Check out this article. Even though it specifically addresses adult hosts, it brings up a myriad of issues that effect all hosts. Scariest of all: Hosts being held criminally responsible for content put on their servers by users :eek2:

http://www.theadultwebmaster.com/legalcorner/perfect_host.phtml

What do you guys do about DMCA issues/compliance?

DMCA has been around for awhile. Ive never had a problem as long as you respond to any complaints right away.

Haven't you heard about the FBI seizing servers? That is all over the place. And then I remember a few years ago that parents sued the hosting company on NAMBLA because their son met the guy on that site for providing a service. While I disagree with NAMBLA, I did not agree with the lawsuit - since the did not include the post office, the telephone company, the electric company, etc for providing services as well to this organization.

I have heard Mr Walters speak before. He does make some valid arguments.

Corey's right about servers being seized. Just check out this article:
http://www.fac.org/%5Cnews.aspx?id=13196
This company had a search engine that some pervs decided to use for searching for child porn, so the FBI seized the whole friggin server!

I did a little more digging on that Buffalo ISP that was criminally prosecuted for content on a server. Turns out, they were actually prosecuted because of Usenet content(it's an ISP, not just a web host).

Originally posted by coreybryant
Haven't you heard about the FBI seizing servers? That is all over the place. And then I remember a few years ago that parents sued the hosting company on NAMBLA because their son met the guy on that site for providing a service. While I disagree with NAMBLA, I did not agree with the lawsuit - since the did not include the post office, the telephone company, the electric company, etc for providing services as well to this organization.

I have heard Mr Walters speak before. He does make some valid arguments.

That happened to Foonet as well, the entire datacenter was seized by the FBI; the feds thought it would be easier to audit all the terabytes of data if they just took the datacenter home with them :P

Originally posted by IncognitoNet
That happened to Foonet as well, the entire datacenter was seized by the FBI; the feds thought it would be easier to audit all the terabytes of data if they just took the datacenter home with them :P

What I heard foonet wasn't exactly being helpful and cooperative and after a few hours of being jerked around the agents got pissed and snagged those servers and took them with them instead.

Originally posted by Dixiesys
What I heard foonet wasn't exactly being helpful and cooperative and after a few hours of being jerked around the agents got pissed and snagged those servers and took them with them instead.
Hm, interesting & who does Foonet think they are? LOL - I mean with everything going on right now in the U.S., the FBI, CIA, and Secret Service are the last people are I want mad at me

Yeah, good point Corey!

It doesn't exactly benefit a business to give the government the run around. If only the reverse of that was true, huh? :)

Why do I feel so lucky that my servers are not in the USA :P

I find a lot of that article to be hard to accept. Much of what the write suggests is simply impossible to implement for most small to medium sized companies especially the shared hosting providers who see 10-50-100 new accounts on a daily/weekly basis.

Having general counsel review all promotional statements? Having the controlling officers review all the content on each of their servers? You think rackshack reviews the content on each of its customer's servers EVER??

I agree that providers should be held responsible for content within their networks to a certain extent. If they are made aware of it, they should take actions to prevent it.

Additionally - working with (instead of against) law enforcement when they knock on your door will ensure that your business is not shutdown. The government is (in most cases) not out to ruin people's businesses/lives.

Originally posted by buba69
I find a lot of that article to be hard to accept. Much of what the write suggests is simply impossible to implement for most small to medium sized companies especially the shared hosting providers who see 10-50-100 new accounts on a daily/weekly basis.

Having general counsel review all promotional statements? Having the controlling officers review all the content on each of their servers? You think rackshack reviews the content on each of its customer's servers EVER??

I agree that providers should be held responsible for content within their networks to a certain extent. If they are made aware of it, they should take actions to prevent it.

Additionally - working with (instead of against) law enforcement when they knock on your door will ensure that your business is not shutdown. The government is (in most cases) not out to ruin people's businesses/lives.

I agree - if the provider is made aware of the content and doesn't take action than it's his/her own fault. It's definately impossible to manually check all the content if you run a decent sized business.

Not in this day and age Chris. But it is just another fact of life it seems.

And don't forget, the FBI has alliances all over the world. I am sure if they suspected your server of some illegal - sooner or later it would be shut down by the governing authority. (I almost made a bad joke, but I thought I better behave there.)

Originally posted by galacnet
Why do I feel so lucky that my servers are not in the USA :P being established offshore does not protect you from complaints/actions by American-based entities. anyone remember the very popular anonymous remailer anon.penet.fi? the "church" of $cientolgy used Interpol and the Finnish police to demand the real name of a user. the admin eventually shut down the service:

http://www.xs4all.nl/~kspaink/cos/rnewman/anon/penet.html

an extreme example, perhaps, but it would be foolish to think that any company/person/organization with deep pockets wouldn't pursue similar tactics.