rumrugby said:
however it is against the law to buy customers from one hosting company and then use them on another, the user must be informed of the decision which is a breach of contract and therefore a new contract must be drawn and signed by both parties.
Your points bring up two questions of my own:
1) Are you saying that Australia law forbids assignment of contract rights? I find that a bit hard to believe; it would make Australian law very different from English common law (from which it, as well as US common law, descends). Or are you saying that your contract doesn't include assignment rights and Australian law doesn't allow assignment in the absent of such rights in the contract? (I'd still find the latter hard to believe, as it's in English common law.)
2) Does Australia law require all contracts to be in writing and signed, rather than any kind of implied contract, such as any contrct entered into on a website? If Australia law forbids implied contract, then you can't do eCommerce in Australia.
I believe it is very poor form to buy customers, customers do not appreciate being moved around just at the profit of the company.
People do things in poor form all the time. Companies, with a profit motive, do it quite often.
Does Australia law, then, forbid me from buying only certain customers of a company? If so, then that really depreciates the value of your company when you try to sell it.
For example, if you've got 100 profitable clients making you $1 per month per client and 100 unprofitable clients losing you $1 per month per client, and if your sale price is based on the yearly profit from your company, then you can either sell me the 100 profitable clients and make $1200, or you can sell me all 200 clients, and make $0.
Again, I find it hard to believe Australia law limits business in such a fashion. If it does, then your Australian based business is quite limited compared to my U.S. based business, and again, whether or not any of this is in good form, as you put it.
I would never do this; all my customers have signed up with me directly.
I've learned to never say never. For example, if you were to come down with a serious illness and your physician said you couldn't work any longer, would you just close your business, or would you try to sell it, to obtain some income for you, and some easy continuation path for your customers?
Perhaps you don't think about business continuation in the case of a catastrophe, but we do, and in fact our customers do. Many of them ask them what happens if something should happen to me.
In fact we have a plan in place, bought and paid for, so that if anything should happen to me, the business will continue until such time as it's transferred over to another (predefined) company.
Jeff