Bad policy makes for bad Internet

As a member of the i2Coalition and a supporter of Internet freedoms I, and the team here at Hedgehog Hosting, champion efforts that push for legislation that has a positive impact on the Internet.  As we continue to work with our elected officials we will no doubt have a voice when these future governance issues arise.  The positive note here is that all the stakeholders will have a place at the table.

Now pre-SOPA and pre-PIPA, there was not a place set at the table for the general public.  When it looked as if these bills were going to pass, the public outcry was so overwhelming that they had no choice but to listen to the will of the people and pull the bills from even getting a chance to be voted on.  The people spoke and the government and our elected officials listened.  Isn't this what our system of government should be?

Isn't that the way it should be with most situations.  Take a look at Instagram.  Here is a company that has a huge following.  They had approximately 16.3 million active daily users in mid December of 2012.  Then, in the course of one month, they upended their vibrant community of picture posters with the announcement of a new Terms of Service.  Part of this new ToS stated that Instagram now had the right to sell their users photos to advertisers. There was public outcry after this announcement and Instagram very quickly felt the backlash.  Some users suspended using the service and some users left the social networking site altogether.  Now, as of mid January 2013, Instagram currently has only about 7.6 million daily users.

Now to be fair, Instagram had 41.5 million monthly active users in mid-December 2012 and has grown to 46.1 million monthly active users presently.  And yes, this shows that more people are using Instagram.  But, clearly these users are not using the site as often.  And by the way, it also did not hurt that they reverted back to their old Terms of Service after only one week of constant backlash from their user base.

The issue here is that this one boneheaded decision caused an upheaval of a very loyal user base and now has directly impacted their business model. For a site that relies on ad revenues, it does not matter how many users they have, if those users are not using the service, the company is not making money.  While Instagram can boast almost 5 million new members in a month, they cannot boast increased usage.  Even worse, the usage is down over 50%.

While it can be said that there are other factors to take into account for the dip in usage, such as the holiday season being heightened in December and the  the return to work keeping people busier in January, it cannot be overlooked that this decision had a direct impact on Instagram.

To come back to my original point...  Bad policy makes for bad Internet, or in this case, bad business as well.  How is this combated?  By the people who use these services. Now, the government is a service.  We pay for these services through our tax dollars, much the same way that Instagram users pay for their services through dollars paid to advertisers.  If the collective will of the people wants to enact change, they CAN and WILL do it!  It has been shown with Instagram and even more vocally and publicly, it has been shown with the putting down of SOPA and PIPA a year ago yesterday.  Happy anniversary to Internet Freedom!

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The will of the people is the only legitimate foundation of any government, and to protect its free expression should be our first object. - Thomas Jefferson

Finding positives among a sea of negatives

If you have been following the publicity of WCIT-12 and are at all familiar with the Hedgehog Hosting and our affiliation with the I2Coalition, then you are probably also aware that both of our organizations strongly support the work of the Internet Society (ISOC) and their work leading up to the WCIT.  This should not come as breaking news as the matters under discussion by the ITU will potentially and directly impact my business and our industry.  I will continue to blog and to post about the importance of a multi-stakeholder model of governance rather than the ITU's proposed idea that they should direct the governance of the Internet.  While this will stay on the forefront of my mind and our computer screens during this conference, I know that we will all continue to voice our shared ideas to support an open and free Internet.

With WCIT-12 in full swing, I have been thinking about the United Nations quite a bit.  From my research, I know that the International Telecommunications Union is a specialized agency of the United Nations.  After spending this week weighing my thoughts about the ITU and about the United Nations in general, I found many of my thoughts to be overly negative.  These negative thoughts were exacerbated from reading other's posts, many with the same convictions.  When I get an overwhelmingly negative feeling about something, I usually try to find some positives to help me balance my thoughts.  I try to look at other events, even if in the past, to help me take a step back and reflect a bit deeper. 

