Building on rented land is the habit of putting your audience, your archive and your income inside a platform you do not control. It is not an irrational choice, because that is where the audience is. It becomes a problem when the terms change, and the people hurt most are always the ones who invested most in platform-native assets: followers, profile pages, in-platform monetisation, work that exists nowhere else. The useful response is not to leave. It is to know which of your assets are rented, and to use the rights you already have.
Updated October 2026. General information, not legal advice. The rights described apply in the EU and UK and may differ elsewhere.
You have more notice rights than you think
Terms do not legally change overnight for business users in Europe. Regulation (EU) 2019/1150 on fairness and transparency for business users of online intermediation services requires terms and conditions to be in plain and intelligible language, available at all stages of the relationship, and to set out the grounds on which a service may be suspended, terminated or restricted. Article 3 requires notice of proposed changes on a durable medium, with a notice period that is reasonable and proportionate and in any case at least 15 days, during which a business user may terminate the contract.
The same article has a clause worth remembering: terms that do not comply, and changes implemented contrary to the provisions, “shall be null and void”. The exceptions are narrow, covering legal obligations and unforeseen, imminent danger such as fraud or malware.
Article 4 covers the event most creators actually fear. Where a provider restricts or suspends a specific listing, it must give a statement of reasons on a durable medium at or before the point the restriction takes effect. Where it terminates the service entirely, that statement must come at least 30 days in advance, with exceptions for legal obligations and for repeated infringements of the terms. The business user must be able to clarify the facts and circumstances through an internal complaint process, and where a decision is reversed, access to data must be restored.
Content decisions come with reasons attached
For ordinary users rather than business users, the Digital Services Act does similar work. The European Commission describes Regulation (EU) 2022/2065 as requiring platforms to explain why content has been removed or suspended, and as giving users the ability to appeal through the platform itself or through an out-of-court dispute settlement body that the Commission presents as faster and cheaper than going to court.
None of this prevents a platform from changing direction. It does mean that a silent, unexplained removal is not the only possible outcome, and that an appeal route exists. Knowing the mechanism in advance is the difference between losing an account and recovering one.
Taking your data out is a right, not a favour
Data portability is the practical tool. The ICO explains that the right applies to personal data an individual has provided to a controller, including data observed from their activity, though not to inferred or derived data such as a profile the company built about you. Controllers must provide it in a structured, commonly used, machine-readable format, with CSV, XML and JSON given as examples, and a request must be answered without undue delay and at the latest within one month of receipt.
Two caveats keep expectations realistic. Portability does not oblige anyone to build systems compatible with a competitor, so an export is often a pile of files rather than a working site. And it covers your personal data, not the audience relationships a platform mediates. Which is exactly why the list below exists.
6 smart ways to stop building on rented land
- Own the domain, and point everything at it. A domain you register is the one address that survives a platform. Put it in your profiles now, so the audience learns it before you need it.
- Convert reach into a direct list. Email and RSS reach people without an intermediary deciding whether they see you. A list you export is worth more than a follower count you cannot.
- Keep the master copies. Originals, at full quality, on storage you control, plus one offsite copy. Platform exports are a backup of last resort, not an archive.
- Export on a schedule, not in a crisis. Use the portability right deliberately: the ICO says requests must be answered within one month, which is a long time if your account is already gone.
- Read the suspension and termination clauses before you need them. Regulation (EU) 2019/1150 requires those grounds to be stated, a statement of reasons when action is taken, and 30 days notice before full termination.
- Diversify distribution, not just posting. Two platforms plus a site you own is resilient. The same post cross-published to five accounts you do not own is not.
Rented and owned, plainly listed
- Rented: follower and subscriber counts, profile and channel pages, in-platform messaging history, recommendation placement, platform monetisation, and any content that exists only as an upload.
- Owned: a registered domain, master files on your own storage, an exported email list, your own site and its archive, and your copyright in the work itself.
- Contested: reviews, comments and community threads, which are valuable, usually not portable, and worth mirroring where the terms allow it.
The asymmetry is the point. Everything in the first list can be revised by someone else’s product decision. Everything in the second survives it. Work that lives in both places is much harder to lose, which is also the argument for treating digital preservation as part of a publishing routine rather than a separate chore.
A one-hour version of this
Register a domain and set up forwarding, so you have a permanent address. Add a single page listing where to find you and how to subscribe directly. Request a data export from the two platforms you depend on most, and put a reminder in the calendar to do it quarterly. Copy your highest-value work to storage you control, and verify one file opens. Read the termination clause in the terms of the platform that pays you. That is an hour, and it moves most of your exposure from rented land to ground you actually hold. Tidying what you keep is part of the same job, which our guide to decluttering your digital life covers in more detail.
Common questions
What does building on rented land mean? It means your audience, archive or income sits inside a platform you do not control, so a change to that platform’s terms, ranking or monetisation changes your business without your involvement.
Can a platform change its terms without warning? For business users in the EU, Regulation (EU) 2019/1150 requires notice on a durable medium with a reasonable and proportionate period of at least 15 days, and says non-compliant terms and changes made contrary to the rules are null and void. Narrow exceptions apply for legal obligations and imminent security threats.
What notice applies if my account is terminated? Under Article 4 of the same regulation, a full termination requires a statement of reasons on a durable medium at least 30 days in advance, with exceptions including legal obligations and repeated infringements of the terms.
What can I actually export? The personal data you provided and data observed from your activity, in a structured, commonly used, machine-readable format. Inferred or derived data such as a profile built about you is outside the right, and the ICO says requests must be answered within one month.
Is a mailing list really safer than followers? It is more portable, which is the relevant difference. An exported list reaches people without an intermediary deciding whether they see you, though you still depend on a mail provider and on consent rules.
Sources and further reading
Where the figures and rules above come from, so you can check them:
- Article 3: plain language, availability, grounds for suspension, the 15 day notice period and the null and void provision: Regulation (EU) 2019/1150, legislation.gov.uk
- Article 4: statement of reasons, 30 days notice before termination, internal complaint handling and restoration of data access: Regulation (EU) 2019/1150, legislation.gov.uk
- Statement of reasons for content decisions, appeals and out-of-court dispute settlement under Regulation (EU) 2022/2065: European Commission, Digital Services Act
- Scope of the right to data portability, required formats and the one month response limit: Information Commissioner’s Office
Photo credit: Cern datacenter by Hugovanmeijeren, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
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