Post Ownership

[Pereira]

Hypothetical question:

I am from Ireland (EU) and I post on a site hosted in the US, do I have any legal rights to get the posts removed?

 

[digitalpoint]

Hypothetical question:

I am from Ireland (EU) and I post on a site hosted in the US, do I have any legal rights to get the posts removed?

Assuming the site owner is based in the US (and not just hosted there)... No... and you probably don't have legal rights to have it removed even if you lived in the US if you were the one posting it. Some sites may remove it to be nice, but whether or not they are legally bound to do so is pretty grey area.

 

[Pereira]

Assuming the site owner is based in the US (and not just hosted there)... No... and you probably don't have legal rights to have it removed even if you lived in the US if you were the one posting it. Some sites may remove it to be nice, but whether or not they are legally bound to do so is pretty grey area.

Thanks for the reply!

However can someone in the EU not request for information on them to be removed? EU laws towards privacy are a lot different from what I understand than those of the US. I was wondering would those same protection acts have any legal effect under any treaty's?

 

[digitalpoint]

No idea... but generally, a EU law doesn't apply to the US (and vice versa). Even if there was some sort of "privacy" treaty, I'm not sure it would apply since it was you that posted whatever it was to begin with. If someone *else* posted your private information, then maybe... but YOU posting something you later claim to be private to you probably wouldn't hold up well.

 

[Anthony Parsons]

whether or not they are legally bound to do so is pretty grey area.

Yep... I think one could apply that to the entire web as a whole at this point. It all seems to be quite grey in legal contexts. It seems more something courts and countries are making up on a case by case basis as the web evolves.

 

[jadmperry]

Also, think about the practicalities. If someone wants to do something about their request to remove a post being ignored, they will have to take some legal action to try to compel removal. If this is a trans-national situation, this means they are going to have to get an attorney in a foreign country and pay the fee for that and then sue. The likelihood of that happening is very small. Unless the person has deep pockets, they likely will not pursue the issue.

The legalities will depend on way to many facts to really figure out based on a vague hypothetical (and if the facts were concrete, at the moment I don't have the time to discuss how this might play out).