HACKER Q&A
📣 theanonymousone

Am I responsible for activities others may do with service I provide?


Hi. For example, is Vercel "on the hook" if someone hosts illegal content using their free Vercel website? Probably not, as long as they obey the order to take it down, I guess.

But then how does that work, and how can I/some other nobody have that "protection" for a service that I provide and may be used for illegal stuff, e.g. file hosting, image enhancement, essentially anything allowing others to upload something!

Is it different between jurisdictions? Do I have to "register" somewhere, or I just need to provide some contact info?

Thanks

  👤 navjack27 Accepted Answer ✓
Just don't host anything. Keep everything in RAM and volatile. That is a big thing I look for in web services. If you can do a thing in the browser and keep it as local as possible to the user and have them or parts close to the edge of the user do the work for them then do that and don't store anything permanently. If you have to do things on your own server side then also don't store things for longer than you have to to complete whatever the operation is for the user. And advertise that and declare that to the user.