Privacy Issues

What are your privacy-related guidelines on your forum? Do you allow members to post sensitive information such as their address or telephone number?

 

It is up to members if they want to post than information. We can only suggest they do not.

 

While I'll allow them to do so, I always recommend not doing so - it can be done, but at their discretion.

 

If it's a business post (and the member isn't spamming) I'll allow it, but when people put up personal information I edit it out. This is because not everyone on the forum is Internet-savvy, and some don't realize the implications of putting personal information online. Also, you don't know if the person posting is really the same person the information is about; it could be someone else entirely.

 

This is a big NO. If anything happens and if they do post their information, the ones they will blame is me, regardless if we had something to do with it or not.

 

We disallow all forms of address posting upon our forums, we request this information to be passed on through the PM system at their own risk.

 

If its a business, I do not care what they do. And for the most part, my forum members are adults and are fully aware of the dangers of posting their information. But if they decide to do it anyway, I may or may not edit the post.

Parts of my forum are private to where only members have access - such as the social groups. If someone post their information in the social group, I know that only other member can see it.

If someone under the age of 18 post information, yes I will remove it and probably send them a firm warning not to do it again.

 

It's their choice. I advise against it and tell them to do it through PM but ultimately it's their choice.

 

Nope, the forum is public view. I don't allow it, I don't warn or infract. My members know better than to post their private info on the web in plain view.

 

What if you had a scenario like the one I mentioned where someone posted someone else's personal information? And it led to them being put in danger, and then your forum was found to be the source?

 

Their own if they want to. Not anyone else's, unless they have permission for some reason.

They can't pass on personal info about others ... "she's not around because she had a baby" ... "they moved last month" ... unless the person it is about gave permission. We take their word for the permission. Not everyone wants their business on the street.

They can say anything via PM. We won't know unless someone says something.

 

I assume you mean one member posting another members personal information?

If someone went and posted someone else's information and I knew it was someone else's info then I would delete it.

If they post their own info though it's really not my problem. Everyone knows forums are public and if they're stupid enough to post their own info it's their fault if something happens. I can't be held responsible for what happens when they post something stupid and there'd be no way a court would side with them and find me responsible if it went to court.

 

That is up to them.

If they were putting up someone else's personal information without permission that would be dealt with swiftly. That is not good.

 

Exactly - doing something like that is absolutely not acceptable.

When it comes to such a scenario, the real "issue" at hand is determining if the personal data posted truly belongs to the original poster. Sure - there are ways in which you can "double-check", but these methods can only take you so far.

Ironclad proof is crucial.

 

If they want to post their own address and phone number, that's fine with me. Most of our forums aren't spidered, so it won't show up on google. However, if they try to post someone else's address or phone number, we will remove it. We have a Bad Trader/Good Trader forum and people want to post Bad Traders addresses, but we always remove the street address part. Name is fine, and City/State/Country is fine, but no street address.

 

I prefer it to be done in private, if anything.

 

That includes e-mail addresses, I presume?

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One thing that always baffled me is the hesitation to post a friend's website URL. For example, on my forum sometimes people say, "Janie has some articles on her website. Let me e-mail her and see if she doesn't mind me posting her link."

 

That depends entirely on context. If someone tends to post that information freely then having someone else do that same thing would be fine.

If Jane Doe wants to keep her email private and her address is jane.doe@___.com then no.

For example I have the distinct impression that you would not mind if I posted a link to AA somewhere.

 

Hey, a lot of people are just casual Internet users who don't understand that links are the currency of the web.

 

i dont allow any member to post their email, home adress or phone number on the forum. if they do a mod will edit it out, but normally before then one of the other members will tell them to edit it out and only give this information out in pm's.

if a member posts someone elses personal information, the post will be deleted and they will get a warning.