New Owner of Acorn Domains

[Adam H]

General Terms of service , legal and Rules are found here: http://www.acorndomains.co.uk/faq.php

I havent read through them but thats generally where you will find the info you need providing Alan went to the trouble to outline such instances or whether whats been outlined will cover it.

Either way, trust you invincible to stir the pot..:ds

 

[philiporchard]

Thanks Alan for all your hard work over the years. I owe a lot to Acorn, especially in the early days. Made lots of good connections. All the best for the future.

 

[sdsinc]

Thanks Alan.
Welcome Steve.

 

[RobM]

The data was obtained by Alan as the founder of the forum so I cannot see why it wasn't originally his responsibility to determine whether he was exempt from the DPA or not and to detail to forum members how their data would be used. There are references in the forum T&C's to the laws of England & Wales.

If he should have been subject to DPA and customers didn't consent to the sale of the data in T&C's, as far as I can establish, explicit consent would need obtaining from every single member or all their data deleted. No reply from a member would not constitute granting of permission.

It would have seemed normal and polite if Alan had given forewarning to the membership of the imminent sale of the forum to another party rather than just disappearing one day and someone purportedly named Steve who most members aren't even aware of announcing he is now the new owner and admin. That would have given some forewarning and those members reading the announcement the option to consent or alternatively delete some part or all of their data as they wished.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

Can tell you work for nominet now. Already looking to make things unnecessarily bureaucratic and complicated Welcome Steve.

 

[PoshTiger]

The data was obtained by Alan as the founder of the forum so I cannot see why it wasn't originally his responsibility to determine whether he was exempt from the DPA or not and to detail to forum members how their data would be used. There are references in the forum T&C's to the laws of England & Wales.

If he should have been subject to DPA and customers didn't consent to the sale of the data in T&C's, as far as I can establish, explicit consent would need obtaining from every single member or all their data deleted. No reply from a member would not constitute granting of permission.

It would have seemed normal and polite if Alan had given forewarning to the membership of the imminent sale of the forum to another party rather than just disappearing one day and someone purportedly named Steve who most members aren't even aware of announcing he is now the new owner and admin. That would have given some forewarning and those members reading the announcement the option to consent or alternatively delete some part or all of their data as they wished.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

Steve - meet Invincible...

 

[gimpydog]

I'm suggesting that I believe Alan may not have had member permission to sell their data, unless anyone can suggest why he shouldn't have required it?

Do you thimk EE will ask the permission of every one of their millions of customers before they sell their customers' data to BT?

I suspect you have a choice - accept the new owner, or terminate your contract with them & ask for your data to be deleted.

Anyone would think you had something to hide :roll:

 

[Adam H]

I have something like this in my T&C's on communities which need them.

The user (You) agrees as a condition of registering at the www.WEBSITE.com to be truthful in regard to all information given during the registration process, to use the site as per the guidelines, not to disclose his password to others for use, and that the site has a license (permission) for use of anything the user submits or posts to the site. The user (You) also agree to the following site rules stated below.

By displaying or publishing ("posting") any content on or through the community forum or submitting a Guest Article for publication, you hereby grant to the company royalty-free, perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, non-exclusive right and license to use, reproduce, modify, adapt, publish, translate, create derivative works from, distribute, perform, and display all content, remarks, suggestions, ideas, graphics, or other information submitted, to the site owner through this site and to incorporate any submission in other works in any form, media, or technology now known or later developed. Our WEBSITE.com will not be required to treat any submission as confidential, and may use any submission in its business (including without limitation, for products or advertising) without incurring any liability for royalties or any other consideration of any kind, and will not incur any liability as a result of any similarities that may appear in future company operations."

Termination of membership

As the above paragraph could be misunderstood, Should you decide you no longer wish to be a member it is important you understand your posts, threads and IP data will not be removed, deleting all posts made by a member - especially if the member has a substantial post count will causes threads to become disjointed and illogical and diminishes the Board experience for everyone. The IP data is retained to protect the community from repeat sign ups and trouble makers. We will however agree to change your username, avatar and remove your account email upon request.

Which combined with the other Legal terms, privacy policy and Terms of service should effectively cover for such eventualities as with most forums when you sign up, you agree that the forum is then the holder of your content . So as a forum member that would leave "data" pretty scetchy..........probably an email address, location and maybe name mentioned..........at a stretch private messages although they could be said to be "articles" to if someone were to be difficult.

