Legal Problems Are a PITA
We, well most of us, make sure to drive the speed limit, watch for other drivers around us and be patient on the road to avoid accidents that lead to lawsuits or citations for traffic violations from law enforcement agency's. Legal problems are not easy problems to deal with and it's only human to attempt to avoid them at all costs.
Legal problems cost us money, energy, possibly members, time and sometimes even our lives if the problems relates to criminal legal problems. We face legal problems in our lives every day, business owners face legal problems in their places of work and even forum owner face legal problems. Now this advice is based on supported research that has been done. If at any time, you feel a need for further advice, you should consider consulting with an actual attorney for more information on protecting your forum operations and yourself from legal problems. Again, I am not a lawyer, this is just based on research.
Policies
You would be surprised how far a simple policy will keep you away from legal problems. Facebook, Google and Twitter are often sued over privacy issues. A lot of those issues are because they are not explaining to their user base about how their information in used in instances such as advertising and marketing. This is a reality that forum owners could face just the same.
If you use member information for advertising or marketing, even general statistics of members as a whole, you need to make sure they can access policy information about that. One of the first things you should do when you create a new forum is create a privacy policy which tells members what information is collected from them and how it is used, in full detail. This way, there is a policy present! If they later come back and attempt to sue you, you can show your lawyer or the courts that a policy existed explaining to a member how their information is used and that it was their choice to join the forum and no one forced them to do so. So consider highly about making a privacy policy if you do not have one now, and make sure all members read it before continuing on the site. It might be that one thing that would keep you from having to pay someone a lot of money or even be forced to close your forum down for good.
Children
Why do you prohibit kids under 13 from joining your forum? This is a common question on some forums because they disallow children under the age of 13 years old to join their forums. They do this to comply with COPPA which is the United States Children Online Privacy Protection Act. Children who are under 13 years of age need to have official permission from their parents to join and use your forum. Most forum software comes with features where you can enable permission slips and other tools to enable children under 13 to join but there are even more issues to worry about.
Once you allow children under 13 to join, you have to make sure that you forum is presentable for children under 13. That means no sexual or adult content (including violence) what so ever. You will not be able to use a lot of user information for advertising purposes to protect the children and profanity is completely out of the question. Don't believe me? Search justice databases and see for yourself how serious most countries are on protecting children on the internet.
Disclaimers
Some forums out there are in the niche of offering advice for big issues such as medical advice, suicide and depression help, fitness and even legal advice. Unless the forum is ran by a doctor, psychiatrist, personal fitness coach or lawyer, there needs to be a disclaimer present explaining that the forum should not be an official venue for advice given. The forum is just people helping other people and if concerns are too demanding, then people should go to their doctors, lawyers and etc. for official information.
If you avoid putting up a disclaimer and run a medical forum and a member asks how they can disinfect a cut on their leg. You give them advice but the advice turns out to be wrong and their cut becomes infected and they lose their leg, they can attempt a lawsuit against you for that. Now wouldn't you feel better knowing that you had an official disclaimer up saying that the information provided on the forum is not certified and should be used at someone's own risk? Think about it!
Third-Party Content
Have you ever got a DMCA notification warning in email or even snail mail? What about your host, have they ever got one because of content on your site? They are quite scary to get sometimes especially when they are sent from an actual lawyer! The reason they are usually sent is because of a copyright, trademark or trade secrets have been infringed and/or violated on your forum.
If you allow members to post photos, some videos and even articles on your forum without requiring them to provide a source, you are open to a lawsuit. A few years ago, Associated Press was suing quite a few different forums due to the forums users posting AP articles in full without providing a source in return.
Did you know that some article providers don't even allow full articles to be posted on third-party websites? Why? Because they create the articles to sell to news agencies and other parties and you are basically taking their article without purchasing it first. It is completely fair for them to be so firm with those forums. Be careful of what you allow on your forum because it might come back and bite you from behind when you least expect it.
