Be suspicious, sure, check out the company in question... but don't let that disqualify them. Theplanet is, uh, rather large and old. Older than I am. I've d

Be suspicious, sure, check out the company in question... but don't let that disqualify them. Theplanet is, uh, rather large and old. Older than I am. I've done a 'first month free' trial, and let me tell you, I certainly won't be doing that again without /somehow/ confirming identity first. When you offer something as abusable as a *NIX host for free, you /will/ attract abusive users, and I think asking for credit card info and/or charging a dollar or something sounds like a reasonable way to make sure that you are giving this away to someone you can at least threaten to come after if they do abuse the service.