Hi there I have purchased IPB along with gallery and blog. A member of mine wants to buy my forum with the gallery and blog.

Can I sell my site to them? . If he buys the site I will be changing my site url in my client area to my new forum.

Can I do all this.

I am not sure you can sell the members part of the database as that contains the members email address and could open them upto Spam from the new purchaser with whom they did not register with.

The person who wants to buy owns the same type of comapny and dance music company so if they did use there emails them would get the same stuff that they would from me.

Legally, I not sure you can do it.

I would not be happy though about joining your forum and then found I was part of another forum that I had not registered with.

I suppose if you get my agreement to transfer my details and assure me that my email address would only be used by the new forum and not sold/bought for SPAM purposes then I might let you do it.

In my opinion I don’t think there should be any issues as long as you inform your members what is going to happen and that they will have the choice of remaining a member or being removed from the database. I would also suggest that any members wishing to be removed would need to be removed before you hand over control to someone else

I would say that the bottom line is that they (your members) ‘signed on’ with you, have ‘worked’ with you and therefore have an amount of ‘good will’ with you so the least you can do is be ‘up front’ with them.

The person you are selling too should also be made aware of this as well, at least they will know they might just end up with a forum with no members........

What about the forum software and the liscence I have

You cannot use a single license on more than one site. If you are selling the site to the person, but don't intend to provide the software, you should remove the software from the site and advise this person they need to purchase licenses for whichever software pieces they wish to use.

Generally when you are selling the site I'd recommend providing the software with it. If you want to continue using IPB on a new site, just upcharge the person the cost of the license and then purchase a new one after they pay you (they're giving you the money for the license instead of us). Remember that we do not transfer licenses any more, however - you would have to sign over your entire account to the new person.

Just to add to what Brandon said - although you can give them your account with us, we can take no responsibility if your transaction with them goes wrong. Just be aware that you bear the risk of it, so make sure you go through the proper processes to make it as safe as possible

Will do. Thanks very much for your advise

Why are some people saying that selling the site would be illegal? Sites get sold and bought all the time without any trouble. Obviously, it would be good that he informs his members of the purchase, but I think it is his prerogative if he wants to sell it.

Theoretically, the Data Protection Act in the UK prevents you from transferring personal information you hold unless people have given consent (or you told them when they provided their personal information). If the site is hosted on US servers though, it doesn't apply anyway.

My site is hosted on the Invision shared hosting. Is this in the US?

In Germany, I think it would be illegal to give user information to third parties without an explicit permission (and yes, you need an explicit permission and not refusal) since it would be against the data privacy act.

I would like to abbreviate the words and to summarize this topic.

As regards the License: You entitled to sell your license to the other person, but you must change the details in the client center to his new details of the buyer.
As regards the DataBase/Members no.: and more: You are entitled to sell database yours to whom that you want and in anytime. (this information is important - You can sell in all amount you want)

enjoy and pleasure.

Thanks,
Jean.

Yes, all our servers are in the US.

There has been a mixed response regarding the rules of data protection. Im still a little confused

Data protection doesn't apply if your site's not hosted in the UK, I believe.

The database could be located elsewhere

Seems a bit of an impedment to business transactions, but I see you point. I can't really see something like this really being enforced (hence, I'm guessing, you beginning that with 'theoretically'), unless someone was selling information to spammers or something like that.

Although it is probably unlikely to happen all it needs is for one member to cause, potentially VERY serious, problems with something like - "You gave/sold my details to someone else without my permission!"

Unfortunately we now live in a world where some people try to 'take advantage' of others for even the dumbest of reasons and I am sure that there are lawyers out there who would be more than happy to try and make money out of something like this. Unlikely (I hope) but possible!

I'm not sure people are understanding the data protection act entirely as it's intended. If someone is selling a business and that business has customers or registered users it's entirely acceptable for the business to be sold with those customer/user records intact. I'm sure you've all been a customer of a company (say Telewest in the UK who have been bought and sold at least a few times to my knowledge) and not been asked if it's ok for them to sell their business to new owners.

That is only my opinion though, so best advise is always to get things checked by an expert for your and everyone elses sake.

If you are a business and 'registered' with the ICO (Information Commissioner 's Office - in the UK) then there are very strict rules/regulation that must be complied with and will cover things like the sale of the company.

Having said that you do not 'have to' register with them (the ICO) but there are rules/regulations that must be complied with by everyone, even individuals, but the information you retain/store about a person(s) is very limited (even on paper) and depends not only on what you store but also how you use it.

For instance, I cannot keep data about my customers in a database but I can keep details of them in my accounts software. Strange! By the way, I am not 'registered' (as it costs too much money) so I am therefore very limited on what and how I store information.

Simple solution - seek 'professional advice' and/or check with the ICO to get further details.

Just a silly question;

Let's say I buy someone elses account they used to own three licences but now I have to accounts, it's not possible to have account b moved into account a? (this would make it much easier to manage and renew licence) reason I'm asking is because I will be buying a friends account.

Thanks

I'm slightly confused as to what you're asking, but assuming the end result would be you personally having two client accounts, yes, we will merge them for you.

It is actually inforced, it's a *fairly* new law (1998 - new enough to be relevant, old enough for people to know about it).



