QUOTE(Cedric @ Wed 30th January 2008, 4:13am)
Good work, Greg. Did you also manage to capture those little "Wikia Spotlight" promos appearing on those pages featuring Wallace & Grommit and Thomas the Tank Engine? "Creepy" doesn't even begin to describe
that. (IMG:
smilys0b23ax56/default/mad.gif)
It is worth reading the
T & C for Wikia. They specifically say that it is an adult only site and there is no content for children, therefore they do not need to do anything.
QUOTE
User information is stored on servers in the United States. The only information that you need give is a username and password. The username does not need to be your real name. Therefore, any personal information you choose to give is not compulsory. Wikia sites are not intended for, and may not be used by, children under the age of 13 years old.
That term would get laughed out of court in the UK.
QUOTE
No content shall be added to any wiki hosted by Wikia, Inc. that is tortious, threatening, harmful, hateful, unlawful, libelous, defamatory, harassing, abusive, fraudulent, vulgar, obscene, contains viruses, or is otherwise objectionable or potentially damaging, as reasonably determined by Wikia. For wikis supported by the use of Google AdSense ads, no content shall be added which is prohibited by Google's AdSense policy, incorporated herein by reference. You shall not create pornography and hate sites at Wikia. However, please be aware that wikis may still contain content of an adult nature, or content that you may find offensive.
I've highlighted the terms that were clearly breached. There are two interpretations of these sections: either they are genuine terms that Wikia uses to protect itself from potentially illegal (or immoral) activity and they should be reasonably enforced, or they are a fraudulent smokescreen. By their comments, it seems Wikia do recognise that the site breached its own terms, but they apologise for it doing so. Note that in the end though, they hide behind the site being uneconomic.
Unless the "tipping point" was realising they were about to incur some significant legal costs, I suspect the cost of having that site on Wikia was about nothing.
This post has been edited by dogbiscuit: