MyBB Community Forums

(2010-11-06, 03:28 AM)Tim B. Wrote: [ -> ]In order to increase compliance with the privacy laws in various countries which require personal data to be used for the specific purpose for which it was collected we will no longer allow forum databases to be advertised separate from the website they came from, the converse is also true in that we will not permit requests to buy databases seperatley.

On most forums the email address and often date of birth and gender are collected from users and these are all considered to be personal information that is protected under the privacy laws of numerous countries. In our opinion the practice of buying a database to integrate the user base into your own forum contravenes these laws because their personal information is being used for a website other than the one they consensually provided their information for.

This change will also help to reduce cases of one database being sold to multiple buyers which we believe is a fundamental misuse of user data.

Some of the legislation taken into account:
The data protection act of 1998 (UK)
The Data Protection Directive (EU)
Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (Canada)
The Privacy Act of 1988 (Australia)

If you have any questions regarding these changes please direct them to the Private Inquiries forum.