I'm getting ready to offer exclusive private proxies (user authenticated) as a service. I know the proxies themselves should be legal, but of course anyone can use them for illegal purposes if that's what they choose to do. So in this respect I don't see how the legal culpability would be much different from that of a web host. If as a web host, one of your clients runs an illegal phishing site or something, then generally once the host is alerted of that fact, they simply shut down the abuser's site. Am I right that the legal questions and culpability would be similar if I were to offer private proxies? And if so, could someone point me to some type of boilerplate TOS that would basically say: "Use these at your own risk. We don't condone or allow any illegal activity etc., etc."? Thanks
You are correct in that you are not legally liable for what users do on your site, but you do have to cooperate with authorities if they want logs of your users activity or anything else like that. You should have a privacy policy and TOS that includes this, basically saying don't use our service for anything illegal, and if authorities have a proper subpoena etc. you will turn over information to them.
Yes it would be fairly similar, the biggest distinction is that you aren't actually hosting any content, just providing a gateway for users to access the internet.