Short answer, yes, our hosting will be fully GDPR-compliant.
Longer answer, our cloud infrastructure subprocessor maintains a formal GDPR compliance program and supports lawful international data transfers using Standard Contractual Clauses (SCCs) where required.
Our billing and account management subprocessor does involve limited data transfers outside the EEA for things like fraud prevention and communications, but these are fully covered by GDPR Article 46 safeguards and will be clearly documented in our privacy policy.
We’ll also provide a GDPR-compliant Data Processing Agreement (DPA) for our customers.
We do intend to expand the availability of additional EU-based server locations, giving customers more choice and making compliance simpler for those who prefer to keep all hosting strictly within the EU.
All of this information will be listed on our Elements Hosting website in detail so you can review it.
We’ve deliberately chosen not to bundle email hosting with our web hosting, as we believe this leads to a better and more reliable experience overall. Website hosting and email hosting should never be coupled together for both security and stability reasons.
Email and websites have very different security and reliability requirements. Email platforms are high-risk targets for spam and abuse, and issues like blacklisting or mail server overload can negatively impact our servers and your sites. By keeping email and web hosting separate, we protect the performance, stability, and security of your websites.
Our approach lets us focus entirely on delivering fast, reliable website hosting, while you’re free to use best-in-class email providers built specifically for deliverability and security. It’s a modern, best-practice setup that results in better outcomes for both your sites and your email.
We’ll have more information on recommended email providers closer to launch, some of which are very affordable (as in free).
Yep, we currently offer domain registration, renewals, and transfers via Cloudflare Registrar which offers at-cost domain registration and renewal.
There are other domain registrars we can add, but we haven’t set up any other accounts yet. Trying to keep it simple. Could always add another option if there is demand.
I have domains which are “parked” and dont use at present, e.g. I have 4 x grandkids and bought their named domains when they were born and had names, They are aged 11-14 and not using their domains yet. I might be sad but hey nothing wrong with protecting their naming rights early as you never know. These have been parked for years and I also have others so when thinking about costing for service will you please take this into consideration please.
Aslo a thought about tying the package into Elements sub.e.g. low-priced package 1 free domain, higher packages 1+ dependent on package. Also if I have a one page website or one with 1000 pages in the size of file stored is obviously different so have different bands for sizes (totals e.g. up to 10 gb, 10-20gb etc.
Parked domains won’t affect the costs of any of our hosting plans.
We don’t plan on tying our Elements Hosting service into an Elements app subscription at this time. I feel those are best left separate as we don’t want to make the subscription for 1 year of app updates for the Elements app conditional on hosting or vice-versa.
Yes the hosting packages will have different levels of resources, going from a basic Starter package all the way up to a Business or Agency or Reseller package. We’re still fine tuning those resource limits and will probably adjust during our Early Testers period depending on user feedback.
In anticipation of the new hosting, I have moved my email hosting over to custom iCloud domains and made the necessary zone changes on the name servers. Apple made this a relatively easy process.
In my current hosting setup up the web host is supplying the name servers and the domain registration just refers to them for the DNS. Will this be similar?
It will be similar in the sense that you’d point your domain to some nameservers via your domain registrar. The difference here is that we won’t be hosting the DNS, so your nameservers won’t point to us, but to a third-party DNS provider. As mentioned we are working with Cloudflare as our partner on this. We are able to set up Cloudflare accounts for our customers in order to set up and manage all their DNS settings, along with various security and performance optimizations. No-hassle, no-fuss.
You’ll also have access to the account so you can log into it and modify whatever you want, however you don’t have to if you don’t want to be bothered with it. We’re offering a fully managed web hosting service so we can take care of anything in the Cloudflare account for you.
If you prefer not using Cloudflare, you can use any DNS provider of your choosing, however you’d have to manage setting up your DNS and all that yourself. We can give advice though if you get stuck on something.
