Someone wants to sue me

[Ninth Dimension]

Hi all, I was wondering if someone here might be able to give me some advise? First of all, I'm in the UK, so I should imagine that UK law applies.

I run a forum (http://arathor.theice.co.uk/) it's for the community the players on the Arathor server in the game World of WarCraft. It's a fairly popular community (my extra bandwidth bills are testament to this), and enjoyed by most.

The problem is, I've had this one guy sign up, specifically with an anon account, so he could slag off his fellow guild mates on the site (don't ask). The guild leader sent me an email asking to see if I could track down who this person was (to see if the IP address I had logged for this member matched anyone elses IP address), which I did, but it didn't match anyone.

I sent a message back saying so, and explaining that I'd not be able to give the email address of the user or anything like that (I didn't give the IP address out myself). He didn't get back to me.

I've now had a message from the anon member claiming that a super mod on the site has given out his IP address, and it's been used to track him down via another site that he is a member of (and has thus been kicked out of the guild, or something like that).

Because of this, he's now saying that he's going to take 'legal advise' against the site because his IP address was given out, claiming that it's against the law


HELP!!!


Does anyone know if there are any laws in the UK that state it's illegal to give out IP addresses, and if so, does he have the right to go after me (as the forum owner) or after the person gave out the IP address (who is a volinteer on the site).

(what worries me even more is that he's claiming to 'rubbish' the name of the site by going around saying we're a security risk)

Can anyone help me please?

[filburt1]

Don't ask on a forum of PHP coders nor even a forum of lawyers. Go seek a lawyer instead.

Having said that, anybody with half a sense of how the Internet works could get your IP address in 5 seconds. It's hardly a mark of anonyminity.

[Dan]

Originally Posted by filburt1

Don't ask on a forum of PHP coders nor even a forum of lawyers. Go seek a lawyer instead.

Having said that, anybody with half a sense of how the Internet works could get your IP address in 5 seconds. It's hardly a mark of anonyminity.

or wait untill Erwin sees it

[Marco van Herwaarden]

He would first have to proof that:
- This moderator really did publicize the IP address.
- This Moderator did this in accordence to your Moderator rules.
- He has damage because of this.

Just my thoughts.

[delds]

First none or at least most of us here cannot comment from a legal standpoint.

But the personal opinion is, don't panic. I have my forums set to diplay ip's on all posts to everyone, in hopes it may cut down on the few idiots that occassional try to post spam. It seems to help but nothing cuts out everything.

It could be nothing more than a idol threat, and although scary, I would think it is most likely that and nothing will become of it. A lot of providers use dynamic ip addressing, and ip's are shared and not fixed to one user. He /she would have hire a lawyer, get the provider involved, and cost him or her a lot of money without ever knowing if they could when it. And against an individual that runs a not for profit site, and not even knowing what assets you may have. (no point in wining a case against someone who owns nothing). And all this just because they got kicked off some site. I think the person is pissed off and wants to share the pain. I personally would not even reply back.

I have traced ip's before and I can tell the location area but not the person. (you would likely need the co-operation of a provider to nail who had the ip at any given time) Your super mod's likely should not be giving out ip's to other sites, and the person with ip that was on your site may not be the person assigned the same ip on another site.

[Ninth Dimension]

Hi guys, thank you for the info. I've spoken with all in question, and well.. I'm confident that I might be able to get something sorted out without the need for any legal battles or anything like that.

The anon guy in question claims to have screenshots of the IP address being given out.... this sounds like bull++++.. I've asked for a copy of them... which hopefully he won't be able to give, in which case I'll say he has no evidence of any such activity, and ask him to stop pestering us.

If he does have any screenshots, it's highly doubtful they'll be from my site, so I should be able to distance myself from it.

Keep yah fingers crossed and I'll update you once I know anything new.

[Marco van Herwaarden]

He has a screenshot of your moderator sitting behind his PC typing the IP address?

[Ninth Dimension]

Originally Posted by MarcoH64

He has a screenshot of your moderator sitting behind his PC typing the IP address?

He says he has a screenshot of the page with his IP address on..

BUT

He's just come back to me saying that he in fact does NOT have a screenshot, therefore, has no proof that this site had anything to do with it.

I've not currently got a privicy policy on my site, but I'll soon be adding one stating that IP addresses are not classed as private.. that should hopefully put an end to the matter.

OK, here is the message I've sent to him.. hopefully it'll be the end of it.

OK, here is the situation as I understand it at the moment... An accusation has been made against one of the volunteers on this site regarding an IP address being given out.



I've asked the person in question and they know nothing about it, and they say they do not. I've also checked my logs to see if this information has been accessed by any of the volunteers on the site, but can find no evidence pointing towards this. You have no proof that this site, or the person in question, had anything to do with your IP being given out.



So as it stands at the moment, it's your word against theirs, and while I'm not inclined to take sides (in fact, I want to distance myself from this as much as I can), at this point I'm happy to give benefit of the doubt to the person your accusing.



This is mainly because she's been helping out on the site for a while now, has been very professional in the way she works. It is also because I've seen the types of comments you've been making on the site, and would assume that you've signed up using an anon account because you didn't want to be caught.



When the original request was made to me for some information about yourself, the person requesting the information said that he had a good idea who you was, he was just looking for some backup info. I was unable to provide this, so I can assume that he must have used another method to find out who you are.



I've also done some research into this, and so far as I can tell, there are no laws against giving IP addresses out to people as they're not classed as private/personal identifying information. This site currently does not have a privacy policy, and as such, when you signed up, you did so at your own risk. I am now however in the process of setting up a privacy policy, which will include the fact that IP addresses are not considered to be private. This is not me being spiteful, but rather the way that most sites on the internet work.



Now I can understand that you're worried about the hacking attempts made against you, but anyone that knows anything about the internet will know it's very easy to find someone's IP address, and if you want to be safe and secure, you'll need to have a good firewall, this is common sense.



Sorry that I can't be of any further assistance. If you have any more questions of comments, please feel free to ask, in the meantime I should ask you to be kind enough not to try and put down the good name of this site as I'm confident that it had nothing to do with the problems you've experiencing.

[LEAD_WEIGHT]

Unless he paid for privacy rights @ your forum or you have that stated that he/she has those rights then you are pretty much safe on that but then the other guy should of subpoena your records since if your site is ip hide.
You might get in trouble for that as ppl do sell ip address for some odd reasons.

[Ninth Dimension]

I've updated (or rather, just added) my privicy policy on the site: http://arathor.theice.co.uk/announcement.php?f=2 - hopefully that should help me out..