When we last left off we were in early 1999- Slashdot had a small business behind it, known as Blockstackers Intergalactic. But we knew that we would need real infrastructure to handle the ever increasing traffic and needs of our readers as well as our employees. A number of suitors approached us with deal of varying sizes and shapes, and we settled on one nobody had never heard of: Andover. (As a reminder dont forget to get your charity bid up ... some items are still reasonably priced! But the EFF always needs cash!)

Nobody had ever heard of Andover, and from our perspective, that was kind of the point. We had talked to companies that sold Linux distributions as well as a number of web network type organizations, but at the end of the day, we decided that we had to go with someone that would guarantee us editorial independence, and not create serious conflicts of interest by forcing us to favor some particular distribution. Likewise we didn't want to get into a situation where we were just part of a network using all our stories to plug other network sites. Andover was not really a Linux company, so we were able to get a deal that met our needs.