Web Hosting Reviews & Ratings

November 08, 2011

Overseas Co-Location: Be Cautious of Spreading it too Thin

For those of you outside of it who look at the United States with a little bit of shock and awe anymore, do trust me: it's nothing compared to the view from the inside.  While there's all sorts of directions we could go with that line of thought, though, this blog is about technology: and the truth we don't like to talk about if we can avoid it (including me), is that technology, politics and society are all intermingled.

The end result of this alchemy is that sometimes a webmaster, for any manner of reasons, none of them pleasant, wishes to host their co-located server somewhere outside the US.  If you're one of these people, then while this is an understandable reaction to any number of real-world phenomena that might be seriously impinging on your ability to do what you want with your site, the truth is that this is not remotely any kind of cure-all.  Overseas co-location can be done, and can be worthwhile: but you need to take into account the various dangers involved in it.

In a land far, far away...

The first thing you have to remember is that whatever is compelling you to do so, you'll be entrusting an expensive piece of customized machinery and all of the data on it to people that live many thousands of miles away.  If anything goes wrong it's not like you'll be able to just hop in a car and drive to Sweden.  So right from the start you'll need to make sure that you are going either with a highly reputable company, or else with a friend you trust.

Remember also that you'll need to trust not just their honesty, but their capability: while you can walk a novice through a lot of simple problems, there are some tech issues that will require someone to think independently with fast, expert feet.

“The Great Escape”

If you've never seen this classic about an escape from a World War II prison camp, you might be surprised to hear (spoiler alert) that most of the people involved in “The Great Escape” were either killed or re-captured.

You may be hosting overseas to escape some type of legal or taxation issue, and perhaps there is an effective route to doing that.  You may be seeing others successful at it.  Likely, though, those people have lots of money, meaning lots of lawyers.  While you are technically escaping US jurisdiction this way, jurisdictions generally don't like people escaping.

Power doesn't give itself up lightly, and you may find this out if you are doing something that really gets someone's goat, but which they can't quite reach.  This isn't conspiratorial, it's simple fact: if you are trying to escape something, by nature, the thing you're escaping from isn't going to give up easily.  You may wind up having to learn now about the laws in 2 countries, as well as their interplay with international agencies, and the consequences of going wrong with any of them.

Better the devil you know

Let's be clear that this is not to dissuade you from this option, but rather to point out that the kind of people who tend to pursue it are the kinds of people who have a lot of power they can use to protect themselves.  If you are hosting, say, some small adult site that runs afoul of local laws or something that had copyright issues*, you might just be better off leaving your co-located server where it is, and working on ways to stay out of trouble.  As the saying goes, better the devil you know than the devil you don't.

* We must add an important addendum to this article, and that is to state that WE ARE NOT ENDORSING OR IN ANY WAY APPROVING OF ANY ILLEGAL ACTIVITY IN ANY CAPACITY WHATSOEVER.

We're stating all of this for two reasons: 1) The presumption of innocence requires that we recognize that a web site can be in the end legal, but not before going through an expensive and draining legal process that no one can be too terribly blamed for wanting to avoid, and 2) legal or illegal, we don't want to see our loyal readers get into trouble.  Really, that's the main point of the article: instead of trying to dodge the law, best for everyone to face it and come up with a solution that satisfies everyone.

Tags: web hosting,  server,  best hosting,  hosting server,  web host,  type-in,  blog,  webmaster,  web server,  web hosting technology,  web hosting solution,  IT hosting,  IT,  web hosting article,  blog hosting,  server solution,  hosting solution,  web technology,  reputable hosting company,  co-located server,  co-location,  co-location hosting,  copyright,  best hosting solution,  trust,  hosting account,  .CO,  web hosting company,  server technology,  web hosting type