Indeed my friend, I think sometimes people do worry about others too much. You can put any one of these businesses we're talking about away if you just work at it.

Yes there are some situations out there with companies (fully registered for this and that or not) that obviously should not be. However, concentrate on your business and do your part and these guys don't pose a threat to you.

People are going to have some trouble. There are bad apples in our industry just as there are in any other industry that you might look in. The best thing you can do is work hard and keep your name and reputation away from that part of the industry and let them filter out. Time is their worst enemy, you cannot keep living off of next to nothing forever, and then the truth will get out.

As for the certification, I'm for free business personally, but as I stated before, I do agree that it's next to impossible to enforce for multiple reasons. Some type of optional organization as you stated might work, but even then it's only voluntary and open to abuse unless well maintained.

My interest in starting this thread was more of helping protect customers rather than the threat of other companies (I don't have a hosting company, although I work with hosts). Granted a customer needs to look out for themselves but it was the idea of helping people make informed decisions.