An Internet hosting service is a service that runs Internet servers, allowing organizations and individuals to serve content to the Internet. There are various levels of service and various kinds of services offered.

A common kind of hosting is web hosting. Most hosting providers offer a combined variety of services. Web hosting services also offer e-mail hosting service, for example. DNS hosting service is usually bundled with domain name registration.

Web hosting technology has been causing some controversy lately as Web.com claims that it holds patent rights to the hosting technology with its 19 patents. Hostopia, a large wholesale host, recently purchased a license to use that technology from web.com for 10% of retail revenues blank">http://biz.yahoo.com/pz/060718/102209.html. Web.com recently sued _Go Daddy as well for similar patent infringement mktw/tech/internet/10293025.html" target="_blank">http://www.thestreet.com/_mktw/tech/internet/10293025.html.

Generic, yet rather powerful, kinds of Internet hosting provide a _server where the clients can run anything they want (including web servers and other servers) and have Internet connections with good upstream bandwidth.