In the European Union this sort of site would almost certainly be illegal. The EU has "data protection law" which basically say personal information is protected and one needs the consent of the person to process and do things with it. You also must store in a legal protected way. You don't even need to get into complicated "does this or does this not count as extortion" malarky.
It's definitely NOT illegal in EU if the user is appropriately informed, usually in your employment contract you sign a clause about that. Even the government does it to their employees.
Is it legal to host a website of this nature in europe?
In what kind of trouble could someone get for making a startup out of this (escort website for x country)?
EU law applies to EU citizens abroad, so unless you have a means of detecting the nationality (not the location) of the user, this is still illegal. Plus, even for EU visitors who decline consent at the prompt that you received, they still include heaps of tracking crap.
It's not "outright illegal", AFAIK. If you can point me to a place that definitely says it is illegal (or not) I'd really appreciate it!
From what I've learned about EU regulations, ANY time you have technology that serves an EU citizen there is the potential for you to be sued over potential violations of the intentionally overreaching and vague privacy laws. The EU is so incredibly hostile to small business and FOSS.
Btw, not having any sort of contact information (address and name of the business/person running the site) is illegal in the EU.
And generally just highly unprofessional.
If the police operates the server, I'm pretty sure they would be reluctant to accept new users as it might be illegal. The law in Europe is not as in US and although I'm not certain here, it's generally much more strict in regards to entrapment in most countries.
reply