Define offshore

[Bret]

Hi guys,

Strange thing that I've encountered whilst on this forum is the way the term "offshore" is thrown about at anyone outside of the U.S.

Surely this is slightly mis-leading, I've had countless people contact me and ask "Are your servers offshore?!" and when I reply with "No, they're in Germany; mainland Europe" they get confused, some even try to correct me and say Germany is offshore.

What do you use the term "offshore" for, or what do you feel it should be used for. I've seen quite a few hosts using the term themselves and surely it's giving out the wrong signals to both end-users and other providers?

Bit of a rant / discussion thread really, let me know what your opinions are on the matter.

Bret Reviewed by Bret on 31st Aug 2011. Define offshore Hi guys, Strange thing that I've encountered whilst on this forum is the way the term "offshore" is thrown about at anyone outside of the U.S. Surely this is slightly mis-leading, I've had countless people contact me and ask "Are your servers offshore?!" and when I reply with "No, they're in Germany; mainland Europe" they get confused, some even try to correct me and say Germany is offshore. What do you use the term "offshore" for, or what do you feel it should be used for. I've seen Rating: 5

[JmZ]

Offshore means one of the following:
- The server is literally, offshore, not on mainland
- The server is in a country other than the one the client lives in

Generally people think it means:
- The server is not in the US

Mostly because a huge amount of people are from the US and it is offshore to them, but not to non-us people.

[Bret]

You see, your 2nd point about being in a different country is something I'd disagree with. I would only class offshore as a country that is actually offshore such as Panama.

[JmZ]

Yeah that is the true definition of it.

But in terms of server locations and what not, it has come to mean "a country you do not reside in". For example, the US is offshore to me, using that definition.

It's just what people thought it meant, so it stuck. Same reason they now think it means non-us countries.