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chantilly
A most toad spotted traitor


Joined: 16 Sep 2003
Posts: 594
Location: UK

PostPosted: Sun May 20, 2018 8:56 am    Post subject: THE FUTURE OF HTPO Reply with quote

As most of you are probably aware, new laws in the EU require that any website which holds personal information about people needs now to make sure that they are GDPR compliant or otherwise face huge fines.  I haven't done anything before now as I assumed that as a hobby site along with the fact that I make no money or generate funds from advertising, that I'd not be required to comply with these new regulations but it turns out that apparently, my assumption is wrong.  It doesn't matter whether it is a company site or an individual hobby site, these new rules need to be adhered to if any personal data is held (this includes email address and IP address).  Unfortunately, I cannot justify spending money for legal advice or paying anybody to rewrite my code to incorporate the new measures which need to be taken.  I have no programming skills to speak of and I haven't even been able to upgrade to the latest version of php as I know this will probably break all the coding that has been done before.

I have thought long and hard about this situation and the only solution I can feasibly come up with is to take my site offline, at least until I have had time to sort things out.  These new regulations come into force on 25th May and whilst I believe that the powers that be have very much bigger fish to fry and would probably not even consider investigating small sites such as my own, I do hold personal data so would be operating illegally if I decided to carry on.  If somebody decided to report me (from spite or otherwise), the authorities would be forced to perform checks and I would be fined.  There is also the fact that as my php coding is out of date, I am more vulnerable to hackers which again I would be held liable for if people's personal details were released.  I'm afraid I cannot afford to take even the slightest of risks that this could happen.

I would like to thank everyone who has visited HTPO and competed in our contests over the last 15 years.  It has been a real pleasure running the site and getting to know you all.  I've always known that one day I will either get too old to run the site or the coding will be so out of date that it just won't work any more, but I never expected this!  It saddens me that all the work we've put in over the years will probably just disappear into the ether but unfortunately, I just can't think of any other way to get around this.  I will keep the site running up till 25th May and I will keep copies of all the contests on Google Spreadsheets just in case I find another solution.
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chantilly
A most toad spotted traitor


Joined: 16 Sep 2003
Posts: 594
Location: UK

PostPosted: Tue May 22, 2018 8:55 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Good News!

I've now had help with making my site GDPR compliant and now there is no need for HTPO to close down.

I might've been being a bit of a scaredy-cat, but being the sole owner/administrator of HTPO, I couldn't possibly take even the slightest risk that I could be fined for what, in essence, is just a hobby.

Thank you everybody for your messages of support.

HTPO lives!!  (New contest to be announced soon)
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Stretham
Forum Hardass


Joined: 15 Sep 2003
Posts: 24792
Location: Here, there, somewhere, everywhere

PostPosted: Wed May 23, 2018 4:05 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Thumbs up

Stretham
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wordsmix
A great lubberly boy


Joined: 17 Jan 2017
Posts: 222

PostPosted: Mon Sep 17, 2018 10:17 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Phew and YAY !!!!
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