Im sure any admin like (Alan has been doing) isnt going to mind "retiring" members removing their username, email and private messages ( easily done with a couple of queries )

The trouble with Acorn and why it needs updating is that it has no real Terms of service or privacy policy so it falls foul of quite a few protections that a forum should have. Even terms updated last week before the sale would be been enough if the original terms had such terminology as "terms subject to change with out notice"

 

[Retired_member41]

I thought that the DPA was there to protect identifiable people? As acorn members are wholly unidentifiable with regards to the record keeping and recording the forum does, it does not have to conform with the DPA surely?

 

[Retired_member41]

Names used, email addresses, telephone numbers etc are all personal information. They can be linked to identifiable people.


(from iPhone)

I agree a full name and a telephone number would cause someone to be identifiable, but a user name and email is not.

http://www.acorndomains.co.uk/profile.php?do=editprofile

The information on peoples profiles is surely not enough?

 

[Retired_member41]

Why isn't an email address personal information in your opinion? Mine identifies who I am and can be linked to all sorts of other data someone might also acquire.


(from iPhone)

It has to be combined with a name, as acorn does not collect a name or telephone number it does not have to comply with the DPA with regards to being a data controller.

 

[Adam H]

Acorn Domains forum has been in dire need of direction and development for many year, perhaps half a decade. Ultimately it didn't happen under the original leadership and now that has appeared to have changed. I support that and feel it should have happened a long time ago.

What I don't believe it is possible to do is simply change some T&C's to permit personal data to be sold and then presume that permission has been granted by all members. It's easy to require members that continue to use the site to agree to a change in T&C's but all those that don't login or consent to the changes (i.e. they ignore all correspondence) cannot be assumed to have granted permission for their personal data to be sold. If it hasn't been granted prior and it is explicitly granted after a change in T&C's, personal data which includes email addresses and anything else considered personal shouldn't be sold.

How does one expect reputable people to recommend a web site that doesn't adhere to this? If Nominet or any UK registrar got it wrong many of its registrants would be up in arms, me included!

https://ico.org.uk/media/for-organi...networking-and-online-forums-dpa-guidance.pdf specially deals with forums like this one.



(from iPhone)

Thanks for that link, looks like an interesting bedtime read. I suppose a "reasonable" process would be to send out a mass mail ( once ) to the current member base outlining the change of ownership which members need to agree/opt-in to new terms etc. Record bounced mails and sort into a different user group ( easily done ) which would define accounts that are either invalid information ( email ) or deactivated accounts beyond retrieval by the member which can be dealt with removing identifiable information with out disjointing the forum.

Those that do still have active emails/accounts would need to login and agree to the terms before being able to see the forum contents.

The remaining that do not login and are considered inactive can also be moved into a separate group which can be marked inactive/non-marketable, those with Zero posts that have not logged in for 6 months can be removed completely ( which should be done to prune the membership anyway )

There is plenty that can be done to organise and tidy up user accounts to show "reasonable steps" of responsibilities to up hold and maintain user data.

I dont think the site being sold to a new entity is an issue in any case providing there is a clear path of acceptance and control of current data and new terms are agreed. Ive brought and sold quite a few forums over the years accounting for the best part of 3 million members and have yet to be called out by a member quoting the DPA lol......... I do however normally have the original owners post my T&C's a reasonable amount of time before announcing/completing a sale......guess that could be defining...or im just lucky not to have come across an "invincible"

Flip side to a formal Mass mail so its not all doom and gloom for Steve is it will also tell old members that Acorn is still around so works well for all parties .

 

[Adam H]

It has to be combined with a name, as acorn does not collect a name or telephone number it does not have to comply with the DPA with regards to being a data controller.

Grab half a dozon emails from members of this forum and paste each one in to google, id put money down that 50% at least would link to someone or give clues to more information which can be used to find that person.

Email address alone you can find shed loads of information on people with the right searches.

 

[websaway]

Do you really care, or are you just trying to be awkward?

I'd be interested to know whether you knew the previous owner prior to registering with your email address. If not, then you consented to an unknown entity having these contact details and I'm not quite sure what your beef is here.

