[Freesteyelz]

Originally Posted by Chris M

To you the issue may be copyright, but the issue gets complicated by the Data Protection Act of 1998 for UK users...

I'm not in UK so obviously my knowledge of its laws will be limited. I did briefly read up on it, however, and it is made clear that the Act was designed to protect the rights of individual's personal information.

For the sake of argument let's say a person did post his/her personal information such as the home address or phone number in a public forum (since the discussion is about public forums). Later that person decides that he/she no longer wants to be associated with the forum and wishes his/her posts to be deleted so the request is made to the forum owner. If the forum owner decides not to comply with the request, the person who made the posts will have a weak case; difficult to sue another person because of the stupidity his/her actions.

Only here in the U.S. are we given the right to sue based on stupidity.