Complaints About Users On TickerForum

This system operates within the provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) including Section 512, which provides a "safe harbor" provision for the system administrators and owners. Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, along with myriad case law, also provides significant exemptions from liability for system operators and owners.

If you are complaining about a user's alleged violation of your copyright, you are in the wrong place.

Please click here to find the DMCA document.

This document deals with all other complaints - from "I don't like what he/she said" to allegations of libel and similar issues. Note specifically (again) that copyright-related complaints are not properly handled through this process; see above.

This document sets forth the requirements for filing complaints about other forms of user speech on Tickerforum, and what the owner and operator of this system will do upon receipt of such complaints.

Tickerforum operates without "prior restraint" - that is, "editorial control" over its user base. As a consequence we make no claim or representation as to the material posted by the user base at any time, either in agreement or opposition, nor do we make any claim of veracity or endorsement.

All users are expected to conduct themselves under our formal Terms of Service, which are accessible to anyone at any time via the FAQ, or "Frequently Asked Questions." The FAQ's Terms of Service provisions set forth specific requirements that are enforced by the system administrators.

If you believe that a user's conduct violates these Terms of Service, you may bring it to our attention using either electronic mail, fax, or written instrument.

Should you believe that a user's conduct violates a provision of local, state or federal law, please notify the appropriate local, state or federal law enforcement agency, as applicable. They in turn will contact us and we will cooperate fully in their investigation.

In the event that you believe that a user of this system has made an actionable statement against you or your firm, defined as something that constitutes a civil cause of action and you wish us to consider acting upon your allegation without compulsion by a court of law, you must do all of the following:

• You must identify, with specificity, the statement(s) you believe constitute actionable conduct, sufficient for us to locate and identify, the message(s) being complained about. Each item on the forum has a "Permalink" which is suitable for this purpose; please include it.
• You must provide the basis upon which you make your allegation.
• You must identify the entity, whether a person or firm, that is making the allegation.
• You must swear under penalty of perjury that your allegation is true and correct.

Please note that we are not a judge or jury and further, that online forum operators have extremely broad exemptions from liability both in case and statutory law in relationship to the speech of users, similar but not identical to the liability exemptions that are granted to other common carriers such as telephone companies.

Case law stretches back to Cubby .v. Compuserve, and was codified under Federal Law in the Communications Decency Act, Section 230 (47 USC Section 230). Specifically, the operator of this system enjoys broad immunity, as does any other forum operator, for speech undertaken by its users. Our liability is neither increased or decreased by our determinations under our Terms of Service, or any enforcement mechanism we employ under same, provided we act in reasonable good faith in restricting content after the fact.

Our investigation of your claim thus normally relies upon not a legal standard of proof (civil or otherwise), nor based on our legal liability (which in most cases under the law does not exist) but rather a determination of whether or not the user's speech violates our Terms of Service. In this regard our decision is final and not subject to appeal.

Please be advised that should you choose to file suit against the user you are empowered to subpoena us via process that is valid in the County of Sevier, State of Tennessee for information we may have related to the user who posted the message complained about.

It is the policy of the system owners to comply with all lawful subpoenas and to charge reasonable reproduction and research costs to you for that compliance as provided for under State and Federal Law. All users are required to provide us with a valid email address and we have fairly broad-based IP access logs. The design of the forum software intentionally retains this information, along with all message edits a user may apply to his or her speech, for the purpose of production under lawful subpoena either by private parties or law enforcement.

It is further the policy of the system owners to comply expeditiously with all judgments levied against a user of our forum. If you obtain a judgment against a user that requires us to modify or remove content on our systems or to constrain the actions of a user we shall comply within our technical ability upon being served a certified copy of same and produce a verified statement of compliance to the issuing court and to you. Please be aware that outside services over whom we have no control, such as Google, cache content on the Internet extensively and that we have no means of causing those outside services to act on our or your behalf.

Be further advised that should you choose to name the system owners in any legal proceeding related to the speech of a third party it is the formal policy of the firm to respond aggressively to all such suits, given the vast body of both statutory and case law, and that, should we prevail, we will seek to recover all costs we incur and may seek punitive damages against you.

You may transmit complaints to us via any of the following means:

• Electronic mail to "abuse@denninger.net"

Note that the latter may result in a spam intercept. If it does you will be notified as to how to override the spam filtering.

Please make sure to include a physical postal address (not a PO Box), your name, a fax number (if available), a voice telephone number, and your email address.

While none of these are strictly required the nature of these complaints nearly always requires a voice conversation in follow-up for clarification purposes at minimum, and failure to include full contact information will slow processing or make it impossible.

CAUTION: We take false claims seriously as they detract from the operation of our business and require the expenditure of resources without justification our purpose.

It is the policy of the system owners to respond aggressively to false claimants and where legal redress is available for such actions, you are advised that we WILL pursue that redress aggressively.