When you sign up for things take a close look at the form - they normally say something to the effect of they assume you're fine with your details being passed on (when you sign up for a phone line, your info get's passed to BT for the phonebook/line rental, when you sign up for store cards they sometimes pass credit information on, etc.) unless you say otherwise.

Sorry about that lindy, I tend not to think before typing sometimes.

Yes I meant to merge two accounts together, however I've been just been told my accounts cannot be merged and I'm kinda disappointed as this would make my life easier. (however I respect the rule)
~Joey

P.s It's personally something I'd hope to be reconsidered because having two accounts don't make sense to me.. oh well

Could you send me the ticket number? I'd like to get a handle on the full situation -- perhaps there's a miscommunication.

I've pm'ed you the ticket number.

Apart from when the government loses DVDs with millions of peoples private data on it, then there is not so much as a dismissal

Stop, just stop. You're completely ignoring that in many countries across the world, you are absolutely not entitled to sell that database. If you do so anyway, and you happen to inhabit one or more of these countries, then you can face tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines, or potential jailtime!

To be perfectly honest, if you're looking to sell up and you want to include the customer base, the cleanest way is to provide your members a way to opt out and have their information purged if they don't want to set up with the new lot. If you'd prefer to transfer in it's entirety, I'd seriously suggest obtaining legal advice - there may be some conditions you have to comply with even if you're not in one of those heavily protected countries.

I don't mean to sound picky or sound like I'm trying to start a cyber fight, however.....

How can sites like "myspace" sell the database with all content if you're not allowed to sell the database due to private information. I'm just curious, as when myspace was bought my account which was started back when myspace was young didn't get deleted etc :S

~Joey

This is just me guessing here so it could be complete crap. I'd imagine since the site was wrapped up in a legal entity, the entity was bought, so technically the data is still owned by MySpace.

Similarly, if a company director retires and is replaced - the data wouldnt be transferred to him (even if he was the only employee of the company) it would still be the companies data.

Again, this is just me guessing here (when I read this topic last night, it got me thinking) so it could be complete rubbish.

I'd suggest actually taking a look at the agreement you "agreed" to at signup

Though really, like I and others have said, it is very location dependent. Some countries are very rear-end retentive about privacy (like Europe) and some don't give a rats (like the US).

And yes, structure can be important - so long as the personal details don't go up the chain to the parent company, I can't imagine most countries caring about a company being transferred in its entirety (I highly doubt Fox Interactive has any access to MySpace's user database, just as I doubt it has access to IGN's). Again, though, legal advice should probably be sought.

(And a tip: if my personal details were ever transferred without my permission, I'd report the original owner of the site and the new owner to law enforcement, since they're bound to send me email without my express opt-in, and that violates anti-spam laws in many many countries).

To be honest, why does the new lot want the member database? If it's to send email to them, that's illegal in a lot of countries (including the USA I do believe) and can result in very serious penalties.

I'm not a lawyer, but I do know that in law the company itself is recognised as an independent entity. The company (or website) is not restricted by the person who currently owns or operates it. Those who register do to not register to this person or any person for that matter, rather they register to the company or website. So if the people behind the company change, then it is not in breach of any privacy rights of the users. For example youtube was recently purchased by Google, and similar incidents take place all the time, but there no one thinks their privacy has been infringed, or that it's illegal.

Kind regards

Al-Saeed, you're sort of right. The matter of independent entities does come into play here, which is why the Youtube purchase is fine (after all, Google bought Youtube, Inc. Youtube, Inc are still the owners of youtube.com, Google actually isn't). As well, the agreement you signed up with the site is pretty important too. Most sites are smart enough to include a clause allowing them to transfer your data in the case of a sale of the website entity.

Seriously?

If I were to invest a lot of money into a website it wouldn't be because the skin looks pretty, or there is some great content on the site. Generally, it's to make money.

When you purchase a website, you aren't purchasing just the pages themself. You're paying based on number of visitors, including regular visitors, members, and in the case of a forum, quite frequently also based on the amount of content (topics, posts, etc.). I would fully expect to be purchasing the database (including memberships) with the purchase of a website.

That's ridiculous to say the least. I don't like the way the company is headed. It's like they're always thinking of corners to start cutting. Some of what I even bought to begin with were through license transfers and so now it's being pretty much said I am stuck with licenses I don't want to keep because I can't sell off only some of them and keep others.

Per usual, you're making assumptions without knowing much less understanding the facts. This decision was made not to "cut corners" but because there's no business incentive to dedicating a customer service rep to the several hours that were often required to make sense of some of the transfers. I remember one in particular where a customer "sold" his license numerous times and added each one as an alternate contact. When they couldn't download the software (this is also why alternate contacts cannot download), all of them contacted us and we went back and forth for days with them until ultimately, the license was simply terminated for fraudulent use. Unfortunately, nobody won in that situation. I can recall dozens of other situations just like that one, including those who would purchase a license, re-sell it and then call their credit card company and submit a chargeback. There were also many who would sell a license, then claim the person did a chargeback on them and they wanted their license back - which we would do. That would then result in the new owner of the license harassing us claiming they did in fact pay and were "scammed."

License transfers consumed far too much administrative work on our end, with little to no return. As such things are not included in the price of a license to begin with, we made the decision to disallow single license transfers and it's quite unlikely we'll ever allow them in the future.

Please contact us at management [at] invisionpower [dot] com if you have any further concern. That's preferred over "bumping" topics that are months old.