2257 thoughts

Ian, I totally agree, I have been researching a whackload of boards for 2257 info and there are so many stupid posts its nice to have a discussion with people who are serious about this stuff.

Basschick, I think you are getting me wrong - this is not an offshore dodge. I am an Australian citizen and am just trying to figure this out from my point of view. My US-based activities include webhosting, dealing with US-based affiliate programs and my own (non-US) affiliate program that has US affiliates. This is why I was researching these topics in specific and came up with the idea of non-sexual banners. I am not telling people to try to set up an offshore to dodge this.

Ian, about your points, I think that since there are so many porn websites out there that the preliminary checks will be to verify domain name address info. Having an offshore address will get you past this first check. I think this is very important because these rules will not get fully defined until someone goes through the courts and precedence is set. I don't want to be in that first batch of people getting taken to court!

Second off, I believe you are incorrect in thinking that offshore companies will disclose info to the US government. Countries are offshore havens for the specific reason that their local laws put privacy above all else, they are known for not cooperating on information requests. These offshore companies are set up in a manner that does not have the true owner's information as public record, and private records are guaranteed private.

Now, all this being said, I am approaching this from a view that I will comply with the new 2257 regs, however, being in Australia, I am confident that US regulators will not visit to inspect my documents since they have no authority to do so plus they have no authority to take recourse.


cheers,
Luke

Ian, I just noticed that your location is set to Western Canada, so you and I are kinda in the same boat!

cheers,
Luke

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Originally posted by Chilihost
Countries are offshore havens for the specific reason that their local laws put privacy above all else, they are known for not cooperating on information requests

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Luke not sure you are 100% on this one babe.

From what i recall a couple of years ago some kind of 'treaty' (for want of a better word) was put into effect whereby many locales offshore agreed to disclose any information that certain governments may need from them.

In fact i beleive one of the major countries for offshore banking facilities, Switzerland, was one of the first to agree to this.

I could be wrong but i distinctly remember having a lengthy argument with someone on another board about this 2 or so years ago where it turned out i was right in my views lol

Of course this could have changed since then.

Regards,

Lee

Wow, so much happens when you are away for a couple of days.

I believe at this stage that as an Australian Webmaster the US laws will not apply - however I will still comply and have the required documents on file.

I do find interesting the point that the feds can just "drop-in" to check your records - I think this would be rather difficult in the case of Luke, myself and other non-US webmasters as they have to fly to wherever they want to go and then gain access to premises where they have no jurisdiction - hmmm interesting.

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From what i recall a couple of years ago some kind of 'treaty' (for want of a better word) was put into effect whereby many locales offshore agreed to disclose any information that certain governments may need from them.

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From what I remember there was talk recently of Australia negotiating treaties with Switzerland and some other countries to improve disclosure of information in order to prevent tax fraud - not sure where they are at now though.

I will be interested to see the outcomes of the latest lot of law changing and how this will affect other non-US webmasters.

Cheers,

Allan

ozmalegalleries - i don't think u.s. law enforcement will have to fly anywhere. they could simply contact your law enforcement and ask them to go to your location and check the i.d.s. if they have a really young model and express concern that she is underage, i think many governments may feel a quick i.d. check is in line.

That's true basschick but they can't ask for the model ID's or enforce anything if our country's laws don't require us to keep them.

As I said however I still intend to keep the id's anyway.

Cheers,

Allan

You better, I can't marry a jail bird :specs:

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Originally posted by ozmalegalleries
As I said however I still intend to keep the id's anyway.

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Lee, about offshore companies, I am going to step back and say that I do not know anything about them. I was only discussing offshore companies since Ian brought it up in his devil's advocate post, but then again since he is Canadian I don't know why either of us should be talking about offshores!

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That's true basschick but they can't ask for the model ID's or enforce anything if our country's laws don't require us to keep them.

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Allan, this was kind of my point to begin with and I am glad that someone else is thinking along the same lines!

My point was not all about dodging this, but instead how this affected non-US webmasters. I am going to put up 2257 links on every site, will list my address as the truthful and honest primary place of business and keep all the docos in order here. But there is no way any US authority will be able to verify or audit these docos, and as Allan said, there is no laws here in Australia which force us to keep these documents so even if the US asked AU police to come and check things out, they can't!

Now here's some good news. I have just completed signing up a contract with a new data centre that is NOT in the USA. I will have my first servers in place within a week and will be able to offer offshore hosting for a price that is not much more than I currently offer. This also gives any chilihost clients the ability to quickly move their hosting offshore if they need to for any reason, with no interruption in service. Best off, all chilihost clients will continue to receive the high quality service they are used to and will not have to worry about dealing with dodgy offshore operators.


Cheers,
Luke

i know a couple people who will want to use your offshore hosting, luke. where will it be, and what will the prices be?

these new regs will affect non u.s. program owners who will have to supply i.d. for the promo content they give to their u.s. webmasters. also it may affect non u.s. webmasters because of changes in smaller site programs - it's possible not everyone will be able to have a custodian.

I guess that non-U.S. companies who don't want to provide all their US revshare partners with the necessary documentation would just have to serve their banners from their own server. This would circumvent the 2257 secondary producer requirements. Additionally any free content could be served in galleries from the sponsor's own server. Many webmasters would welcome this move but I know sponsor's will not be willing to burn up so much bandwidth.

That's an interesting solution, having the non us providers serve from their server but... the image is still being shown on your site even though it technically isn't... so would that not still make you liable? It is your site, as you put the code there.. I wish that it would be that easy but somehow I doubt if Ashcroft & co. will look at it that way.

Not really. My companies legal team states that if served from html pages on the foreign server into iframes or a framset, then the images clearly are not a part of the U.S. website. Likewise since you are actually obtaining html pages from the foreign source, you can not and do not excerise control over the images and content on such html pages. This is a provision of the proposed regulations. However, as always, consult your own legal team before making any decisions.

Actually what we see as the biggest possible threat to the adult internet porn industry would be if the United States government began to excerise dominium over its domains. That is all the .com, .net, .org etc... This could happen irregardless of where the sites isp is located. U.S. registered domains could easily be seized by the U.S. government (other countries exercise very strict control over their domains). There has been quite a bit of discussion on this in Congress and within the Justice Department. While I don't see it happening any time soon -- it is coming.

I did not realise .com/.net/.org were owned by the USA, I thought only .us was, man that would totally screw everyone.

Interesting thoughts on iframes with the banners, I was planning on going the non-sexually explicit route for US webmasters.

oh, basschick, the offshore hosting costs are not finalised yet, I just need a bit more time to get things set up.

cheers,
Luke