Wehosting and Fanpages

Facebook have announced that from October 1, 2011 all fanpages must be secured.

What this means is that every website that hosts a Facebook fanpage, whether an application or a page tab must have an SSL certificate.

What is SSL?

SSL stands for Secure Socket Layer. Basically, it’s the technology whereby a user’s browser and your server talk to each other using encrypted data. This makes it much harder (not impossible) for hackers and other nasty people to get personal data. To secure your site, your server needs to have a secure certificate installed, You’ll also need a dedicated IP address for your site.

This technology was created for banks and other online businesses that capture and store sensitive personal information. There are a number of companies that offer secure certificates and they usually include an insurance to cover any losses they may be incurred resulting from a breach in their security.

We believe that this move is excessive when you consider that most fanpages only contain graphics and information, but with the increase in facebook accounts being hacked, facebook has viewed this as the olny viable solution to ensure that their member’s information is kept safe. Fanpages are not stored on Facebook but on your own server and once the application has been created to link your server to your fanpage you are able to put pretty much anything on the fanpage. This includes the capturing of personal infomation that could be accessed by hackers. So this policy change does make sense.

There are unfortunately consequences to anyone that owns a fanpage. The costs for a SSL certificate are high. In most cases they are over R1000 per year and that does not include the dedicated IP which usually costs around R300 – R400 per year.

For the last few weeks we have been negotiating with securtiy certificate companies and our server administrators to ensure that our clients receive the best possible deal. We have already updated the prices of fanpages on our website to accomodate the SSL certificate and dedicated IP. Our exisiting fanpage clients will be charged only R700 per year extra for these services should they with to continue using them.

If you have a fanpage hosted by us and you wish to contunie using the fanpage, please let us know and we will add the necessery services. Should you wish to cancel your fanpage, as a result of the additional costs, please contact us and we will make arrangements for a prorata refund from the end of September. We are considering other options for our static fanpage clients but these options will not be available for WordPress fanpages.

It is very important that you let us know your decision urgently because fanpages that are not secure will not be visible from 1 October. for more information you can visit the Facebook Developer Blog

We apologise for the inconveniece. We believe strongly that online business should not cost you a fortune and we will continue to bring you excellent low cost products but our hands are tied on this one.