Hosting Websites in Other Countries
By Martin Laetsch on xx October, 2010
Martin Laetsch is vice president of sales and channel management at AboutUs. He has more than 12 years' experience developing and running search programs at large corporations and small startups, and is well known as a speaker at international search-marketing conferences. At Intel, Martin created the first enterprise-wide search marketing group at any major corporation. He consolidated all of Intel's separate search marketing activities into a united, focused effort. As senior director of search strategy at Covario, Martin helped companies of all sizes grow their businesses online. Martin joined AboutUs in March 2009.
On Wednesday, October 6th, 2010 the Libyan government seized the URL shortening service VB.ly and shut it down. This happens with governments throughout the world all the time when they shut down websites promoting or engaging in illegal activity. What makes this case different is that the site was seized for being morally offensive. The offense? The site owner was so morally bankrupt that she had the gall to have a picture of herself on the site in a short sleeve shirt holding a beer bottle. The site also had a tag line stating “The Internet’s first and only sex-positive URL shortener”. They weren't pirating movies, selling drugs, hosting porn, or anything even close. They were a single page URL shortening service just like bit.ly, and Google's goo.gl.
This case highlights some of the possible dangers of doing online business with countries that have a still emerging technology base. In many cases, their laws around intellectual property and online content haven't caught up to the rest of the online world. In many cases, the countries leaders are all too willing to score points with the local population and hardline extremists at the expense of foreign businesses.
This isn't to say there aren't benefits to doing business in these countries, but as a website owner, you need to do your research and make an informed risk vs. reward decision before hosting your website in another country.
Potential Risks
- Intellectual Property - What happens if someone at your hosting company steals your data? Does the hosting country recognize Intellectual Property rights?
- Seizure - In what circumstances will the country you are hosting your site in seize the site?
- Nationalization - There are countries that are nationalizing foreign businesses. If you are running a small personal website or the website is for a small startup, the risks are probably small. But what if you are successful. There are several countries that would love to seize and nationalize sebsites like Google, Facebook, and Twitter.
- Tax laws - If you are hosting a eCommerce site or other website where you make money in another country, where do you pay taxes?
