Customer feedback gathering in Australia Is it legal to provide an independent platform/system to the public, so that they can write feedback directly on different companies/products in the market? Example: Is it legal for company ABC to make a public bulletin board about BMW and invite all people to write their feedback/comments?
On the face of it there is nothing illegal about your proposal, however, "Australia maintains some of the most restrictive Internet policies of any Western country". In addition, a suit can be brought under Australian law for any material accessible in Australia irrespective of the original source or where it is hosted. Offensive Content The Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) is empowered to look into complaints from Australians about prohibited content on the Internet and issue takedown notices. The ACMA is not mandated to scour the Internet for potentially prohibited content, but it is allowed to begin investigations without an outside complaint. Prohibited content is content that which would attract an R18, X18 or RC by the Australian Classification Board. Note that this is more restrictive than what is allowed for offline publication; offline publications can be R18 and X18. Once the determination has been made that content hosted within Australia is prohibited, the ACMA issues a takedown notice to the Internet content provider (ICP). It is not illegal for the ICP to host prohibited content, but legal action could be taken against it by the government if it does not comply with the takedown notice. For offensive content hosted outside of Australia, the ACMA itself determines whether content is prohibited and notifies a list of certified Web-filter manufacturers to include the prohibited Web sites in their filters. Australian Internet Service Providers (ISP) are required to make these filters available to their customers but their use is not mandatory. Your type of site is unlikely to fall foul of this but it could happen, particularly if you allow images or video uploads. You would need to be able to respond quickly to any take down notice. Hate Speech Australia addresses hate speech through the Racial Discrimination Act 1975, which makes it "unlawful for a person to do an act, otherwise than in private, if: the act is reasonably likely, in all the circumstances, to offend, insult, humiliate or intimidate another person or a group of people; and the act is done because of the race, colour or national or ethnic origin of the other person, or of some or all of the people in the group." The Federal Court has ruled that publication on the Internet without password protection is a "public act" and hate speech on your website could fall foul of this provision. ACMA does not have the statutory authority to deal with hate speech complaints so the only avenue is through the courts, however, ACMA will pass on complaints to the ICP. This area is much more likely to be an issue for your site - it is easy to see a complaint about a product with a distinctive national origin descending into hate speech as defined. Copyright As a publisher, you could be held liable for the uploading of copyright infringing materials by others. Defamation This is probably where your greatest risk lies. For a defamation action to be successful, it must be established that the communication: was published to a third person, i.e. to at least one person other than the plaintiff (person/entity defamed). Putting it on the internet does this. identifies the plaintiff, for example, by name or by a reference to a small group of people, etc. Identifying the person as, say BMW, does this. contains a defamatory statement or imputation (whether intentionally published or not). Very generally speaking, material that could be found to be defamatory includes that which has the tendency to lower the person in the estimation of others, or that would tend to result in the person being shunned or avoided or that is likely to expose the person to hatred, contempt or ridicule; say a criticism about a car the person makes. In theory, any individual or entity who considers damage to their reputation has or is likely to occur, as a result of material published, may sue the publisher/s of the material. In practice, the laws are inaccessible to ordinary individuals who are defamed due to the exorbitant legal costs involved in bringing a defamation action. Australia's defamation laws are often used by politicians and corporations who consider the media, individuals or community groups have defamed them in publishing information critical of their activities. Defamation action may be brought, not only against the original publisher (writer/speaker), but also against anyone who takes part in the publication or re-publication of the material. However, the fact that a person can be sued does not necessarily mean they would be found liable by a court. There are numerous aspects relevant to liability. Defences that may be successfully pleaded in relation to a defamation action vary throughout Australian jurisdictions. Depending on the jurisdiction, these may include: truth/justification fair comment (e.g. an expression of an honestly held opinion or a criticism on a subject matter of public interest) absolute privilege (this attaches to the occasion, not the statement or speaker, such as during parliamentary proceedings, judicial and quasi-judicial proceedings, executive communications and communications between spouses) qualified privilege (e.g. fair and accurate reports of parliamentary proceedings, judicial proceedings, public meetings concerning matters of public interest/concern) consent (e.g. where the plaintiff expressly or impliedly consented to the publication of the particular imputation) triviality (e.g. where the circumstances/occasion of the publication were trivial to the extent that the person defamed was not likely to suffer harm) innocent dissemination (e.g. applicable to re-publishers/re-distributors such as newsagents/book sellers, including potentially to ISPs/ICHs. The defence in Clause 91 of the BSA is also relevant to ISPs/ICHs.) etc The Broadcasting Services Act (C'wlth) ("the BSA") provides a statutory defence to an ISP/ICH who carries/hosts Internet content in Australia and who was not aware that they were carrying/hosting a defamatory publication. You need to have good procedures in place to remove defamatory content ASAP after you become aware of it. Defamation action under Australian law may be commenced in any State or Territory in which the allegedly defamatory material was published. The Australian High Court has ruled that a party within Australia can sue a foreign party in an Australian court for defamation resulting from an online article hosted on a foreign server.
