Terms of Use

Accepting these terms

This website is published by Bill Hartzer. By reading it you accept the terms on this page. If you do not accept them, the appropriate response is to stop reading, and there is nothing further you need to do.

These terms were last reviewed on 15 August 2026.

This is general information, not legal advice

Everything on this site is published as general information for attorneys evaluating what the technical record can establish in an internet defamation matter. Bill Hartzer is not an attorney, and nothing here is legal advice or a legal opinion. Where a case, a statute or a rule is described, it is described as the underlying research reports it and as a matter of general background. It is not applied to your facts, it is not a representation about how any court would decide anything, and it is no substitute for the judgment of counsel admitted in the relevant forum.

Technical descriptions on this site are equally general. What a particular platform holds, what a particular collection method establishes, and what a particular record can support all depend on facts this site does not know.

Reading this site creates no relationship

Reading these pages creates no attorney-client relationship — none is possible, because I am not an attorney. It also creates no expert engagement, no consulting relationship, no duty of confidentiality and no obligation on my part of any kind.

Sending a message through the contact page does not create an engagement either. An engagement begins only when a conflict check has cleared, scope has been agreed, and an engagement is confirmed in writing. Until then, and specifically before a conflict check clears, information you send is not received in confidence, and you should send nothing privileged, confidential or subject to a protective order.

Accuracy and currency

This site is written carefully and it goes out of date anyway. Platform policies on preservation, retention, disclosure and user notice are rewritten by their operators without notice and without a changelog. Published windows change. Pages that stated a figure last year state a different one, or none, this year. Case law described here reflects what the research found when it was compiled, and law moves.

Where a policy or a document is described here, it reflects what that source published on the date it was read, and the date is given where it matters. Treat every statement on this site as accurate as of the date you read it and verify anything you intend to rely on against the operator's current published page. No warranty of accuracy, completeness, currency or fitness for any purpose is given, and to the extent the law allows, I am not liable for loss arising from reliance on anything published here.

No promise of results

Nothing on this site promises, guarantees or predicts an outcome in any matter. Descriptions of what records can show are descriptions of what records can show. Whether a particular record exists in a particular case, whether it can be obtained, what it contains and how a fact-finder receives it are all unknown to this site. Any finding by any expert can be challenged.

Links to other sites

Some pages here cite primary sources — a court opinion, a rule, a standards publication, or an operator's own published policy — and may link to them so you can read the original rather than my characterization of it. Those sites are controlled by other people. I do not control their content, their availability or their own terms and privacy practices, a link is not an endorsement, and following one takes you outside these terms.

Intellectual property

The text, structure, design and code of this site are mine, except for quoted material, which belongs to whoever published it and is quoted for the purpose of accurate description. You are welcome to read these pages, print them, and share a link with a colleague or a partner — that is what they are for.

You may not republish substantial portions elsewhere, present this material as your own, or scrape the site to build a derivative product, without permission. Quoting a passage with attribution and a link is fine. If you want to reproduce more than that, write and ask.

Acceptable use

Do not use this site to attempt to interfere with its operation or the server that hosts it, to harvest information for unsolicited commercial messages, or for any unlawful purpose. There are no user accounts here and no way to submit content that other readers will see, so most of the usual list does not apply.

Changes to these terms

These terms may be revised at any time, and the revised version applies from the moment it is published on this page. There is no notification mechanism and no archive of prior versions. The date at the top of this page tells you when it was last reviewed, and continuing to use the site after a change means you accept the version then in force.

If any part of these terms is unenforceable, the rest continues to apply.