1&1 is a poor choice

Audience: This report is useful if you have decided to do-it-yourself, directly registering your own domain name and directly purchasing your own web site hosting. If you are using a web services agency like Walking Dolphins Consultancy the article will be only of interest.

Some years ago1&1 was a favoured site of the Secure Surfing Organization and it received a recommended status. It is not on our recommended list now.

(The personal site of our sponsor’s owner, blog.caleval.com, continues to be hosted at 1&1.)

Note that 1and1 has repeatedly invited us to promote their hosting service to receive $65 for every user we sign up. That’s a lot of money compared to the pennies we earn from our sponsors. So it is not in our financial interest to be publishing this review.

But the business has failed to keep pace with progressive competitors such as Lunarpages
and its customer service model has degraded into the functionality of robotic responses whether or not any real human beings are actually involved.

They have recently given “free upgrades” on bandwidth to match the very longstanding unlimited bandwidth service of LunarPages, Serverfly and others. They continue to enforce drive space consumption, have hard limits on the size of databases, and limit the number of databases available to regular customers.

Worse, 1&1 engages in practices that the Secure Surfing Organization considers marginally ethical. That is, within strict application of ethics what they do may be okay, but their policies and practices skirt very close to that line.

First, we contend that 1&1 has intentionally created a system to make it difficult for customers to transfer their domains to another provider. We have direct experience.

To learn what’s involved in transferring a domain name you have registered with 1and1 to a different registrar, read our How-to guide on the subject.

1and1’s process is unnecessarily complex and although we are sure 1and1 would claim the purpose is to protect users from themselves, we believe it is simply a matter of placing barriers to discourage customers from making a different choice.

Where things get close to unethical is the manner in which 1and1 misleads customers at signup or changes policies after the fact.

As of this writing, 1and1 still publishes the following promise on its site pushing hosting packages:

“Included domains

Did you know that all 1&1 hosting plans include at least 1 domain at no additional cost? Use your included domains however you choose – register new domains or transfer existing ones.

Best of all, we won’t charge you a penny for your included domains for as long as you have your shared hosting package with us.”

Any reasonable person would read this to mean that you get a free domain included in your package and that you can get a new domain or transfer and existing one. What you may not realize is that you are married to whatever domains you choose at the time of hosting.

If you have decided at some point the domain name you have been using is not working for you, and you choose to replace it with one that you think is better, 1and1 will happily cancel the first domain but will CHARGE YOU for its replacement.

Their explanation is simply that the “included domain” is the exact domain chosen at the time you signed up with 1and1.

There is no reason for this policy except to be punitive, since it costs 1and1 no more money to allow its customers to host the original domain than a replacement domain.

In our view 1nad1 plays a kind of bait-and-switch in this policy and other similar policies.

We also know of a 1and1 customer who decided to take advantage of one of their “cheap domain registration” promotions. It was $1.99 per domain for the first year and his thinking was at that price he could try out a bunch for a year and only keep those that worked well for his business. He registered several dozen domain names.

Imagine his shock when his bill did not reflect $1.99 per domain but $6.99 (this occurred prior to 1and1’s 30% price increase).

When we took up the case, 1and1 acknowledged it had overcharged for 19 of the domains (he was properly charged $1.99 for a single domain) but for every domain in excess of 20 they asserted he was responsible for the full price. They pointed us to the very small print that did in fact indicate the offer was limited to 20 total domains.

Since that time, the limit of 20 is more prominent, but it should never have been hidden in the first place and again this reveals to us the kind of company that is 1and1.

In passing we mention the 30% price increase. We view this kind of a huge price jump in a single move to be almost extortionate when it is combined with the barriers 1and creates to transferring out of its system.

We further believe that the reason they are so confident in getting away with a whopper like that is because it applies mostly to individuals who have only one or two domains registered. Most individuals will not raise a ruckus over a few dollars even if in percentage terms the rate hike is obscene.

So the message we take from it is that 1and1 is quite prepared to exploit small customers.

So in summary:

1. 1and1 does not easily provide competitive features for users
2. 1and1 makes it difficult for users to keep their freedom of choice by creating barriers to changing registrars
3. 1and1 has a record of not being fully up front about the limitations they put on promotional offers
4. 1and1 provides service that is no better than automated scripting responses
5. and in our opinion 1and1 does not deserve the trust of customers.

Just say no.

There are too many good alternatives out there that have not become so massive that they can afford to mistreat their users or nickel and dime customers.