Does a Website need any protection?

ColoChris

Hello to all.
 
I am new here, but plan to be a voice around quite a bit.
 
I am a forum wizard in many ways as I enjoy building forum communities.
 
But after building and selling, I am not wanting to build and keep my own work.
 
So my question is, if you own a website such as a forum, where you do not sell any items, only make revenue off of advertising, then do you need any sort of liability protection?
 
For an example, Apple sued soem websites last year for leaking information. Now I am not sure if it was because they wanted to know the person who leaked it or they wanted the owners to pay for allowing the leak to be posted.
 
So what I worry about is the same thing. I have always used just a sole prop. for business sake, and never thought twice about it. But being in a sue happy world, I am just wondering your thoughts of someone running forums? Like if someone leaks something out that they are not authorized to, or you have an automobile forum which has people listing race accomplishments and someone dies trying to make a record for the site.
 
I am just curious if an LLC would be good for this or not? Each poster of a forum is posting for entertainment purposes only, wether fact or not. So could I be covered by writing a well written Terms Of Service?
 
Thank you so much for your time and trouble.
 
Colochris

rusman

At a minimum I would put some disclaimer in the stock disclaimer included when you register. But I think Craig is right, how can a site be responsible for policing hundreds or even thousands of posts?