Goodbye MrVM

Janevski · July 2022

Dear Jovan Janevski,

You are receiving this email as you are or have been a customer with MrVm and your customer information is stored in our system.

MrVM was created when LowendSpirit was a project targeting NAT services at a very low price, giving the opportunity to as many as possible to explore and prepare for IPv6.

The decision has now come to pass on the torch and MrVM will no longer be owned by "the Swedish Viking" Mikael (aka mikho).

I have contacted two companies about a takeover of services and customers. Before any information is transferred between MrVM and the receiving company, I want to give you, the customer the opportunity to decide if you want your personal information removed before the transaction takes place.

Do note that by asking for client information removal, you are also canceling all your current services with MrVM.

The transfer of data is expected to start the earliest by end of July.

If you would like to have your personal information removed, please open a ticket as soon as possible requesting for removal of your information.

Public discussion about this will be held at the LowEndSpirit forum: https://lowendspirit.com. Feel free to sign up if you haven't already.

I will probably stay active within MrVM for some time but ownership will be passed over to someone else.

I would like to take the opportunity to thank you all for these years that the service has been active.

It has always been a zero-sum project, where everything you paid for the service has been used to pay for all nodes and expand the network.

I will stay active on the LES forum.

Thank you again.

/Mikael

[mrvm.net]

Ympker · July 2022

It was good while it lasted. Thanks @mikho for your blood and tears and the effort you put in
I started to learn and get even more into VPS with those small NAT vps back in the days. Thanks for having made this possible.
I am sure you now have more free time to explore/focus on other endeavours of life

All best!

Janevski · July 2022

Thanks @mikho for all your work and effort these years.

Best of luck for whatever the future holds.

Falzo · July 2022

received the same... appreciate the notification @mikho , but: why wouldn't you add a link about where to open said ticket? I am blind.

aren't you a european company? I think handing over personal data without explicit permission is a very... grey area. especially accounts with no active service since a while should rather be deactivated/deleted - without further action required.
and you don't even mention who the data will go to, if the client does nothing...

don't get me wrong, but this screams quite loudly for legal trouble. just saying.

vyas · July 2022

@mikho

Best wishes, MrVM will be missez.

Regarding

I have contacted two companies about a takeover of services and customers. Before any information is transferred between MrVM and the receiving company, I want to give you, the customer the opportunity to decide if you want your personal information removed before the transaction takes place.

My choice will depend on the provider, too early to say. But I believe you will do whatever is the right thing to do for the wider audience and sell business to/migrate customers to the right kind of folks. If push comes to shove, I will opt for “cancel”. But again, based on limited information at this time.

Detruire · July 2022

I appreciate the notification, but like some other posters, I'd like some more information so I can make an better-informed decision.

What company will be taking over (once decided), at the very least. I'd also like to know what their plans are for current customers/services. If they're just going to kill off or prevent renewal of the plans or locations that I care about, I'd rather not have my info passed on to them (regardless of who they are).

chris · July 2022

To be fair, any company taking it on will most likely do it for the passion! Nobodys taking on mrvm Nat clients for the biloh bucks.

Personally, if it were me - I'd look at whether it was financially viable to continue to run as is and grandfather those plans with remaining capacity of those servers offered out at existing price to existing clients and then maybe look to add a new range as a slightly higher costs to make it viable as a product line rather than a hobby.

I would imagine, given it being a passion project that mikho is looking for someone to honor that - no inside information, just my thoughts!:)

Best of luck to mikho in whatever comes next!

MikeA · July 2022

Wish I was more familiar with running NAT VPS.

chris · July 2022

@MikeA said:
Wish I was more familiar with running NAT VPS.

To be fair, if I hadn't taken on two projects recently - I'd have made an attempt to keep it as a wholesome community endeavor! There's a few things I'm trying to do at the moment to drag the standards up a little at the lower end of the market

cold · July 2022

@mikho thanks for the AWESOME service you provided !!!! and good luck with ur new projects...
will the prices remain ? or will the new owner change them?

ehab · July 2022

best wishes to mikho

MichaelCee · July 2022

Best wishes @mikho!

chocolateshirt · July 2022

One of best SG provider I ever have.. solid performance.. thank you @mikho

derekyang · July 2022

Can't agree more, thanks for the service @mikho

@chocolateshirt said:
One of best SG provider I ever have.. solid performance.. thank you @mikho

mikho · July 2022

@Falzo said:
received the same... appreciate the notification @mikho , but: why wouldn't you add a link about where to open said ticket? I am blind.

aren't you a european company? I think handing over personal data without explicit permission is a very... grey area. especially accounts with no active service since a while should rather be deactivated/deleted - without further action required.
and you don't even mention who the data will go to, if the client does nothing...

don't get me wrong, but this screams quite loudly for legal trouble. just saying.

The link to the panel should be in the footer of the email?

