[Talisman]

I know it's a tired subject for most folks, but getting back to the legal responsibility/privacy issues (a few pages back)...... Sorry for dredging this up again, but I find it's an interesting topic.

You know, I think there's an important distinction that's been missed here. There's a big difference between the obligations and legal risk/exposure between people who are (1) IT professionals working for a commercial or non-profit organization ... (2) those technical administrators who truly provide communication services to the public ... and (3) people who own and manage private forums/communities on the internet.

Legally, I believe this would be the key phrase: "... providing an electronic communication service to the public..."

In my mind... admins/engineers who work for an internet service provider (for example) are held responsible under that law, as would be anyone else in a technical position at some place like msn, yahoo, or icq. Those are public communication services (free or fee-based) that actually serve the public in one way or another.

But as a forum owner ... that's not the role I'm in at all. The members who register for my community are NOT part of the general viewing public and they're NOT customers or consumers.

A more accurate way of describing this would be to say that my members are guests in my home. Incidentally, this private-versus-public distinction also applies to that old "free speech vs. censorship" debate and how we function as administrators/moderators by establishing membership rules. There's a difference between people expressing themselves on a public street corner (which is legally protected as their right to freedom of expression) from people having a conversation in the living room of a private residence. (That difference being... it's my house and I'm the one hosting the party and paying all the bills. If I don't like what you say or how you behave as a guest in my home, which is private property, then I have the right to throw you out.)

In my case, I registered my domain name, installed my (licensed) software, set up my database, designed my website, secured hosting on a server, and arranged for all the memory storage and bandwidth being used each month. That website and everything in it -- is mine. I bought and paid for all those "assets" and they legally belong to me as property.

For that matter, I am also held legally responsible for any abuses or illegal activities that take place on my (private) property -- whether I know it's occuring or not.

The visiting (public) web surfers who stumble across my website either by accident or by invitation DO NOT have access to exchange private messages with anyone else, neither can they email my other members, post a message in my forum, or forward messages to someone else. To do any of these things, they first have to "register" as a member of my private (not public) forum.

Furthermore, if I don't take my responsibily as the licensed owner of my board seriously and, let's say, my members start using MY forum (and it's features) to traffic illegal drugs or distribute child pornography or make bombs or stalk/sexually harass other people ... then how am I supposed to defend myself when the authorities find out about what's going on and show up at my door with a subpoena or an arrest warrant?

I'm the one with full access to that database containing "plain text" of every forum post and private message that's been sent. How could I legitimately claim that I don't know what people are using my site for? What court would overlook my allowing these things to happen ... when all I can say for myself is, "Well gee... I didn't want to intrude on their privacy?"