Legal and Ethics Concerns on the Internet

• Contents
• Home
• Bandwidth stealing
• Copyright Issues
• Check Out The Privacy Policy
• The Internet And Responsibility
• Sins Of The Internet
• Identity Theft
• Real Life Internet Evil - Bait
• Should the Internet Be Censored?

Legal Issues There are many legalities that you must be aware of when you are on the web. The best rule to follow is to be as ethical as possible.

For example, it seems so easy to just grab a picture off a web site, modify it slightly, and post it to your site. Who would protest, after all? Your site is just a little personal site and no one will notice. Yet time after time, people find themselves in lawsuits or even worse for these and other seemingly minor ethical violations.

• Bandwidth stealing Bandwidth stealing is the linking to images or scripts from another site without permission, thus using that sites bandwidth without compensation.
  • How to tell if your bandwidth is being stolen Want to find out if someone is stealing your bandwidth? Here are some ways you can tell.
  • More About Bandwidth Stealing Need to understand what handwidth stealing is all about? Perhaps this will help.
  • Getting Revenge on Bandwidth Stealers Got someone stealing your bandwidth and he won't stop? Here are some suggestions.
• Copyright Issues Don't steal other people's stuff. They've worked hard on it. Generally if you ask they will let you use it.
  • Some examples of Copyright and how it works Need to understand how copyright works? Here are some examples from the real world.
  • Copyright Issues - Fair Use You can use bits and pieces from other's works. This is called fair use, but you've got to be careful to follow the rules.
  • Content Thief Some people "borrow" graphics, articles and other things from web sites without approval. This is difficult to find and even more difficult to stop.
  • Digital Millennium Copyright Act What is this thing call DMCA? It's an interesting law with some heavy ramifications.
    • Final joint version of H.R. 2281, DMCA (Digital Millenium Copyright Act), Oct. 20, 1998 Heard of DMCA? Before you buy into the rumors and arguments, read it yourself. Then make up your own mind.
  • Dangerous Copyright Myths Someone wrote a letter "explaining some facts about copyright". Here is the real information.
• Linking to other users sites You can link to other's people's web sites, but it's generally a good idea to let them know.
• Shareware is cool Shareware is a very cool, but don't steal it! People have worked hard and deserve to be compensated.
• Warez is not cool Think you've found a goldmine of free software on that Warez site? Let's discuss the legal and ethical issues.
  • Piracy Today I was shocked to read how many people felt pirating software was a good idea. Here are some of my thoughts on the matter.
• Cheating on the web is not okay Have you found a new program which pays you to do something? Don't try and cheat the system - you will be hurting everyone.
• Cybersquatting It's illegal to purchase a domain name similar to trademarked name.
• Check Out The Privacy Policy Here's a useful exercise - look through a web site and find their privacy policy. Always read them before giving them any information.
  • Amazon Dot Com's New Privacy Policy Amazon's new privacy policy infuriated just about everyone that I know.
  • Is This A Joke or What? You think your information is private? I would still be cautious about telling too much...
  • Creating A Privacy Policy All good web sites should have a privacy policy. Here are some of the things you should include in yours.
  • Covering Your Tracks Online Think no one can find out what you've been doing on the internet? I hate to tell you this, but ...
  • Opt Out The United States has done something very silly - they've allowed companies to sell your information unless you tell them not to.
    • Internet Privacy- How To Opt Out Tired of being part of the many vast marketing experiments which are profiling your surfing habits? Click these links to opt-out.
  • Pornography in the Library Some libraries block pornographic sites, some don't. It's an interesting discussion which is not likely to go away soon
  • Internet Privacy- P3P The new P3P standard is supposed to help you protect your privacy. However, it appears it's not being taken too seriously.
• The Internet And Responsibility We webmasters have an incredible amount of power, and it's up to us to use it wisely or not.
• Sins Of The Internet Check out some of these internet sins. Are you guilty of any of them?
  • Sins of the internet- Banners Banner ads not only look terrible, increase load times and cause site failures, they don't even work.
  • Sins of the internet- Bandwidth Stealing This sin costs hosts millions of dollars a year - and often you don't even know that you did it!
  • Sins of the internet- Copyright Infringement 
  • Sins of The Internet- Domain Sniper A domain sniper is someone who purchases your domain name if you forget to renew. He only wants to sell it back to you.
  • Sins of the internet- Money Making Programs How many money making schemes have you signed up for? How many of them actually worked?
  • Sins of the internet- Not Using Bcc Please use BCC to keep from giving people's email addresses to spammers - or worse.
  • Sins of the internet- Pagejacking A pagejacker is someone who makes a copy of one or more of your pages in order to steal traffic for various evil purposes.
  • Sins of The Internet- Para-Site Framing another site and calling it your own is unethical, and it's called para-siting.
  • Sins of the internet- Pop Ups Does your web site use popup windows for advertising? If so, you may think you are getting additional traffic, but you are losing visitors like crazy.
  • Sins of the internet- Spamming Search Engines Want to drop your site out of the search engines fast? Use some spamming techniques.
  • Sins of the internet- Signup Junkie Do you like to sign up for every free thing that presents itself on the internet? You may want to consider being more cautious about that practice.
  • Sins of the internet- Ring Spammer Recently, a spammer joined hundreds or even thousands of Rings on RingSurf. Fortunately, he got caught.
  • Sins of The Internet- Mousetraps (and worse) I'm sure you've hit the back key and found that you didn't go back -- something else happened. Welcome to a mouse trap.
  • Sins of The Internet- Typosquatting Some people try and make money by purchasing domains that sound like popular domains or are misspellings of them.
• Identity Theft Worried about how information about you is being used? No? You should be.
• Real Life Internet Evil - Bait Did you receive an email saying your host has been hacked and your credit card data stolen? Don't panic, gather information and do the right things.
  • Real Life Internet Evil - Microsoft's Smart Tags In early 2001, Microsoft attempted to harness all of the creative energy of the internet into one vast, almost awe-inspiring advertising machine. 
    • More On Microsoft's Smart Tags More about smart tags - why they are unethical.
    • Comments On Microsoft's Smart Tags Virtually everyone who read my article on Smart Tags liked it, with an exception or two. Here's my two cents in return.
  • Real Life Internet Evil - Ezula Want to see a scum-sucking company which even scum will not associate with? Check out Ezula and you will know the levels to which some people will fall.
  • Real Life Internet Evil- Brilliant Digital Entertainment Brilliant has a plan to turn your computer into a vast network of ad servers. Do you want to go along?
• Should the Internet Be Censored? There is a lot of adult materials available on the internet? Should it be available? And if so, what about our children?
  • Some Say The Internet Needs to be Censored Some people believe firmly that the internet needs to be censored. Here are their viewpoints.
• Hijackware Programs such as Gator exist in order to "steal" visitors to other web sites.

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