonable period of time may result in the disablement of the user's account.

By following these guidelines and respecting the privacy of your visitors, you can gain much from the responsible practice of commerce online. Of course, should you have any questions regarding the proper way to use bulk email with your web site, please contact us for more information.





Does this mean if someone whines about my backlink building on profile sites, that my account and domain names and website files and all that would be taken away from me, or what?

[jayveen]

I don't see anything wrong with those terms. If you post to a blog with a topical post, instead of a post like "I was looking for that ... good job ... cialis lover buy here", you'll be fine with DreamHost. I wouldn't mind at all if the spammers to my wordpress comments section were banned from their hosts.

[bgmacaw]

Here are a few reasons you should leave Dreamhost ASAP

Dreamhost Review - DO NOT BE SCAMMED BY DREAMHOST!

Share Your Dreamhost Sucks Stories

Dreamhost hosting problems? | The Tech News Blog

Why you should not use dreamhost

Dreamhost Hosting Sucks – Big Time Gerrybot

Dreamhost Sucks At Hosting — Elliott C. Back

[Tom Goodwin]

With my lawyer hat on, the way I read that is you could get in trouble with something like a xrumer blast of posts to forums, but I fail to see how creating a forum profile would be "communication to a large group of people at once".

This policy is more in terms of mass communications, so think emails, forum messages, etc.

Note of course that this is not a court of law, and the host has wide discretion to pretty much close any account they want to.

[Marakatapolis]

Thanks for the replies. If they did close my account, what would that mean? Would I be allowed to login and transfer my domains to another host, or would I lose ownership of my domain names?

[Tom Goodwin]

Originally Posted by Marakatapolis

Thanks for the replies. If they did close my account, what would that mean? Would I be allowed to login and transfer my domains to another host, or would I lose ownership of my domain names?

They don't own your domain, you do. They are simply your host. What you should be doing (even without this issue, as it is good standard practice), is backing up all of your sites regularly. That will prevent any data lost. If you have your site backed up, if dreamhost closed your account all you would have to do is transfer your DNS (domain name server) to a new host provider, and upload your site files.

Tom

[Get Inspired Today]

Those terms are pretty ambiguous. And they probably (rightfully) bank on the idea that people won't actually take them to court over it.

So the best question to ask yourself is, are you willing to risk it if there are other, possibly better options?

[LivingCovers]

Originally Posted by Get Inspired Today

Those terms are pretty ambiguous. And they probably (rightfully) bank on the idea that people won't actually take them to court over it.

So the best question to ask yourself is, are you willing to risk it if there are other, possibly better options?

Seems I've seen you from somewhere, Mr! You must be an author, yes? Or a TV broadcaster, yes?