by Rochelle Kaplan
Summer 2000 NACE Journal of Career Planning & Employment

Question: What do I need to know about the "legal" notices appearing on web sites? Should my organization include a notice on its web site?

Answer: The Internet provides people with a wealth of information at the click of a mouse. However, this access doesn't come without responsibility, including compliance with copyright laws.

For example, many people think that information contained on web pages is free or in the public domain. They believe that as long as they are not selling information from a web page, it is "fair use" to distribute it free to others-on paper or electronically-for an "educational purpose." However, this is not true.

In addition, many users volunteer personal data to web sites because they want to be notified when interesting information is added to the sites. At the same time, they do not want the personal information they provide to become part of a data base to be sold to commercial organizations.

To address these issues, web sites are publishing "terms and conditions" you must agree to before you can use the sites. These rules prohibit users from distributing the web site information, including copying, linking, or framing, without specific permission of the web site owner. Users who don't agree to the terms or who break the rules may be barred from the site. By the same token, the terms and conditions disclose the sites' privacy policies, and users can hold the web sites to these policies.

This article will review some of the terms and conditions that you may be required to agree to or may use to protect the content of your web site.

Copyright Issues

Web site materials—text, images, and graphics—are owned by the organization operating the site and are protected by copyright laws. The site contents cannot be used without obtaining permission from the site owner.

Web site owners want people to use the information on their pages for personal, noncommercial purposes. The owner grants a "license" to users to read and make a printout of the information. However, distributing the information to others via e-mail or making multiple printed copies is prohibited.

The same restrictions on copying hold true for logos and trademarks. Using them on your web site violates the rights of the trademark or logo owner. Many organizations don't want their names or logos to appear on web sites that aren't their own, even if the use is "innocent." "Borrowing" the logo or a trademark to use as a hyperlink also is restricted unless permission is obtained first.

The site owner may also prohibit framing and linking-which some view as other ways of copying information. Framing builds a border around a web page to make it appear as if the information is owned by another web page. Linking connects one web page to another, enabling users to quickly shift to related information by clicking on text or images. Some people see linking as an expression of free speech and believe efforts to curtail linking would chill speech on the web; others, however, see linking as a theft of intellectual property.

Many online agreements prohibit linking or framing without the specific permission of the web site owner. This gives the owner control over who links to the site or frames the page and ensures that the owner of the materials receives proper credit for them.

Defamation and Harassment

Another rule outlined in many user agreements concerns information communicated in e-mail discussion groups (listservs) and online chat rooms. Court cases dealing with defamation and harassment over the Internet have proven that what you say over the Internet can be held against you. Defamation is the communication of untrue information about an individual or organization to a third person that harms the reputation and results in damages to that person or organization. Defamation also can include communication of harmful information with no regard to the truthfulness of the statements.

An e-mail message about a person should be treated the same as a spoken statement or a message sent by mail or fax. If the message contains information that is harmful to a third person, it can be considered defamatory. When you participate in online groups, your communication is instantly transmitted to hundreds or thousands of other individuals. If your message contains untrue and harmful information about another person, product, or organization, the act of defamation has now been multiplied by the number of people who received the message.

Harassment is words or actions that are designed to threaten or intimidate a person and/or make his/her workplace or educational environment unbearable and intolerable. Most schools and companies have strict policies prohibiting harassment.

If harassment occurs in the workplace and is directed toward employees of a certain race, ethnicity, age, disability, religion, or gender, then it is a violation of state and local EEO laws. If harassment is directed at students, then civil rights laws prohibiting discrimination in educational and or public institutions are violated.

Hate crimes are the criminal extension of harassment. Most state criminal laws include harassment by electronic means. Until recently, this meant harassment by phone; now the definition includes e-mail. Moreover, the Federal Telecommunications Act (FTC) makes it a federal offense to use the Internet to harass someone.

Many web sites now require users to refrain from defamatory or harassing conduct and warn that access will be revoked if such conduct occurs. Some sites suggest safe communication tips such as:

• Base an opinion of a product or service upon your experience.
• Consider sending a "private" reply to the questioner rather than sending it to the entire group.
• State the facts such as, "This product did not work well in our office because…" and offer a detailed explanation.
  

Privacy

Privacy has become a central concern among Internet users as technology permits web site owners to obtain and store personal information about its users, with or without their knowledge. Some use "cookies"-a type of computer programming that allows a web site to record your comings and goings.

A recent case filed in a Texas State court alleges that the use of cookies is "electronic stalking," since the cookies literally follow the person as he or she surfs the Internet. While it is unlikely that criminal laws against stalking will be used to regulate the use of cookies, this case does highlight the growing concern over online privacy. As there are no laws pertaining to Internet privacy, the FTC has issued guidelines about Internet privacy protection. You can expect all web sites to post privacy policies that disclose what information is being collected and how it will be used. Specifically, a privacy policy should include:

• The type of data collected, including whether the organization uses cookies,
• The uses for the data collected (e.g., sending products to users, helping to discover needs of members to streamline services),
• Who can use the information,
• Names of third parties who have access to the information,
• How to opt out of the information collection process, and
• Who to contact in the organization regarding its privacy policy. For more information on developing privacy policies, the following web sites are helpful:
• Federal Trade Commission, www.ftc.gov;
• Better Business Bureau Online, www.bbb.org; and
• TRUST.e, an independent nonprofit organization dedicated to building trust in the Internet, www.truste.org.