So I thought back to this date, December 11, 1946.  That was when the United Nations General Assembly created the United Nations Children's Fund or UNICEF.  UNICEF was created to provide emergency food and healthcare to children in countries that had been devastated by World War II.  Now I was not alive for the establishment of UNICEF, but I am fortunate today to work with a division of this group, and it is amazing to me that a small business in Virginia has the ability to help such a global group with certain aspects of their hosted web technologies.

I also think back to just yesterday, December 10, where many of us, along with our friends at the Internet Society supported the United Nations Human Rights Day with focus on inclusion and participation; A tribute to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights adopted by the United Nations General Assembly on that same day in 1948. 

As I think about UNICEF as they gear up for their holiday gift giving season (which I know will be successful) and I reflect on the tremendous support from the online community on Human Rights Day, I try to have faith that certain potentially negative ideas that are being discussed at WCIT-12 will be replaced with positive ideas that will continue to support our shared beliefs in an open and free Internet.   We have said it before and know it to be true.  The Internet has brought nations and people closer together.  Maybe all of us, the Hedgehog Hosting's of the world and the many other infrastructure companies that the I2Coalition represents will be able to convince these decision makers to let us continue to do just that!

A simple man's view of the UN's International Telecommunications Union meeting in Dubai

I have been reading article after article and blog post after blog post trying to decipher any concrete information about the current meeting of the ITU that is being held by the UN in Dubai these next two weeks, and while I will continue to educate myself on this topic, I know I am not and will not be an expert in International Telecommunications Treaties when all is said and done.  In truth. I do not want to be!  I really just want to understand the "why" of these meetings and I think, when I add up much of the data that I am processing, I am getting a clearer picture.

Now, the ITU says one of the main reasons that they are convening is to ensure the provisioning of Internet access to all people all over the world.  Dr Hamadoun Touré, secretary-general of the UN's International Telecommunications Union said, "The brutal truth is that the internet remains largely [the] rich world's privilege...ITU wants to change that."  While this may be true and may be a noble cause, I often look at these opportunities with the same cynicism I have when most governing bodies come out with grand new ideas for how to make the world a better place.  What I always come back to is money!  Who is it that can regulate, make decisions about and mostly who can TAX  for these goods or services and who will benefit most from those decisions?

Since Hedgehog was started, and moreover, since the owners of Hedgehog started in the Internet industry back in the mid 90's, we have held the belief that the Internet will be the vessel for change in everything we do as individuals and as businesses. My good friend and Chairman of the Internet Infrastructure Coalition, Christian Dawson put is so eloquently when he said, " Our companies are the ones who help new businesses get off the ground. Our businesses directly impact and empower both world and local economies.  Our companies are the ones who aid individuals in getting their information out and their voices heard.  I am confident that if developing nations better understood that businesses like ours were the foundations of the open Internet they would better understand how maintaining liberalized markets is the best way to continue the Internet’s growth and outreach.  It is a little known fact, but the Internet is mostly small and local.  Our companies are proof of that."

 As a member of the Internet Infrastructure Coalition, Hedgehog strongly believes in this.  We believe strongly enough in this vision that I have taken an active role with the I2C and will continue to seek to influence decision makers to weigh decisions on whether they are good or bad for the Internet economy and its foundational industries. In short, we seek to foster growth within the Internet infrastructure industry by driving others to harness the Internet's full potential.

So that is the background information.  Now to the reason I am writing this post.  I do not feel that this meeting of the ITU is being held with these same beliefs in mind.  I do not believe that the decisions being made are being made with the same mindset as I mentioned earlier.  I believe these meetings are a bit of knee-jerk reaction to a growing industry that is not fully understood by our law-makers and governing bodies.

