Under United Kingdom (English and Scottish) law, websites are subject
to the same laws as anything else.
Obscene publication: In the case of R v Graham Waddon, which was
before the Southwark Crown Court in London, Judge Christopher Hardy
held that an act of publication took place when the data was
transmitted by the defendant to the Internet service provider, and
that the publication or transmission was, in effect, still taking
place when the data was received by someone accessing the relevant
websites. Both the sending and receiving took place within the
jurisdiction of the court and it was irrelevant that the transmission
may have left the jurisdiction in between the sending and receiving.
The decision in Waddon does not come as any real surprise. Hopefully
however it puts an end to the often quoted contention that someone in
the UK who establishes a pornographic site which is held on a server
in, for example the US or the Netherlands, but which is still
accessible by UK is thereby immune from prosecution in this country.
The prosecution was brought under the Obscene Publications Act 1959
(OPA), which is the principal piece of legislation regulating
obscenity in the UK. The Act makes it an offence (punishable with up
to 3 years imprisonment or an unlimited fine or both) to publish an
obscene article or to have an obscene article for publication for
gain. The OPA has been amended by the Criminal Justice and Public
Order Act 1994 so that publication is now clarified to include the
transmission of electronically stored data which, on resolution into
user viewable form, is obscene. The effect of the amendment is to
render liable not only the sender of obscene material but also the
organisation providing facilities which allow access to the Internet.
(Summarised from www.hamiltons-solicitors.co.uk , who specialise in
Internet law, and other reports of this case).
If you believe a person in the United Kingdom is operating an illegal
pornographic website (note that not all forms of pornography are
necessarily illegal) you should contact the police force in that
person's area. Police forces can be looked up at www.police.uk
Fraud: Transactions on the Internet are protected by the same consumer
protection legislation as applies to other transactions. This is
enforced by the Trading Standards department of the local council in
that persons area, and can be looked up at www.tradingstandards.gov.uk
Money earning: Pyramid selling, multi-level marketing, and similar
money-making schemes are quite strongly regulated in the UK. The
primary contact here again is Trading Standards.
You can locate the registrant for a UK .co.uk, .ltd.uk, .me.uk,
.net.uk, .org.uk or plc.uk website at www.nominet.org.uk
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