It is great news that Linode are offering servers in Europe. I'm sure the new London location is ideal for many UK and Europe based users.

However, I have a word of caution for any bloggers who cover news issues or publish controversial material about living persons. The UK's libel laws are archaic, weighted very heavily in favour of the claimant, and cases are extremely costly - often ruinously so - to defend. Even if you are innocent.

Such are the risks that there have been cases in recent years when a mere letter from a libel lawyer has been enough to convince the web host to remove the offending website without warning to the site owner. There was even a case involving Russian entrepreneur Ivan Usmanov where an entire server was shut down - including all the innocent unrelated sites which were hosted on it.

The most recent example is Tiger Woods. He has won an injunction banning the British media from publishing information which is freely available in the US. If you put something up on your UK-hosted site that his lawyers don't like, you could be taken offline.

I'm not suggesting Linode would be so quick to fold, nor the company which owns the location. But anyone thinking of moving their sites to the London base should be aware of the libel laws which could affect them.

I am UK-based, but I have always used US-based hosts. You guys have the 1st Amendment, and are not subject to ancient laws designed to protect the reputations of the ruling classes.

That is not to say I could not be sued for libel. Locating the server in the US does not immunise you from the law. But it does mean that your site won't be taken offline by a provider afraid of incurring massive costs in a British court.

There is currently an active campaign for libel-law reform in the UK. You can find out more information about it there. There is also a petition which you might want to sign.

As I said, this stuff is probably of no concern to the vast majority of Linode users, who will be very happy to move their sites to London. But I just wanted to make people aware of this issue, in case they didn't know.

The US doesn't need the libel laws of the UK; it has the DMCA instead. Many ISPs will do instant take-down upon receipt of a DMCA request, without any investigation at all.

*sigh*

_________________
Rgds
Stephen
(Linux user since kernel version 0.11)

DMCA and libel reallly have nothing to do with each other, and anybody silly enough to use it as such would be quickly smacked down.

The original point is still pretty valid though, the London based services are subject to the UK/EU laws not the US laws which some may not realize or be aware of the differences.

It doesn't have to do anything with it, it's merely enough to send a fully anonymized DMCA takedown request and the provider will usually act on it without looking into if it's legit. As such, the DMCA can be used to get an article taken down without basis.

If you send repeated anonymized DMCA takedown requests against a specific person, rather than the provider start to ignore you, it's more likely that the provider will punish the recipient for being what they'd perceive to be a problem customer.

Not only did he get the injunction banning the publication of the information, I belive they also requested an injunction banning the reporting of the original injunction, a socalled "Super Injunction".

I am not sure if they received the second injunction, and the media disregarded it, or if the second injunction was denied.

Perhaps we need the option to host our Linodes in one of the less law bound countries.

No doubt it would be possible to host European Linodes in another EU country.

It's important to realize that while there is such a thing as the EU, laws vary wildly from EU country to EU country. E.g., my own country (Denmark) doesn't have libel laws that are as bad as the ones in the UK, and I haven't heard of other countries in the EU (apart from the UK) where libel laws are that bad.

As always, it's a good idea to check the laws of the country you move your servers to. Ireland recently enacted a blasphemy law that AFAIK makes it illegal to point out the obvious fact that there is no evidence whatsoever for the existence of any gods.

Can Linode get a data center in Afghanistan? I hear they are pretty liberal on certain laws over there.

It's not that I am doing something illegal, on the contrary I'd say that I am really careful not to break some law but it is true that having server abroad makes me really comfortable. If something goes wrong in there I can just wave to authorities over Atlantic.

Having server in UK (i.e. EU) means that I would be subject to so called "European Arrest Warrant" and that's not something I want to ever hear about.

So although I'd like to migrate to UK (110 ms agains 35 ms) I've got to think about it really carefully.

The law isn't that simple, and the location of your server is not really that large a factor.

If your content is visible in the UK and someone reads it there then the UK's stupid libel laws mean you can be sued there (not quite that simple, but close enough first approximation).

Contrariwise, if your activities are perfectly legal in the UK (and your servers hosted there) but illegal in the US then you may be arrested if you ever enter the US (even if it's just for a transfer to another country, and your flight has a stop-off in the US). See, for example, the case of a UK citizen running a UK online gambling company arrested in New York because of a Louisiana arrest warrant ( "Taking bets on a foreign server, and then visiting the U.S." section of http://vegasclick.com/online/legal.html)

And for non-internet activities, of course, there's the Roman Polanski case (he was arrested in Switzerland because of a US arrest warrant).

So whilst your content may have different protections, depending on what country its in, you personally are still liable. If you never leave your birth country then you might feel free to ignore rulings against you elsewhere

_________________
Rgds

Stephen

(Linux user since kernel version 0.11)