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Some legal issues and legal language pertaining the Web.

• Legal Issues
• Commerce Issues
• Advertising

Legal Issues

• There are four major intellectual property laws in the United States:
  • Copyright law. Protects original "works of authorship."
  • Patent law. Protects new, useful, and "nonobvious" inventions and processes.
  • Trademark law. Protects words, names, and symbols used by manufacturers and businesses to identify their goods and services.
  • Trade secret law. Protects valuable information not generally known that has been kept secret by its owner.
• Web sites can protect original content, images, misc. media, and other intellectual property. This includes original names, logos, trademarks, domain names, and phrases.
• Copyright.
  • A copyright notice can be secured by placing the word "copyright" or "(C)", or the copyright symbol, ©. Be sure to put the year as well, especially if the material covers a span, EG: 1996-2000.
  • Copyright notices may include wordage granting others license to copy the material. EG: "Materials may be freely copied and distributed subject to the inclusion of the copyright notice and our Web site address. Permission is granted to electronically copy and to print in hard copy portions of this Web site for the sole purpose of placing an order or using this site as a shopping resource."
  • Additional copyright protection may be acquired by registering with the US Copyright Office. Such registration allows the copyright holder to sue for statutory damages up to $100,000, attorney's fees, loss of profit, and even the profit made by the infringer's profit by unauthorized use.
• Websites can be sued for defamation (verbal) or libel (in print or online) when false statement(s) are made that injure another party's reputation.
• Websites can be sued for invasion of privacy when the site intrudes on another party's expectation of privacy.
• Disclaimers are good especially if the site offers goods, services, or information. Disclaimers should even cover hyperlinks that lead away from the site. EG: "This site contains links to other Internet sites. These links are not endorsements of any products or services in such sites, and no information in such site has been endorsed or approved by this site."

Commerce Issues

• Sites can support more traditional ordering methods by providing phone numbers that can be used to place orders. Sites can also provide forms suitable for printing and thus be used to mail or fax orders.
• Sites that sell direct on the Internet can incorporate a secure server and some version of electronic shopping cart. These sites also take money via credit card or some version of cyber cash. Credit card merchant accounts typically take 1 to 4 percent of each sale, a small fee for each transaction, and a monthly service fee.
• Yes, in the U.S. you do indeed have to pay income tax for money collected via PayPal, eBay, etc. Those companies track it and the IRS checks it.

Advertising

• The fold is space viewed first. Obviously, ads above the fold are most valuable.
• Impressions (aka ad views) refer to seeing the ad.
• CPM refers to cost per thousand ad impressions.
• Clicks refer to reacting to the ad.
• Clickthrough refers to a click that completes with receipt of the advertiser's page.
• Click rate refers to the percentage of impressions that lead to a clickthrough.
  • High repeat ads commonly have a click rate of 0.15% to 1%.
  • Provocative, compelling, mysterious, etc. ads can have a click rate from 1% to 5% or more.

Page Modified: (Hand noted: 2007-07-24 09:33:39Z) (Auto noted: 2008-08-27 16:36:53Z)