I will use Uber (www.uber.com) as an example.  This new company provides licensed, professional drivers the ability to receive and fulfill on-demand car service reservations as your private driver.  TechCrunch said, "This service eliminates everything bad about a taxi experience." It is a competitor to the common taxi cab.  Well... This service was not well received here in Washington DC. There have been months of debate over whether the Internet-based service should be regulated by the D.C. Taxicab Commission. Uber feels that they have a right to operate without falling within the myriad of taxicab regulations, particularly those that involve the regulating of fees.  The owner of Uber says, "That's the free marketplace in operation... Uber is not something you have to do.  You can take a taxi if you'd like to do that, but there are also times you want to take Uber, and if you are willing to pay a higher amount during peak hours, you should be allowed to do that." For all you Virginia residents, doesn't this sound a lot like the "Hot Lanes" that just opened up?  But I digress...

So now, there has been a victory for Uber.  The District of Columbia has ruled to define a new class of for-hire vehicles that use digital dispatch and charge by time and distance. This is neither a taxi or a traditional sedan.  But larger than that, this is a victory for small business and entrepreneurship.  Rather than lump this new vision of travel into an age old system that has been around since 1640.  That is a bit of an exaggeration for effect as the real industry was probably established closer to the 1940's, but still it is rather neat that for-hire transportation has been around that long.  But back to my point.  The people we entrust to make decisions came to realize that this new service may not fit into any existing mold that we have and it may be time for a new mold.  Moreover, they are working with the developer of this new technology to strike just the right definition of what this new category of service is.

Now, if only others will follow suit.  In the end, the ITU wants to take the Internet, a fairly new and rapidly growing technology and they want to lump it in the with an age-old treaty last updated in 1988 that governs telecommunications.  They must be made to understand why this is bad.  Just yesterday, The US and some other nations put forward a proposal to the ITU that would limit the International Telecommunication Union's rules to only telecom operators and not Internet-based companies such as Google Inc and Facebook Inc.  This was a great first step but was met with opposition and ultimately failed to win support.  While no one is arguing that a treaty last updated in 1988 needs no revisions, (That is not entirely true.  There are a number of people on the "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." bandwagon, but that is another post.)  we really need to keep trying and keep working to make the right kind of change - one that doesn't pack new innovation into old frameworks that would kill them.  The ITU needs to come to a realization that it needs to be hands-off if it wants to let what's working continue to work, the way DC ultimately did with Uber.

There is an old Italian proverb that says, "After the game, the King and pawn go into the same box."  If we are truly trying to make good decisions, maybe the king and the pawn need to be on the same table to make this happen.  I applaud Uber for working with local and state governments just as much as I applaud the DC government for the solutions that they are working towards.  Maybe there is a blueprint here that can be taken to other governing bodies.

ECPA markup was a great success!

Yesterday, I had the privilege of attending my first Senate Judiciary Committee Executive Business Meeting. This meeting was being held to discuss markup's or modifications to the existing ECPA or Electronics Communications Privacy Act.  This Act, established in 1986, is in dire need of revision to keep up with the rapidly changing footprint of today's digital age.

Now, there are many different aspects of the ECPA and I will not bore you with all of them.  The part of the reform amendment that the I2Coalition and Hedgehog Hosting specifically wanted to garner support for was to require the government to obtain warrants  to access all types of electronic communications, including e-mail,  regardless of whether or not they are "in use" or "in storage."

Here is a portion of the statement from the I2C that was sent to Congress this week.

"This provision (the markup that we were supporting) would establish consistent privacy protections regarding how information may be accessed by law enforcement. Information, regardless of whether it is in transit, received or in storage, should be afforded the same privacy protection. Further, a strict warrant requirement for accessing contents of electronic communications regardless of whether or not they are in storage will create a clear rule, allowing easier and more consistent compliance by providers and law enforcement."
 - From the I2C's letter to the Senate Committee on Jurisdiction.

Now some of this may still seem to be political talk, so in a nutshell, here is what Hedgehog Hosting and the I2C are trying to urge our elected officials to remember.  If there is to be ANY proposed revision to the ANY current legislation, it should ensure that traditional constitutional guarantees of due process are upheld. The fourth amendment protects against unreasonable searches and seizures, along with requiring a warrant supported by probable cause. In the end, requiring a government entity to obtain a warrant for the disclosure of electronic communications is not only common sense, but it is also a constitutional guarantee.

