Web hosting company Rackspace announced that it refused to service the Dove World Outreach Center Web site, which is associated with a pastor who had planned to stage an event to burn the Koran. Terry Jones later canceled the Koran-burning, saying that it was "not the time" for the event. The BBC reported that the Web site has less than 50 members.

Rackspace said that Jones and the Dove World center had violated the company's prohibition against hate speech in its acceptable use policy (AUP).

The company said that its guidelines forbid content that "is excessively violent, incites violence, threatens violence, or contains harassing content or hate speech."

Dan Goodgame, a spokesman for Rackspace, said, "what we're focused on here is something that is narrow, abusive, hateful speech that does not advance any argument."

He adds that Rackspace continually receives complaints about violations against the AUP and all are looked into.

"This was pretty bad stuff," Goodgame said.

Goodgame adds that his company had contacted Dove World, giving them the option to either take out the offending content or move the site to another web hosting company. Dove World refused the company's terms, and was given several hours to migrate its content. "At this point, we've severed our relationship with them as a customer," Goodgame said.

"We as a company believe strongly that an individual has the right to stand on a public street corner and to shout racial epithets if they wish... But if they were to walk into the Mark Hachman Hardware Store and shout racial epithets at the customers and employees, they would have the right to ban them."