I have recently started hosting a website on a famous provider paying for 1 years hosting. One day i had a problem and called cust.-care. What shocked me was, the person while advising me a solution, started telling names of my files, which are invisible to ftp even!!! Though i covered up my surprise, but i am still shocked. While talking i had further asked him to "check if my script within file is correct?", so that i can know whether they feel free to peep into the file also? But he stopped short of doing so saying that they don't have option for that (I don't know what is reality).
Google provides mail service for free, and still does not "see" your mails, and feels sufficiently humbled even for seeing them "mechanically" to select ads for us. Is it common for hosting providers to see our files? or should i look for change? Thanks.
Is it common for hosting providers to see our files?
- Yes; it is basically impossible to have anything else. At best you can have some levels of support unable to access them, but the highest levels of tech support will always be able to. The only reasonable exception is if you store encrypted files and keep the password away from the server and away from the host company. Wouldn't be much use for hosting anything except a backup then, though.