I am European and I'll give a rundown of the situation. I am running mrVM as a sole trader, meaning I can't sell the company as I and the company is the same legal entity (at least in Sweden). I can therefore only sell whats "inside" the company.

When it comes to GDPR and personal information, as long as there is any kind of business agreement between mrVM and the customers, I have the legal right to keep the personal data.
Especially as I, as Swede need to validate the location of the customer (being electronic services, I need to report VAT to all European countries).
Also, Swedish law requires me to keep the information needed for the bookkeeping in the same format as it was created for 7 years. (used to be 10 years).

That is why I asked if people (with services) wanted their personal information removed. Meaning they will cancel their service and have their info deleted before a handover. (all inactive clients will be removed).

I will keep a copy of the invoices from the last 7 years and hope that, if audited, it will be enough for the Swedish Skatteverket.

The situation is very common in every European country, the only difference here is that I give the option to be removed BEFORE transferring everything over. In other situations where companies are sold, you will only know about it AFTER it has been sold.

@vyas @Detruire
That will be disclosed sometime next week.

@cold said:
will the prices remain ? or will the new owner change them?

That is not up to me, I have been clear that I want the locations (as many as possible, I understand that some will probably go) and service to remain as intact as possible.

@chocolateshirt @derekyang : You should thank @oliau for the GREAT node provided.....

Falzo · July 2022

@mikho thanks for taking the time and claryfying. you are absolutely right and it's good to see you are aware.

I fully understand that you are legally required to keep certain data as you mentioned like accounting etc. - it's the same around here, such legal requirements are prior to GDPR and stuff. but as you said that's bound to you and nothing to "sell"

@mikho said: all inactive clients will be removed

this is very important piece of information, which is of course the right thing to do and I guess it'd been better if you had put this to the email in the first place ... without that it simply wasn't clear, what gets really sold.

sorry for bringing the topic up, looks like you do everything as it should be, it simply did not sound like that to me from the wording used - maybe it's also just a bit of a language barrier ;-)

mikho · July 2022

@Falzo said:
@mikho thanks for taking the time and claryfying. you are absolutely right and it's good to see you are aware.

I fully understand that you are legally required to keep certain data as you mentioned like accounting etc. - it's the same around here, such legal requirements are prior to GDPR and stuff. but as you said that's bound to you and nothing to "sell"

@mikho said: all inactive clients will be removed

this is very important piece of information, which is of course the right thing to do and I guess it'd been better if you had put this to the email in the first place ... without that it simply wasn't clear, what gets really sold.

sorry for bringing the topic up, looks like you do everything as it should be, it simply did not sound like that to me from the wording used - maybe it's also just a bit of a language barrier ;-)

Many times things are so obvious to yourself when writing emails that you forget that the receiving end doesn’t know all you know.

Next time I leave a business to someone else, I’ll try to be more clear on the situation.

Falzo · July 2022

no worries and no hard feelings. that's why we are here for and can discuss or at least ask for more infos, right? ;-)

timychann · July 2022

Damn, sad to see you go.

Getting a NZ vps for cheap is super hard, especially since it's an "exotic" location. Hopefully the location can continue to stay

wcypierre · July 2022

I thought there would be a topic from the email but turns out there isn't.

anyway, thanks for the service so far and it has made my self hosting journey a lot more accessible and fun

TigersWay · July 2022

Sad to see you go @mikho , I mean it... Have had some of yours boxes in SG for quite some time and happy with them or it today!

mikho · July 2022

If all goes well, you as customer, won’t notice any difference.

@wcypierre @TigersWay

alexxgg · July 2022

@mikho said: If all goes well, you as customer, won’t notice any difference.

That's good to know. I guess a good alternative, if something goes wrong, are Nat OVZ Instances from @Abdullah.

skorupion · July 2022

milkboy · July 2022

@chocolateshirt said: One of best SG provider I ever have.. solid performance.. thank you @mikho

@mikho thanks for all you've done.

Please do let us know the takeover timetable. (like around which month will the takeover occur?)
I do hope Asia Pacific region nodes will be kept, as we dont have enough of those in the lowend provider.

mikho · July 2022

@milkboy said:

@chocolateshirt said: One of best SG provider I ever have.. solid performance.. thank you @mikho

@mikho thanks for all you've done.

Please do let us know the takeover timetable. (like around which month will the takeover occur?)
I do hope Asia Pacific region nodes will be kept, as we dont have enough of those in the lowend provider.

We are currently in the middle of planning the handover.

When all is done, more information with an up2date time schedule will be posted here and sent as an email update to all active customers.

Ympker · July 2022

@alexxgg said:

@mikho said: If all goes well, you as customer, won’t notice any difference.

That's good to know. I guess a good alternative, if something goes wrong, are Nat OVZ Instances from @Abdullah.

@Abdullah is a great guy. Same as @cam . Both keep the NAT spirit alive. @Abdullah is more active in the community, though