Sorry tony, but I\'ve got T\'s&C\'s which have been legalled for some of my clients including the BBC, Dyson and Kelloggs, the disclaimer protects them directly from any stement made by a thrid party. the finer points of the data protection act direct any litigation, to submission of facts from the sites owners and the legal requirement that any adminstrator or owner of any web site MUST keep a full record of every data connection and details of all data transfered in and out and from wherever for a period of 7 years.
In the case of litigation or at the request of the data protection registrar this information is to be given up to them
the onlycases I am aware of where a site owner has been pursued directly is where they failed to comply with the DPA, refused to give up information when a legal request had been made under the DPA, or had failed to register in the first (or a combination of any of the 3)
Been there and done all that, 7 years ago National Wind Power tried it on with me, claiming I was promoting defamatory staements had was guilty of dissemination of misinformation. I was/am registered with the DPA.
Duly I supplied the courts/DPR with server logs for the period in question, the courts were fully satisfied that I\'d covered my arse and directed that NWP need to direct litagation at any individual responsible, and critically, that they had to show \"just cause\" in order to bring such an action ie they had to demonstrate what damage had been done first
so that got rid of part one and there\'s is no legal grounding for their second claim, if there was every single mention that there has ever been on any forum anywhere could be claimed to be dissemination of misinformation. e.g, someone says that shop X is great, someone else goes there and gets a bum deal then the claim would stand of this and also one of misrepresantation.
the case was recorded in hansard, and I know for a fact that the bbc have told several potential ligants to go boil there heads in respect of comments made on their forums
ok, there may currently be a grey area in respect of the new \'incitement\' bill, as to what constitutes racial or religious hatred, If someone wanted to there\'s probably dozens of \'jokes\' in the barmaids bosom forum that fall foul
In the summing up of the case the judge likened a Bulletin Board to a public house bar. If 2 people at the bar say something defamatory does that make the landlord legally responsible/liable for those remarks.