Gandi is known as a ‘no bullshit’ company and they mean it. I must disclose that I am a Gandi customer myself. I migrated all of my sites to Gandi when GoDaddy came out in support of SOPA. It was just unacceptable for me to do business with a company which would support draconian laws like SOPA.

As a user, I have had mixed feeling with Gandi, being an American dealing with a French company, but in the end it was beneficial to me as a customer – I realized it after I saw what happened at Target, Home Depot and UPS. As a free software advocate, I am a huge fan of Gandi due to their stand on issues like net neutrality and censorship.

Being based out of Europe/France I am also rest assured that my data and domain are not at the mercy of the US government.

I met with Thomas Stocking, Gandi’s COO of US Operations, during Linux Con and sat down for an interview, which you can watch on YouTube. Here are some points which would make any user a fan of Gandi.

The tag line ‘No Bullshit’ came up during a meeting where one of the executives said we are fundamentally a ‘no bullshit’ company. Everyone liked the name, they got it trademarked and it is now the USP of Gandi.

As a customer, I came to realize that Gandi doesn’t save my credit card info, so I have to put some money in my account as credit which can be used to charge for services. It could be frustrating for a new user but when Thomas explained the benefits it made sense. One of the major benefits is that since Gandi doesn’t save your credit card info, it’s not the target of cyber criminals to steal that data. The recent Target, UPS and many similar incidents shows how risky it is to give your credit card details to these companies who can’t protect it.

It does add a layer of complexity to it, but then it also protects my money. Gandi is effectively working on improving the user-experience in this regards.

Gandi has a very strong opinion about censorship and they opposed bills like SOPA and CISPA. Thomas said that open Internet is very important for innovation and flow of information and Gandi will always be standing with those who defend the free and open Internet.

Thomas is quite concerned about net neutrality and says that the FCC’s fast lane may destroy the internet as we know it. He however also said that the new FCC chairman is willing to improve situation but he can do it only the way government works. Thomas is of the opinion that users should be educated so that they are aware of the dangers of the fast lane and that everyone should express their concerns to the FCC.

In addition to this, Gandi is also a strong supporter of Open Source and Linux and not only works with the community, but also contributes to it.

If you want to do business with a company that shares the same views that you have as a Linux & Open Source advocate, Gandi is that company.