Thoughts from ISPCON – Hotshots in Hosting

An important legal issue came to my mind in this ISPCON seminar. All of the participants mentioned the marketing utility of user forums. So, what legal liability do you have for your user forums? This is a very complex legal question. Courts tend to analyze this issue based on how much control you exercise over the forums. So, if you’re responding to posts, giving advice, and moving, or removing, off topic posts, you are going to have some liability as a “publisher” of information. If you exercise no editorial control, your legal liability is likely to be lower. However, you are never going to have zero legal liability for user forums – or any forum for that matter. Key issues in minimizing liability are your terms of service and use, how you react to posts, and what your customers use your forums for.