"I heard through the grapevine that the Sheriff has had access to member's info on this site. Could you please tell me if this rumor is true? Can he obtain our personal information without any there being any criminal activity? I always like to get the story first hand and that is why I am asking you. "
I can kill that rumor real easy. NO to access of member information. The only way that anyone can figure out who you are is if for some reason you send them an email using your own email account which might give them a hint to who you are. Check it out by trying to find out another user's information. Some of the users may over a period of time give enough information in their posts to provide a good guess to who they are. Is your privacy completely guarded? Here is the answer taken from Libel and Slander post under System News. "Please be advised that you can be sued for libel or slander. It is true your identify is hidden but only from web users. If the courts requested email addresses these are available. The court then can request your identity from the Internet Service Provider." The Internet Service Provider may or may not have this information to give to the court. After some 10 years of providing chat/postings there has NOT been one case of someone going through the court system to find our who you are. I feel confident some have talked to a lawyer about suing. I know of one that did but realized for one or another reason this was not feasible. It is very difficult to sue someone for slander.
A lot of the system rules are there to help protect you from such court actions. I suggest you follow them. Did you not wonder why I change some of your Subject post? You should not use names and especially company names in the subject post. If that person and more specifically a company can show you targeted them as a discussion topic which caused loss of income they would have a much better chance of winning, imho. Those system rules are taken not just from experiences on this posting site but from other post/chat sites as well.
No court authority (Sheriff, Police, etc. ) has asked me for any information about users. Even if they did I have no idea who you are and that is my true answer. Hope this helps.
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Kent A. Guske
Worth-Net
Sylvester, GA