There are many web hosting providers now operating in the NZ market. However we have noticed that although many of them appear to be NZ businesses, many in fact aren’t. There are even some that have no physical New Zealand presence at all, yet they use a .NZ domain name and strong New Zealand branding to promote their services.

We even found one web hosting provider that uses a NZ map showing dots on Auckland, Wellington, and Christchurch, implying that they have New Zealand based offices. But they have no physical presence in NZ at all, and are owned by an offshore company, with a call centre based in Asia.

Even some of New Zealands largest web hosting providers that do have NZ offices, are actually owned by offshore companies, or their main shareholders are overseas entities. What this means is that the profits they make, get sent offshore back to the parent company. They also may not be paying any New Zealand tax, and some are not even registered for GST in NZ. Other web hosts may be based in NZ, but their support is all subcontracted out to contact centres in Asia or India. Even one of NZs largest telcos contracts out it’s web hosting and web hosting support to an offshore company.

Supporting a company that is 100% NZ owned helps to support the NZ economy, as not only is the money you are paying help to pay staff in NZ, it means any profits it makes also remain in NZ. They will also be paying tax and GST.

The Lounge Network is different from many hosting companies operating in NZ, as we are 100% Kiwi. This means that our company is 100% NZ owned, our support is 100% NZ based, and we also have most of our servers based in NZ.

So when you are looking for  a web hosting provider, first find out who owns them and where they are based. The truth may surprise you.