What business owners should know before going online - Spreecast

Had a great time today with my old friend Mitch Jackson on a Spreecast broadcast about the legal implications of going online.  We discussed websites, privacy, social media, protecting copyrights and avoiding copyright infringement. 

Website Legal Checklist

A company’s website is a valuable asset. For Internet based companies, it is often its most valuable asset.

Business owners often are plagued by problems resulting from their websites. These problems primarily result from business owners’ lack of knowledge of the fundamental things they should have and know about their website.

With hardball trademark tactics and copyright trolls, the Internet has become an often perilous place for business owners. The following is a checklist of information that a business website owner must have.

1. The business should own the domain. Not a partner individually, someone’s spouse, etc. But, the corporation, LLC, or partnership must own the domain.

2. Possess all access information for your domain. You, personally, should have the username and password for the account that manages your domain – e.g. the GoDaddy account with which you bought your business’s domain.

3. Own all domains around your main domain. If your primary domain is xyzwidget.com, then buy xyzwidget.biz, xyzwidget.net, xyzwidget.org, xyzwidget.xxx, xyz-widget.com, xyz-widget.net, xyz-widget.org, etc. Spend some money and buy them all up

4. Use a reputable website designer. Not a friend or a relative or employee. They’ll make mistakes and break the law.

5. Have a contract with the designer. You must have a written contract with your web designer. The contract should spell out the services and the price and contain two terms:

a. The designer’s work is “work for hire”. You will own the content, not the designer.

b. All stock art, photos, content will be licensed. There should be a line item in the contract for the cost of getting licenses for stock photos. Do not allow your designer to put someone else’s pictures, art or photos on your website without a license or permission.

6. Protect your trademarks. If you do not register your trademarks, unscrupulous persons might try to take them away from you – particularly now that you are broadcasting them to the Internet.

7. Post terms and conditions of use and a privacy policy on your website. If you will be doing business on the website, you must have terms and conditions of use and a privacy policy.

8. Know your host. You need to know who is the company that is hosting your website (and probably providing you email service) and you should be in direct contract with that company.

9. Have your FTP information. You must also have the FTP (File Transfer Protocol) information and any other information that will allow you full access to the site and transfer the site to another server.

10. File your copyrights. Once your site is complete, file a copyright registration for its content.

This post is not so much informational as a checklist to be referred to by a business owner when starting a company’s website. If you need any help with any of the above items, please contact me. We have extensive experience with each of these areas.

ISPs must respond to warrants to identify subscribers

A California court ruled recently that an ISP must respond to warrants demanding the identification of its subscribers.

In criminal hacking case, the court held that the police could force an ISP (in that case, Time Warner) to give the identity and address of a Time Warner subscriber based on a IP (Internet Protocol) address.

The police subsequently searched the defendant's home and found evidence of the defendant hacking into a public school's computer network. The defendant claimed that he had a privacy expectation for his information with Time Warner.

"A subscriber has no expectation of privacy in the subscriber information he supplies to his Internet provider. Therefore, his challenge to a warrant requiring his Internet provider to identify him through his Internet Protocol (IP) number has no merit." wrote the court in People vs. Stipo.  The appellate court found no expectation of privacy in the defendant's subscriber information.

This case has some interesting implications, not only for criminal cases, but civil cases as well since a civil subpoena could also be used to find out identifying information as well.

Court rules that use of competing brand as keyword is not infringement

The courts are becoming more sophisticated in their application of trademark law to Internet. Today, the Federal 9th Circuit Court of Appeals issued a ruling in a keywords ad case.  The defendant in the case bought a competitor's brand name as a keyword for ads on Google and Bing.  A search for the competing brand would bring up a sponsored ad for the defendant. The competitor sued claiming that the use of its brand as a keyword was a violation of its trademark rights.

In Network Automation, Inc. v. Advance Systems Concepts, Inc.,court found that it was not since the search engine results showed the defendant's ad and name as a sponsored result. The court found that consumers are not likely to be confused by the sponsored ads since they can discern the difference between the companies' brand, plus the defendant's ad is obviously not the brand of the competitor.

This is a shift from earlier similar cases in which the same court held that the use of a competing brand could be considered trademark infringement if used as a keyword.  The court's reasoning in this case was that the Internet was changing, the consumers are more sophisticated now than in the past, and the court's must be flexible in applying the law to Internet cases.

The full case opinion is here.