I’m sorry if this seemingly very basic question has been asked before.
In the case of a site where the domain is registered in a different country to where the site is hosted which countries laws affect the use of the site ?
Specificaly, I have a site and the domain is registered in the country where I live (in the EU). The site is hosted in another EU country. Do the terms of use come under the laws of my country or the country where the site is hosted ?
Thanks for your advice
We’ve seen the US government get a lot of .com domains shut down recently, because the servers were out of their jurisdiction, but the domains were under US control. On the flip side, the country hosting the servers could most likely seize the servers or order them ‘switched off’.
As for your customers, I think it’s much more complex than the locality of servers or domain name. It’s more to do with the locality of the customer and where your business is located in terms of taxes, registration etc. Plus in the EU, many laws cover all EU members anyway.
Even if you are based in the UK, the domain is a .co.uk, and the servers hosted in London, you could still be sued in a US court by a US based customer, as many states in the US consider jurisdiction to be the country of the customer (I’ll see if I can pull up the link for that, it will be on Out-law.com somewhere).
What kind of site are we dealing with? Ecommerce? Forum? Static info? User generated content?
Hi,
Its a comunity type site with user generated content and PMS system. I’m expecting most of the users to be from here, the domains registered here and the company name is registered here, so I was planning to get the T&C prepared in reference to local law. But then started to wonder if the host location was significant or not.
If I understand you corrctly though, I just have to accept that if a user is from the US and they decided to sue me it would be under US law.
My understanding of this, which is minimum, is that ‘all applicable laws apply’ meaning that the laws of whatever jurisdiction is involved will be in play.
For example, if you are hosting the server in country A, you are subject to country A’s laws that pertain to the server and it’s functionality. That could be very narrow or very broad depending on the laws.
If you are hosting in country A but your customers are in country B, you are subject to the laws of country A and country B as they pertain to the customers and whatever they happen to be doing.
My understanding is that regardless of where you are hosting, you are subject to US laws if you are providing services/information/etc to the US.
There are also laws in some countries which seek to limit the laws of others in situations like that. This is complicated stuff, so hopefully someone who knows what they are doing will chime in.
If you feel that there is some actual liability you’d be wise to consult with an attorney!
Thanks, I think you might have hit the nail right on the head