Hi all I have been asked by someone about hosting a UK-based website, which will contain sensitive information (publicly available, but collected in this proposed site). The site will fall inside current law boundaries, as long as it involves publishing already public-domain information (about convicted criminals really) operating in the UK (ie newspaper stories, etc). The way my client proposes to do this is to: - ensure that all published information is linked back to its original source - ensure that all commenting facilities, etc are turned off - ensure that permission is received from all photograph-owners prior to republishing any photographs, etc - ensure that only the publicly-available information is republished (ie no further information, personal details, etc) He has asked me if it would be possible to host this site somewhere other than the UK, in order to ensure that, in the event of a law-suit (which is more than likely), the site will be difficult to switch off forcibly giving the court-case etc time to be settled, and ensuring minimal downtime. I've never been involved in a site of this 'sensitive nature' before, and whilst it would be a simnple site to setup, i'm not sure it's something I'd want to leave myself open to potential problems. 1) Anyone got any thoughts on the potential problems with hosting this abroad? 2) Anyone got any ideas where the best place to host might be? 3) Anyone got any other thoughts, regarding the best way to protect myself legally (and also the site-owner if possible, although once I set up the site, he'd be on his own)? This is a strange request, I know, but this person has already had problems with a page he setup on a Social Networking site, though it was just to open to abuse by other commenters etc. Note to mods.....I apologise in advance if this thread descends into any rule-breaking, and would urge you to remove any posts you deem unfit. Thanks.
You could take a look at NearlyFreeSpeech.net for hosting. For what you have posted, this will atleast have the hosting side of it protected to some extent. But again since it is a .co.uk domain if the government wants they can disable that domain.
So would he be better going for a .com or a .net etc? Thanks, I'll take a look at the one you suggested