We set ourselves the task of creating a list of all UK hosting service providers. It currently runs to 450 odd providers. But apart from the slightly deranged who would want to wade through all of those hosts in search of an ideal provider?
So we thought it might be helpful to list them by the services they provided as well. That way if you were looking for virtual private server, VPS hosting, you could just look at the VPS page and there would be all the UK hosts providing that service. The problem is, for some services, such as shared hosting, Unix or Windows hosting, the lists run into the hundreds. Still no good. What you want is a way of telling the good from the bad, the Joker from the Batman as it were. But we have never felt that it was for us to be the arbiters of good taste, so that role would sit uncomfortably on our shoulders. We chose instead to follow the government's lead.
Via the Consumer Direct website the government has tried to encourage consumers to use some common sense rules when deciding who to do business with online. This has been the government's approach to improving the way commerce is carried out on the web. The European Community has taken a slightly different approach. They passed The Electronic Commerce (EC Directive) Regulations 2002, which required those carrying out commerce on the internet to follow certain rules. This was incorporated into British Law 2003. In compiling our various lists of hosting companies we notice that few were following the guidance from the government and the EC. And so the spark of an idea for how we could help you narrow the lists of hosts was ignited, which eventually turned into our Quality Medal Awards.
The government has set up a website called Consumer Direct to provide advice to people buying goods and services. The site includes fact sheets on;
Please read these fact sheets. If you do you will realise why we spent so long creating this page for you. It is in fact the foundation of this site, upon this the other pages came to be. We hope this page helps you hunt down a good hosting provider. It certainly would have helped us if we had found it when we needed it, but 'that's the way the cookie crumbles'.
It is clear from the Consumer Direct website and from the fact sheets listed above, the government thinks you should make an informed choice, in this case when choosing a hosting company. It believes that you should know who you are doing business with and be able to verify their existence and contact them should the need arise. It seems they believe that to be a safe shopper you need to be an active shopper and not a passive one. You need to actively investigate who you are going to do business with, before doing that business.
May we point you at The Electronic Commerce (EC Directive) Regulations 2002, which was incorporated into English Law in 2003. OK, I know, but really its to your benefit! It basically says that a company engaging in commerce on the internet is required to:
Additionally under the Companies Act 2006 a company, if registered, is required to give its registered business address.
If you would like more information concerning this directive, a good article to read on the subject would be an article by an international law firm called Pinsent Masons entitled The UK's E-commerce Regulations.
We have at this stage only introduced the Bronze medal, but will be going further in the future. To obtain a bronze medal, a host must meet a few specific requirements. These are based on the advice of the government and on some of the requirements of the EC directive. We have thrown in a couple of requirements too. Specifically a host must;
If a host is a trading name for a company, or is owned by another company, that should be made clear and contact details for both the host and parent company should be provided.
All companies in England and Wales are required by law to register with Companies House and are assigned a company registration number. They need to give a registered address and a full business name. We are satisfied that all the hosts awarded a bronze medal are registered at Companies House if required. Where a host is using a trading name but is owned by a registered company, we have checked the registration of the parent company.
Please note the Bronze Medal does not cover all of the requirements of The Electronic Commerce (EC Directive) Regulations 2002. If we included the VAT number requirement, we would be down to a list of just seventeen names, as at the 3rd April 2007. Next year we will be raising the bar, perhaps to include the whole of the directive.
The bronze medal reduces the various lists to more manageable proportions. It is conceivable now to use these pages as potential short lists for choosing your desired hosts. We anticipate that this will save you an enormous amount of time. A link to a page listing all of the Bronze medal award winners can be found on the left hand side menu bar.
If you are a host who has been awarded a bronze medal and would like a graphic to show the world how great you are, then please email us and we will forward you the details and a graphic you can place on your site.
Last updated on Tuesday 10th April 2007