> "I asked you to remove my family from ancestry.com. They are not > related to you, you did not ask permission to include them. You are > setting yourself up for a possible lawsuit putting names on the > Internet without asking permission." > > I received the above email from the person who gave me the > information. The information is privatized but the person is listed > as the source. I don't understand her concern. > > It is not easy removing a file from Ancestry.com because it is an > old file and has to be done by them which I have requested. > > I'm not sur she has a legal leg to stand on either. > Ideas? Comments? > > patricia ricci <plr@infionline.net> I think there are a couple of things that need to be discussed here: (1) Was the information you posted/published available from public sources and could you have obtained that information by your own researches? If so, then the complainer really has nothing to complain about. But the question arises, why would you want to publish information about people you're not related to? This is like the guy who replied to you the other day who claimed to have 430,000 names in his database - surely not everybody there is related and one is left wondering what, beyond name collecting, he's doing. One is left with the same question in your case. (2) If nothing else, common courtesy should tell you to inform the person contributing the information you'd like to publish it. If she objects, you should then work to overcome those objections, but defer publishing until you can. Certainly, there's no requirement you do anything of the sort, but it seems to me to be the polite thing to do. (3) Now you've created the problem, you need to solve it. Start the process with Ancestry, no matter how cumbersome, then go back to the complainer and explain what you've done and apologize. Again, no requirement that you do this, but I'd about guarantee you'll never again get "free" information from others if you don't. Bottom line: legally, you're in the clear, it seems to me (but I'm not a lawyer and don't want to be one). Ethically, you were wrong to publish without first discussing the matter with the complainer and need to do what you can to repair the damage to YOUR reputation. My US$0.02. Swell Ol' Bob -- Robert G. Melson | Rio Grande MicroSolutions | El Paso, Texas ----- A government big enough to give you everything you want is big enough to take away everything you have. Thomas Jefferson Bob Melson <amia9018@mypacks.net>