David Snead, a hosting industry veteran since 1999, discusses the Secure Hosting Alliance and the Internet Infrastructure Forum (IIF), a cross-industry initiative enabling hosting providers, registrars, DNS services, and cloud providers to share abuse intelligence in real time. The IIF uses a secretariat model where participants submit abuse data (timestamps, IPs, domain names) in xarf format, which is enriched and routed to relevant parties. Currently in prototype phase with fake shop fraud as the test case, the project already includes major players like GoDaddy and Newfold alongside smaller hosts. The Secure Hosting Alliance, a working group of the i2Coalition, offers a Trust Seal Certification for hosts meeting professionalism standards. Membership is revenue-based and operates on rough consensus. The initiative aims to reduce the security burden on smaller hosts, help the industry self-regulate ahead of potential government regulation, and restore the collaborative culture that existed in early hosting communities.
