Shared Am I in trouble?

[kaptanjak]

I've currently got my site hosted on the server of an acquaintance. I've never met her, but she's a friend of one of my mods.

She set me up with my own login and C panel and everything. The agreement was that I could build my site on that server and then move it to a real hosting company whenever it got too big.

I've been told, however, that she could potentially claim ownership of my site since it's on her server, and thereby prevent me from moving it, even if I have backups of everything, leaving me with nothing but my domain name.

Is there any truth to this? I don't have any reason to believe she would do that, but I don't know her personally, so it makes me a little nervous. What is the law in this regard?

Just to be clear, I have built the site on my own, with all my own money, and she has had nothing to do with it. I was at hostgator initially, but due to their unreliability I needed to move it somewhere else and she offered to let me stay on hers while finding a permanent solution.

 

[Optic]

This comes down to trust.

Any host of course has full access to all your files, database and configuration files. Passwords are usually safe as they're stored hashed (except in config files such as credentials for your database)

If you have backups of your files and databases then if worst comes to worst you can restore them on another host... and if you own the domain name you can point them to any host of course.

 

[LeadCrow]

Just giving you your own hosting space you fully control (cpanel, ftp, email) doesnt suffice to claim ownership of your files and data.

It's however a real possibility that she could disrupt attempts to move your data away from her webspace. Like by disabling backups, changing/deleting your credentials. Regardless of wether you fully trust her and wether she is trustworthy, you should always have a plan B that takes into account the possibility of a malevolent or incompetent webhost causing your website's demise.

Control the domain and DNS, make sure you have a restorable copy of all your data, and a way to contact users if necessary (if you dont have a social network page or IRC, just maintaining a list of users' email adresses -partial at least, notifying staff and the top users is a higher priority than the <10posts plebs- should suffice). Communication preparedness plans should take into account scenarios like the site going down without notice and for long.

 

[cornnfedd]

If you own the domain name ... and are taking regular back ups then I dont see an issue here, while it might be a pain you can always just move hosts.

 

[mysiteguy]

So long as you have backups and control the domain registration, there's no reason you couldn't move the site. I'd get any agreement in writing.

 

[Steve]

If you value your site I would suggest moving to a reputable hosting company anyway as it seems your not comfortable with the situation.

 

[CyberJoe]

Dedicated servers are so cheap lately, specially if you just need a spot to get something working.
Look at Linode for example, I recently lauched one there just to run ElasticSearch on, dirt cheap and works like a dream, many other similar options.

 

[HybridVM]

She has no ownership over anything that is hosted on the server if its yours its yours.

 

[MikeDVB]

Anybody can make any claim they want about anything they want but that does not make it true.

It's your domain, your site, your content. So long as you have a full backup of your data you can move it to another service and re-point the domain/DNS and she'll have no power to do anything... Well besides take you to court if she really does feel that it's hers.