Turns out the UK government ran a second impact assessment on the Online Safety Act in October, which I didn't know about. They seemed quite surprised to learn that individuals might be running in-scope services.
(I did respond to the original consultation and I definitely told them this then...)
cc @neil
For a low-risk micro-business, they estimate the costs of compliance to be £4,620 one-off and £6,040 per year.
They don't provide any estimate for individuals, but I don't really understand how it could be lower.
It does say "Ofcom will be under an obligation to create codes of practice which are feasible and which cater for all service providers, whatever their size and capacity. This would include non-business services."
But I'm not sure where that obligation comes from.
I think a big problem here is that very few small independent services responded to any of these consultations because they were so long and complex. So now they're suddenly surprised that we exist.
If the government is going to insist on regulating these kind of hobbyist sites then maybe we have to insist on the government funding us to respond to consultations about it. Or otherwise they'll keep not finding out until it's too late.
What a mess.
Russ Garrett
jarkman
David Sullivan
Directed Alberto Cetoli Graph