When it come to selecting hosting services and a country to host a web site, some questions may arise regarding freedom of speech and DMCA.
Freedom of speech & DMCA
There is no frozen in time rule here. Finding the best hosts that protect freedom of speech and DMCA depends on several factor:
- some countries might dramatically and suddenly change their positions under pressure (Sweden regarding the Snowden case for instance).
- countries might be safe regarding ignoring DMCA requests or political content from other countries, but may be very strict with their own DMCA regulation (Malaysia) or local activist (Russia).
In all cases, hosting services and location country of the data center need to be studied on a case by case basis, and will generally not tolerate any form of illegal activity, such as phishing scams, fraud sites, spamming, hacking, and the like, which will be prosecuted whatever the country. The Customer remains fully responsible of the content, posts, articles hosted on servers or networks.
This post is not intended to be a legal advice (consult your lawyer for legal advices) and not is an instigation to commit any illegal activities. It just help identify some hosts and points similarities.
Best hosts that protect freedom of speech and DMCA
If we take a look at hosts services which are known for their tolerance, we can notice the names of some countries come up more often than others, regarding the location of the data centers… Some are more concerned about freedom of speech (ex Netherlands), other about DMCA (Malaysia).
Data centers locations
| Shinjiru | Hostinger | flaunt7 | Blueangelhost | prohoster | |
| Bulgaria | x | Head Office | x | ||
| Czech Republic | x | ||||
| Estonia | x | ||||
| Hong Kong | x | ||||
| Lithuania | x | Head Office | x | ||
| Luxembourg | x | x | |||
| Malaysia | Head Office | ||||
| Netherlands | x | x | Head Office | x | |
| Poland | x | ||||
| Russia | x | Head Office | |||
| Singapore | x | x | |||
| Ukraine | x | ||||
| Other data centers: | |||||
| USA | x | x | |||
| UK | x | ||||
Best countries to protect freedom of speech and DMCA
The Netherlands
The Dutch Constitution respects freedom of speech and do not censor web sites on the basis of content.
Only competent Dutch court can be presented in order in order to request content removal. Be cautious to not infringe local regulations.
Luxemburg
Position is close to The Netherlands geographically and in terms of approach on freedom of speech and DMCA.
Russia / Malaysia / Bulgaria
You could probably host any content you desire, as long as it does not infringe local regulations. In other words DMCA is hardly enforced in these countries.
Read more on this topic
https://www.websiteplanet.com/blog/dmca-ignored-countries/