I sat with colleagues from the ACLU (American Civil Liberties Union) and from the CDT (Center for Democracy and Technology) in the Dirksen Senate Office Building and watched these measures pass with overwhelming bipartisan support. This is a historic step toward the major privacy law update we need and we at Hedgehog Hosting will continue to support the Internet Infrastructure Coalition as they help pave the way for more ground-breaking work on behalf of the industry that provides so much for so many of us each day.

Disaster recovery takes on many different forms

Quite often, the team at Hedgehog Hosting is asked about disaster recovery.  Sometimes, the question is posed as, "What does Hedgehog Hosting do for disaster recovery?"  Then again, and more often, clients ask, "What kind of disaster recovery do we (the client) have in place?"

Both of these are excellent questions and the answers, while sometimes similar, are usually very different.  That being said, disaster recovery discussions should always start with an assessment of one's individual tolerance for a situation rather than an assessment of what others are doing.

In assessing potential disaster options that may arise for Hedgehog, one of our initial decisions when we started our company was to have multiple carriers for our cellualar service.  This decision was made mainly because our cellular service is our lifeline to our clients.  We use our web-enabled devices in most every aspect of what we do to support our clients.  That being said, we felt that it was essential for us to have redundant carriers when it comes to our contactability via cellular lines.  We also use our cellular devices to ensure we can be contacted by our monitoring services at all times.  Knowing that this was such an important facet of our business we chose to diversify our carriers.  This decison, while costing a bit more and requiring a bit more management, was the right decision for us.

Today, AT&T experienced issuses with their mobile messaging service that prevented and/or delayed mobile messages from being sent via email.  Had this been our only provider of cellular service, we would have been without the use of our internal and external monitoring systems during that time.  Fortunately, our diversity allowed us to operate normally with no real interuption of service.

In the end, disaster recovery should be looked at in two distinct ways.  The first is, "What are the real potential issues that could impact one's business?"  Stay away from decisions that involve issues that are least likely to happen.  Don't make planning for X situation a priority if the chance of X situation happening is slim to none.  Too often we are planning for a major disaster rather than assessing the immediate and more real threats.   Second.  Plan to support the mission critical needs first and then establish a solution that supports those needs.  From there you can, establish a different set of criteria for the non-mission critical systems and handle them in a way that supports their needs. 

Separating different pieces of one's architecture for the purpose of disaster recovery is an idea that more groups should entertain.

Richard Feller's has been appointed to the I2C Board of Directors

About a year ago, my good friend and business colleague, Christian Dawson, sent me a message asking for my thoughts on the pending SOPA and PIPA bills that were being voted on in Congress. Little did I know that this conversation would be the beginning of a year-long effort that would be the start of the Internet Infrastructure Coalition. 

My colleagues at Hedgehog Hosting and I have been a part of the Hosting Industry for most of our professional lives and care deeply about how lawmakers are shaping the industry. We understand the need for a unified voice to drive innovation and growth as well as create awareness for the benefits of our industry. As such, the team at Hedgehog Hosting and I have taken a founding interest in this new Coalition.

As with the start of any venture, having feet on the ground is so necessary for success. I was pleased that when there was a need, I could be an active part in educating leaders about our priorities, including addressing members of Congress to explain the importance of what we are doing and getting other infrastructure companies to see the value of having a unified body that will fight for the industry that we cherish so much.  Whatever was needed to ensure the success of the i2Coalition, I was there to offer help and build awareness.

Now, I am honored with a new opportunity to become further involved by joining the Board of Directors of the i2Coalition.  I look forward to taking the lead on many of the Coalition's initiatives and am excited to work with such a strong team of committed industry leaders to find new ways to ensure continued growth and success in such a vital industry.