Thanks for reading and please feel free to comment and give more ideas on avoiding legal problems. 🙂
We, well most of us, make sure to drive the speed limit, watch for other drivers around us and be patient on the road to avoid accidents that lead to lawsuits or citations for traffic violations from law enforcement agency's. Legal problems are not easy problems to deal with and it's only human to attempt to avoid them at all costs.
Legal problems cost us money, energy, possibly members, time and sometimes even our lives if the problems relates to criminal legal problems. We face legal problems in our lives every day, business owners face legal problems in their places of work and even forum owner face legal problems. Now this advice is based on supported research that has been done. If at any time, you feel a need for further advice, you should consider consulting with an actual attorney for more information on protecting your forum operations and yourself from legal problems. Again, I am not a lawyer, this is just based on research.
Policies
You would be surprised how far a simple policy will keep you away from legal problems. Facebook, Google and Twitter are often sued over privacy issues. A lot of those issues are because they are not explaining to their user base about how their information in used in instances such as advertising and marketing. This is a reality that forum owners could face just the same.
If you use member information for advertising or marketing, even general statistics of members as a whole, you need to make sure they can access policy information about that. One of the first things you should do when you create a new forum is create a privacy policy which tells members what information is collected from them and how it is used, in full detail. This way, there is a policy present! If they later come back and attempt to sue you, you can show your lawyer or the courts that a policy existed explaining to a member how their information is used and that it was their choice to join the forum and no one forced them to do so. So consider highly about making a privacy policy if you do not have one now, and make sure all members read it before continuing on the site. It might be that one thing that would keep you from having to pay someone a lot of money or even be forced to close your forum down for good.
Children
Why do you prohibit kids under 13 from joining your forum? This is a common question on some forums because they disallow children under the age of 13 years old to join their forums. They do this to comply with COPPA which is the United States Children Online Privacy Protection Act. Children who are under 13 years of age need to have official permission from their parents to join and use your forum. Most forum software comes with features where you can enable permission slips and other tools to enable children under 13 to join but there are even more issues to worry about.
Once you allow children under 13 to join, you have to make sure that you forum is presentable for children under 13. That means no sexual or adult content (including violence) what so ever. You will not be able to use a lot of user information for advertising purposes to protect the children and profanity is completely out of the question. Don't believe me? Search justice databases and see for yourself how serious most countries are on protecting children on the internet.
Disclaimers
Some forums out there are in the niche of offering advice for big issues such as medical advice, suicide and depression help, fitness and even legal advice. Unless the forum is ran by a doctor, psychiatrist, personal fitness coach or lawyer, there needs to be a disclaimer present explaining that the forum should not be an official venue for advice given. The forum is just people helping other people and if concerns are too demanding, then people should go to their doctors, lawyers and etc. for official information.
If you avoid putting up a disclaimer and run a medical forum and a member asks how they can disinfect a cut on their leg. You give them advice but the advice turns out to be wrong and their cut becomes infected and they lose their leg, they can attempt a lawsuit against you for that. Now wouldn't you feel better knowing that you had an official disclaimer up saying that the information provided on the forum is not certified and should be used at someone's own risk? Think about it!
Third-Party Content
Have you ever got a DMCA notification warning in email or even snail mail? What about your host, have they ever got one because of content on your site? They are quite scary to get sometimes especially when they are sent from an actual lawyer! The reason they are usually sent is because of a copyright, trademark or trade secrets have been infringed and/or violated on your forum.
If you allow members to post photos, some videos and even articles on your forum without requiring them to provide a source, you are open to a lawsuit. A few years ago, Associated Press was suing quite a few different forums due to the forums users posting AP articles in full without providing a source in return.
Did you know that some article providers don't even allow full articles to be posted on third-party websites? Why? Because they create the articles to sell to news agencies and other parties and you are basically taking their article without purchasing it first. It is completely fair for them to be so firm with those forums. Be careful of what you allow on your forum because it might come back and bite you from behind when you least expect it.
Thanks for reading and please feel free to comment and give more ideas on avoiding legal problems. 🙂
