[Wikipedia-l] Creating an account and legal stuff

Thu Mar 23 19:48:10 UTC 2006

Matt Brown wrote:

>On 3/22/06, James D. Forrester <james at jdforrester.org> wrote:
>  
>
>>In the UK (EU?), it would be required upon us (the Foundation) to
>>require users (even anons) to explicitly accept the privacy implications
>>of their actions, and this is almost (?) always carried out with a
>>non-automatically set selection box on registration. Not sure if there's
>>any case law either way, but if there is and it is the only possible
>>way, then running a MediaWiki installation with anon editing, or user
>>editing without such a selection box or "I agree" button may well fall
>>foul of Data Protection legislation.
>>    
>>
>In the US, where our servers are located, there is no such law, I believe.
>
>Indeed, we have no hard and fast privacy policy for Wikipedia editors
>and admins to follow.  The policy we have is for the foundation and
>the software, not the users.  I suspect also the Foundation is very
>unkeen to do anything that implies a binding relationship between it
>and the users/admins.
>
Perhaps a Wikimedians' Bill of Rights would be a good idea.  The 
fundamental rights in a multinational community should not be merely a 
function of the rights provided by the law of any single country.  
Obviously, as laws currently stand, we ignore them at our peril.  But a 
proactive approach transcends any too specific legal framework.

Ec