Hosting your website in another country offers you increased privacy as the owner. Benefits vary by country. Offshore hosting can be relatively inexpensive which makes it a really attractive option. Anonymous (or offshore) hosting is most used for its privacy benefits.  

You can stop domain-related spam, deter harassers and stalkers and data-miners. Clearly this is the type of hosting you need if you are a celebrity.  

One thing that has to be made clear is that Anonymous hosting is not meant to be used to circumvent laws or commit crimes.  Most hosting companies draft their disclaimers in such a way that if you use their servers to commit crimes, acts of terrorism, fraudulent activities or acts of hatred, they will not protect your privacy and help you break laws.

So, you might ask how this is all possible?

Private web servers are located in various countries around the world. The servers are governed by the laws of the countries in which they are located which means that not everything that is illegal in your country will be illegal in another.  Once again, we stress that this is not to promote illegal activity. The United States, the United Kingdom, Switzerland, Panama and even Singapore offer these anonymous web hosting services.  One aspect that makes these international hosting services a whole lot more attractive is the international presence that you can maintain while still just staying in your home country.

Different countries have different features to offer the discerning user.  If you are looking for the best data privacy, Romania, Switzerland, Netherlands, Norway and Iceland offer the best hosting services.

It comes as no surprise that, when security is a concern, the place with the best data privacy also features the best security – Iceland!

So, where’s the catch?

Hosting in another country means you have to pay for the service in that country’s currency. The exchange rate now becomes a big factor. You could end up paying as much as three or four times as much as you would in your home country… or you might get it four times cheaper.

Lastly, you also have to keep in mind how many pageviews you get in a month.  You are still limited by the size of the real estate on the server you are using, albeit anonymous or not, so if your traffic is too much you will need to move on to a dedicated server anyway. So, even though anonymous hosting seems to be a concept on its own, it is still very much entangled with all the other concepts in hosting.