How privacy friendly is 99Stack Cloud

Megan_Wilson

Came over this service while browsing privacy oriented hosting providers, so far it looks promising but how privacy oriented is it really? For instance, are there any KYC requirements to fulfill, do I have to upload passport/drivers license to prove my identity? What data is collected and what personal information do I have to upload?

Kenneth_Crayton

Well, for starters there no KYC verification at all, you don't need to identify yourself in any way. The following information is required tho:

First and last name
Valid email address
Country where you live

It's also encouraged to pay with cryptocurrency, which not only preserves your privacy, it's also cheaper thanks to lower fees. Even privacy coins such as Monero is accepted.

The API let's you control everything which means you never have to use the site or the graphical control panel which requires Javascript to run. You can also use VPN or TOR to become completely anonymous.

Megan_Wilson

Kenneth_Crayton It's also encouraged to pay with cryptocurrency, which not only preserves your privacy, it's also cheaper thanks to lower fees. Even privacy coins such as Monero is accepted.

Seems nice, but how do they find people who don't pay their bills then?

Magnus_Lind

Megan_Wilson Seems nice, but how do they find people who don't pay their bills then?

They don't, that's why you pay in advance. So they know you can afford your subscriptions. The only drawback with "privacy by default" I can think of. It's not that bad considering that you can withdraw unspent funds at any time.

Kenneth_Crayton

Megan_Wilson Seems nice, but how do they find people who don't pay their bills then?

There's plenty of ways, unless you've taken enough steps to protect your identity too. In any case you might get banned if you do violate the terms or host anything illegal.

Megan_Wilson

Sounds good too, but how do they prevent criminal activity, fraud, terror propaganda and other violations?

Magnus_Lind

Megan_Wilson but how do they prevent criminal activity, fraud, terror propaganda and other violations?

To mention the obvious, just compare the social media networks, on one hand you have Reddit where everyone is anonymous. They moderate their platform, clean up bad content and there's trolls there.

Facebook on the other hand expect you to hand out all your personal information to use their plattform. Facebook also have rules, they moderate their platform, clean up the bad content. And guess what, they have trolls there too.

99Stack is just the Reddit of hosting companies, but without all the censorship and political agendas.

Marco_Weiss

Megan_Wilson but how do they prevent criminal activity, fraud, terror propaganda and other violations?

Probably by not granting a refund if you've been involved in repeated violations of ToS. Probably the same with other providers too, wouldn't expect any of them to grant refunds to repeat offenders.

Knut_Engstrom

Just like any other host, probably stopped server instances and terminated accounts. The terms are available here.

Who could have guessed the obvious right? a prompt to verify a identity won't stop people with bad intentions, in fact I think those kind of "filters" makes things worse because now they have to steal some identities too. And some innocent person could end up in jail because too much trust is put into KYC today.

Alan_Rowell

Privacy by default is the keyword, why making a shitty experience for thousands of users if that one user with bad intentions could easily sign up and use the service anyway. It doesn't make much sense.

It's better to make a good experience for thousands of users, then deal with the bad users afterwards. Or why not go in the opposite direction and make a shitty experience for the bad users.

Megan_Wilson

Thank you 🙂