Hedgehog is a proud member of the new I2Coalition

September 17 marks the official formation of the Internet Infrastructure Coalition or i2Coalition, a group dedicated to supporting private investment to drive the “nuts and bolts” of the Internet for continued growth. i2Coaltion includes more than 40 industry leaders, comprised of infrastructure providers and tech firms, including Rackspace, Softlayer, cPanel, and Endurance International Group. Our company, Hedgehog Hosting, is proud to be one of the founding members in the i2Coalition.

The idea for the i2Coalition came about in 2011, when we along with many of the founding members joined together during the winning campaigns educating the public and elective officials about the intrusive Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Protect IP Act (PIPA). The i2Coaltion will continue the mission to advocate for public policy goals essential for Internet infrastructure growth. As part of the launch, i2Coalition co-founder and Board Chair Christian Dawson outlines the group’s public policy priorities and mission in a video available on the i2Coalition website.

Along with our fellow i2Coalition members, we support the needs of the Internet infrastructure industry to develop market-based standards to drive innovation, which is crucial for continued growth. We intend to be a unified voice for public policy advocacy and education for the industry.

If you or your company shares our vision and serve the Internet infrastructure industry, please consider joining the i2Coalition by visiting our membership page to learn more.

Can one do their job too well?

We work hard. We do our best. Try to be the best we can be. But can that be a detriment to business. As with most service based industries we are at the mercy of our own successes.

How can that be you say? How often do you pick up the phone and not get a dial tone. You have just come to expect it. It just plain works. You do not think about all the engineering or daily maintenance and upkeep that goes into making that 30 second phone call work. I would go as far as to say that we take for granted that when we pick up the phone, we expect it to be working every time. 

Is that the only thing we take for granted. Look at the postal service. You take the time to write all those Christmas cards, stick a $.47 cent (only that much higher because of the gas prices continueing to rise) stamp on each of them, and somehow, they make their way from point A to point B for less than it costs to buy yourself a package of gum. But you expect that your family photo along with your "Year in Review" letter makes it, without fail.

Why is it that as these service providers continue to operate successfully, but we, the public, expect the price to come down over time rather than stay the same or even worse, go up. After all everything is suceptable to inflation. Cost of doing business increases are on the rise. But service providers who meet and exceed all expectations are being asked to lower their costs while providing the same services.

This is where I believe we are at the mercy of our successes. Let's look at a real world example. Here we find an organization, one that is in total IT dis-array. Their technologies are spread out and they are spending money in the wrong places. Enter an IT plan. One that has merit and substance. One that works with a new vendor. One that shows promise and should allow for growth as well as cut costs. That plan is accepted and put into place. 

Fast forward 3 - 4 years. The IT department is the buzz of the business. Online marketing is going gang-busters and additional IT resources are needed from this new vendor, but more-over these resources will actually be utilized to continue this mission.

The first question from the organization generally starts with this. "We need to increase our platform with you, but... we want to pay less and we want to remove some of these servcies that we do not think we are really utilizing." Why is that? Because the first thought is something like, "Everything has been fine so we no longer need these services."

Did you think the services just run by themselves. Do you think that maybe the work that is being done on a daily basis is one of the reason for the successes that you have experienced. No, these are not usually the first thoughts.

Sometimes and with some vendors, it can be shown that there are things that you pay for that you are not using. Other times and with other vendors, you can show where you may have gotten extra services without seeing any extra charges. Is that where energies should be focused when looking to continue with a vendor? 

I for one know that while I would like to see all of my favorite vendors lower their prices and give me discounted services, that in the end it will only mean that I am just getting a cheaper or less robust service.

Welcome to the Hedgehog Hosting Blog

Hedgehog Hosting is pleased to bring this Blog to life. We hope that we can offer an insight into the world of Fully Managed Dedicated Hosting. We also hope to offer a bit of sanity and rationalism with regards to understanding the world of technology. We hope that our "Warm and Fuzzy Approach" to everything we do will show through in this Blog.

Thank you again for reading and we hope to keep you coming back for more.