Hi Folks,
A little more on the lega postion of hosts if their users do naughty things....
There is a useful paper here: http://pcmlp.socleg.ox.ac.uk/sites/pcmlp.socleg.ox.ac.uk/files/liberty.pdf
Hosts in Europe seem to get some protection - although not as much as they get in the USA. I have no idea whether English law overides Eurpean law, though. English law is quite damning on ISPs - as past case law seems to regard an ISP as a publisher, even if they are only blindly storing and forwarding material from elswhere. See http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~rnc1/Judge_and_Jury.html and http://www.nominet.com/disputes/caselaw/index/godfrey/
The main problem areas seem to be related to the UK libel laws, copyright infringement, and "illegal" images. However, it seems that there is some protection for hosts if they don't select who is using the site, and they don't actively monitor data. Once notified of possible dodgy data, though, then the host is obliged to look at it and do something about it. In the UK, due to the outcome of the infamouse Godfrey vs Demon case (see above), hosts have usually deleted content at the slightest sniff of trouble - even if the content was legal.
I guess if a server was encrypted to a level where admins can't read any of the traffic - and the users were not "selected" by the host organisation, then the admins could be protected to some extent. But - if a complaint was received - then the only option might be to instantly "suspend" a user's account, as there wouldn't even be an option to look at the content passing through the system. Unfortunately, the act of allowing users to push encrypted material through the server might be construed under law as complicity - ie. deliberately setting up a system that could be used for nefarious purposes.
Any comments? Whose going to the MFS xmas do at MadLab tomorrow?
David