Wave Broadband is a private company; they can probably decide to not provide service to an address that is in arrears or collections. I'm sure there is a clause in their service contract that states they can do that, and there would be local or state laws to support that. Whatever public service commission governs the state may also allow that. It's possible that Wave is breaking the law by denying service to a whole address, but doubtful. You can check with the state level public service commission.
You should probably get a lawyer, but my reading is this: The company whose SDK you use owns their SDK, owns their code, and is free to take any of your ideas how to improve their code without paying you. But they say that ideas are ten a penny, so this is mostly there to prevent pointless lawsuits. On the other hand, it says that everything you do with your product is yours. I might be completely wrong, that's why you should get a lawyer.
If the Kenya legislature passes such a law, they can impose such a requirement on Kenyans who want to create such social media groups. Note that this is a license from the Kenyan government, not a copyright or trademark license. In effect, it is a tax on running a social media group, along with various regulations. I have no idea if this bill is at all likely to pass. If it does pass, it might be hard to enforce, as it would probably require cooperation from Facebook and other social media platforms, and the companies which run those platforms are not located in Kenya, and might not cooperate.
I think haveibeenpwned would be legal in the EU because it carries out a task in the public interest (Art. 6(1)(e)), and it shares no more data then necessary, for example you can search for a password, but it would not show you the emailaddress which belongs to that password. It would also be legal for you to hold a copy of a leaked database, but only if you have a legitimate interest (Art. 6(1)(f)) to have it. Being a security company does not change that, but finding a legitimate interest might be easier. If you have a legitimate interest to hold a copy of a leaked database, it does not mean you can use it in any way you like. For example testing if the password still works, is very likely illegal everywhere in the EU. But I'm not familiar with the UK laws.
The Facebook forum doesn't prevent a contract from being formed. But, for a contract to be formed there must be an affirmative agreement, not silence (at least in cases that aren't between merchants). If they later decide to work together without reaching an agreement on the details, the draft contact could be considered, but the Facebook forum for its delivery and that fact that it wasn't expressly assented to might reduce its weight as part of the evidence in an attempt to determine what the terms of their oral or implied agreement to work together involved. It would be very unusual for a broker not to get a signed agreement in writing to pay his fees, although an oral or unsigned agreement to pay a broker is not necessarily barred by a statute of frauds. A finder of fact would be quite skeptical of a broker's claim to have an agreement in those circumstances and often the professional regulatory provisions related to brokerages would require that fee agreement must be signed and in writing even if contract law does not require that this be done.
The question reads: I see an NDA as a pseudo-public document, something you need to read in detail before you acknowledge and opt-in to limit rights (discussion of topic/tech). Unfortunately for this view, the law normally sees an NDA as a private contract, except when it is alleged that it violates public policy. If an NDA explicitly or implicitly includes itself in the list of things not to be disclosed, then posting it would be a violation of the contract. In such a case the party posting the agreement would be subject to whatever consequence the agreement specifies for violation, unless that person had a valid defense. The operator of a web site where the document might be posted would not normally ne a party to the agreement, and so would not be liable for hosting it, unless some other limitation applies, beyond the NDA itself. An NDA can indeed be a significant limitation on the signer's freedom to discuss certain topics, and a person would be wise to consider it in detail, and perhaps consult a lawyer, before signing one. But that does not mean that the person should post or distribute it publicly, nor that the person is automatically entitled to consult NDAs that others have signed. There are sufficient sample NDA forms available that a person can compare an offered NDA with other possibilities, and get an idea if an offered NDA goes beyond the usual terms.
This seems to be a mix of question about law and a meta-question about this site, but I'll treat it as an on-topic question about law. The author of a question, or answer, owns the copyright to their contributions, and they can re-publish to their heart's content. Any user who posts here grants a license to SE and other users to use content posted here, so I don't have to ask you permission to quote you. As part of the permission granted by SE to use this website, you have agreed to &quot;follow the rules&quot; set by SE. There are many rules, some spelled out more clearly that others. For example, if you post a question, you indirectly agreed that your content can be upvoted or down-voted. Certain content can be &quot;closed&quot; and deleted, when the content is deemed to violate the rules in particular ways (is spam, porn, abuse, or judged to be poor-quality). Judgment (on different matters) can be rendered by community managers, moderators, or other users. The agreement is here, see especially here. If we take the post that you linked to, it is quite possible that it was deleted because it is not a general legal question, in violation of the acceptable use policy. If you want a historical analysis of your particular case, it should be asked on Law Meta.