I have been pondering starting a small business selling shirts and clothing online for sometime now. I remember ages ago trying to get silkscreen companies to print quantities of shirts with my designs. Bountyhunterinc.com was the ONLY company to agree to print my material due to it's offensive edge. (you will see such material at Bountyhunterinc.com)
After weeks of comunicating with 'chris' the head printer of Bountyhunterinc.com the quote was finalized. The only thing to be done was to work out a couple minute graphic details...I waited, and waited, called and called...FINALLY getting ahold of them (which was odd because up to this point they were excellent communicators) only to find out that I would be denied their service. Why? In the words of the head printer, and I quote: "hahaha my CEO, the boss thinks that your designs will impact our sales"
Now I'm back with a pile of money to start making shirts from scratch, print them myself, sell them myself. Everything. But just like then, I am STILL wondering what I can do as far as finding an open-minded webhost along with a shopping cart ect. I recall emailing various hosts and constantly getting denied service due to content issues.
YES My designs are offensive to some, I'm not marketing to pop-culture lovers.
I'm not a big fan of offensive content, but hey, freedom of speech and all that.
It sounds like you're just better off printing the shirts yourself. Even if you do manage to find someone to print them for you, if the management changes or something like that, they could cut you off.
I believe it's also possible to host your own website (on your own computer), but I don't know much about that.
Well yes I plan on printing all my shirts...I however do not plan on buying a server ect to host my own website. I don't have the resources nor do I want to do that.
You could try an off-shore webhost. It might sound dodgy but they are less likely to be concerned wth content.
Making them yourself is the best way to go for you IMO, as you will have full control over what you produce.... plus no-one will be creaming off your profit margins
Have you tried contacting the web hosting companies that run other similarly offensive sites?
Yes I have, in the past i did that and it worked, though that was over a year ago and I have forgotten the webhosts name...i have been waiting on various other emails back. nothing! slllowness!!! err!
Forgive me for being naive, but bountyhunterinc.com is yours right? And obviously the stuff is up there now so...where's the problem? Is your current host wanting to kick you off because of the content?
__________________ Parents and Pumpkins - Up-beat gear for down-to-earth families
Forgive me for being naive, but bountyhunterinc.com is yours right? And obviously the stuff is up there now so...where's the problem? Is your current host wanting to kick you off because of the content?
No sir maybe you misunderstood my post or I worded it poorly...they are a growing sucessful company that was going to print out my designs for ME years ago but denied me service...point being people kept denying me due to content issues, even the bounterhunterinc.com people denied me just because my designs were going to "impact sales" ....
You could try an off-shore webhost. It might sound dodgy but they are less likely to be concerned wth content.
Making them yourself is the best way to go for you IMO, as you will have full control over what you produce.... plus no-one will be creaming off your profit margins
Good thought, I'll shop around and shoot some emails I guess...
I can't imagine what your designs must be in order for a host to deny you service. Most hosts, especially those who lease entire servers (rather than virtual hosts), allow legal adult content, so I doubt they'd take issue with your shirts. In fact, you are much more likely to get the boot for inciting hate/racism, than for cursing or pornographic lexicon.
Offshore hosting is for people who plan to host content that is either in violation of U.S. law, or have reason to worry that the line between them and the law is very thin. It's also very expensive and unreliable.
I could give you a nice list of adult hosts, but I fear that the moderators would unlink them, which is bad SEO for those hosts (though there isn't adult content on the hosts' sites). So my suggestion is for you to google "adult host".
Jared, my apologies - I misunderstood. (I'm a "m'am", btw not a "sir" ).
Is there some way we can see some of your work so we have an idea exactly what you mean by "offensive"? If it's like the Bounty Hunter stuff, I can't quite see a problem with it. Sure I think some people wouldn't like it (hence "offensive"), but I'm not sure I understand why a host would have a problem hosting it.
__________________ Parents and Pumpkins - Up-beat gear for down-to-earth families
I can't imagine what your designs must be in order for a host to deny you service. Most hosts, especially those who lease entire servers (rather than virtual hosts), allow legal adult content, so I doubt they'd take issue with your shirts. In fact, you are much more likely to get the boot for inciting hate/racism, than for cursing or pornographic lexicon.
Offshore hosting is for people who plan to host content that is either in violation of U.S. law, or have reason to worry that the line between them and the law is very thin. It's also very expensive and unreliable.
I could give you a nice list of adult hosts, but I fear that the moderators would unlink them, which is bad SEO for those hosts (though there isn't adult content on the hosts' sites). So my suggestion is for you to google "adult host".
inciting hate/racism would definately fit my designs more so than pornographic lexicon. I will hit up some more searches and shoot emails...
Jared, my apologies - I misunderstood. (I'm a "m'am", btw not a "sir" ).
Is there some way we can see some of your work so we have an idea exactly what you mean by "offensive"? If it's like the Bounty Hunter stuff, I can't quite see a problem with it. Sure I think some people wouldn't like it (hence "offensive"), but I'm not sure I understand why a host would have a problem hosting it.
Well if someone states that linking me to adult hosts might cause problems with the moderators on this site I HIGHLY dislike the idea of posting up images of my designs...
inciting hate/racism would definately fit my designs more so than pornographic lexicon. I will hit up some more searches and shoot emails...
Yeah, that is going to be a problem. Most hosts won't take issue with it from a professional/ethical angle, but that type of thing creates server/network security concerns. From what I've been told, that type of material draws more DDOS attacks (distributed denial of service) as well as Brute Force attempts on a server than the average hosted content.
That's probably a good idea not to post the images
I agree with Jasonda's point here:
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Have you tried contacting the web hosting companies that run other similarly offensive sites?
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Yes I have, in the past i did that and it worked, though that was over a year ago and I have forgotten the webhosts name...i have been waiting on various other emails back. nothing! slllowness!!! err!
You should be able to do a quick google search for sites that are similar to the one you want to host to track down the recent information on those sites (by looking at the whois records).
If the webhost is already handling sites with that type content, then you may not need to wait on an email back to see if they'll host your site as well.
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I could give you a nice list of adult hosts, but I fear that the moderators would unlink them, which is bad SEO for those hosts (though there isn't adult content on the hosts' sites). So my suggestion is for you to google "adult host".
You could always send the list directly to Jared via Private Message
offensive material, in need of a solution. 
