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Social Networks and Privacy: Learning From Facebook’s Mistakes

Observers of Internet trends often pronounce that privacy is a fiction and that it is futile to try to reclaim it. Whether that perspective is correct or not does not matter when faced with a Complaint issued by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). The Facebook Complaint and Consent Order recently issued by the FTC provides valuable lessons for how to stay out of the FTC’s crosshairs. Internet attorneys, businesses, consultants and advisors should study what the FTC views as deceptive in order to make necessary adjustments to business plans and operations. In the U.S., there is no federal law that requires a website to have a privacy policy. However, California requires any website that collects personally identifiable information from California residents to have a privacy policy

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Social Networks and Privacy: Learning From Facebook’s Mistakes

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Website Legal Compliance – Congress Struggles With Protect IP and SOPA Legislation

Website legal compliance is now under serious consideration by lawmakers in Washington. The U.S. Congress is now considering two proposed bills, which if enacted into law, would provide ground-breaking weapons for law enforcement and content owners to enforce intellectual property rights. If you’re a content owner that provides content on the Internet, you have an important stake in the current legislative process. The competing bills currently under consideration – The Protect IP Act (Protect IP) and Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) – are both aimed at websites that are focused on infringing the intellectual property rights of content owners. What’s both creative and controversial about these proposed laws from a website legal compliance perspective is the enforcement mechanism – shutting down the offending websites regardless of whether they’re U.S. based or foreign based websites. The typical offenders that are the targets of Protect IP and SOPA are websites that pirate and illegally stream movies, TV shows, and music. However, if you’re a content owner with valuable content that may be the target of infringers, these proposed statutes may provide important legal remedies for you to protect your intellectual property

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Website Legal Compliance – Congress Struggles With Protect IP and SOPA Legislation

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FTC Seeks to Regulate Online Merchants With Proposed Changes to Mail Order Rule

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is proposing amendments to the Mail Order Rule that would result in its regulation of all sales made over the Internet regardless of how a buyer might initiate the purchase. If you’re an online merchant, the ramifications are significant. The Mail Order Rule The Mail Order Rule (Rule), actually The Mail or Telephone Order Merchandise Rule, was issued in 1975 and later updated in 1993 for purposes of clarifying a merchant’s obligations regarding shipment of merchandise. The FTC passed the Rule to force merchants to consider and state the time of shipment, or at least to ship within 30 days.

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FTC Seeks to Regulate Online Merchants With Proposed Changes to Mail Order Rule

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New Rules for E-commerce – A SPN Exclusive Article Part 2

When the Internet was conceived, it was developed as an ‘information highway.’ It has evolved into an e-commerce solution that is a mandatory component for every business. However, the Rules of E-commerce have changed. In this article we introduce the new rules and how they impact online Merchants. • In Part 1, we discussed how the new rules impact consumers. • In Part 3 we will discuss how the new rules impact web hosting companies. • In Part 4 we will discuss how the new rules impact shopping cart developers. • In Part 5 we will discuss how the new rules impact smart phone application developers.

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New Rules for E-commerce – A SPN Exclusive Article Part 2

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Google, eBay, EarthLink, Amazon, Discuss Net Neutrality

The FTC Broadband Connectivity Competition Policy workshop, recently brought together experts from business, government, and the technology sector, consumer advocates, and academics to explore competition and consumer protection issues relating to broadband Internet access, including “network neutrality.”

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Google, eBay, EarthLink, Amazon, Discuss Net Neutrality