As far as I can see, the old owners name is not published anywhere on this site - I certainly did not know it.

Give this new guy a break. If you are that concerned, I'm sure he would be happy to delete your account.

I tend to agree with this, it's not in the interests of the forum to get bogged down around this issue.
What is to be gained ?

 

[nick-harper]

All of this Alan and Steve reminds me of this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XgvR3y5JCXg

 

[ian]

It isn't about giving anyone "a break" and it's not about me.

So what relevance does paying 50% of the license have then if it isn't about you? Not sure why you are so concerned by this David, after all, your profile data (location) isn't exactly accurate is it?

(good to have the old "dig your nails in" invincible back)

 

[Adam H]

Few forum owners even read their own T&Cs, let alone plan for an exit strategy. Do you specifically state that data held may be sold? If you don't then there is no consent given to data being sold and that would include as part of a business sale.

Its mentioned in that the site/files/database/domain ( its contents ) maybe sold to another individual or company at a later date as a package but its not mentioned that the data would be sold alone for example in the form of a mailing list. ( as that isnt the revenue model )

This was mostly because my purchases say 5 years ago, were purchased with the sole intention of buying with the insight to resell higher a year or two down the line.

Few forum owners plan an exit strategy because they want to get rid and get out, its the buyers responsibility to ensure smooth transition and to cover for as many eventualities as possible where an "invisible" may arise ( there are plenty of them ), when your spending significant amounts of money have done so a number of times its not uncommon to refine that practice. Your never going to please everyone with any kind of change.

I agree next to no one reads them, im 100% certain ive NEVER read another sites T&C's in my life but that doesnt mean they shouldnt be there, at the same time if i feel hard done by i simply don't use the site anymore.............I dont request the earth to be moved to satisfy my privacy by requesting an account deletion. By signing up im giving my consent to the site owner to do what they like with in reason with my posts, if they've really pissed me off then i might request my email address to be removed and the account to be Banned but thats it.

 

[Adam H]

The point is what you consider "reasonable terms of service" may or may not be in accordance with the law. And no need to roll your eyes.

Whether My T&C's have been sufficient over the past decade for each site isnt being questioned here, being flippant about my wording of "reasonable terms of service" doesnt mean a legal representative didnt write them.

Rolling the eyes is justified when someone is trying to pick holes in something they havent read. I was giving examples on invincible's comments in an attempt to help , I wasnt saying that this forum needs to follow suit nor was i saying for Steve shouldnt seek council on drawing up something official. :roll:

 

[Retired_member41]

Unless it's a forum where users in the main operate under their own or business names it does not need to be ico registered.

Forums like webmasterworld where they use their business names as members do have to be under the law.

Collecting data to allow people access to a forum and for password retrieval does not require ico and is exempt from dpa.

 

[humble pie]

I've got to be honest with you I think its all a bit disappointing really - the last time I felt like this was when I was dumped by my girlfriend .

Alan put in a lot of hard work running this forum and I really appreciate it, nevertheless this forum would be nothing without quite a few notable members (and characters) who've posted considerable content over the years - everyone from Norville to Rob to Edwin to Monkey etc, what am I saying..? ..that maybe some of us wanted a wave goodbye with a white and red polka dot hanky I guess..

Without wishing to sound morose, now this has happened I get that: we're all about to leave school after our gcse's and its that end of era feeling: 'its been a good ride, I've made some friends but where are things going next'. Hopefully Steve can keep it altogether, a tricky task.

I believe for one this forum should remain laser focused on .co.uk / .UK only, to deviate would end up diminishing what it set out to be. Although times have changed in the domain world *.uk is still very strong.

There is nothing in the desert and no man needs nothing..

 

[diablo]

Whether My T&C's have been sufficient over the past decade for each site isnt being questioned here, being flippant about my wording of "reasonable terms of service" doesnt mean a legal representative didnt write them.

Rolling your eyes may make you think you are a cut above, but your posts suggest otherwise. I have read them so if that if your only justification for using it, there's no need to in future posts.

Your comments imply that what you do is good enough for you and therefore should be good enough for anyone. The law may beg to differ.

The key issue here is the sale of data as part of a forum sale. Not you, your own privacy needs, or your poor eyes.