e-Commerce Retailing Continues Its Quarterly Return
October 27, 2010
e-Commerce spending in the second quarter was up an estimated full $1 billion from the first quarter, or $39.7 billion, the Census Bureau notes in preliminary figures ' a 2.6% rise for April through June, a gain of 1.5% from the first quarter and a healthy increase of 14% from the second quarter of last year.
Lessons from Twitter's Settlement with the FTC
October 27, 2010
The recent announcement that social-networking phenomenon Twitter has agreed to settle FTC charges that Twitter engaged in inadequate privacy and information-security practices illustrates some simple mistakes social media and other online companies can make.
When the Virtual Storefront Is the Home Front
October 27, 2010
One of the virtues of e-commerce has always been its low barrier to entry. For little investment of time or money, anyone can set up shop online, whether selling advice or widgets. But can something so easily accomplished really be a business? Will an entrepreneur run something out of her spare bedroom the same way as if she had venture capitalists peering over her shoulders, demanding a business plan, financial statements, budgets, marketing plans and everything that a bricks-and-mortar retailer has (except the expense of leasing space)? If not, she may treat it as just another hobby, something to handle in her free time.
Social Media Marketing
October 27, 2010
There are good reasons to believe that social media represents the next frontier in effective legal marketing, and many competitors have already hit the ground running. What do you need to know?
Coping with Socially Networked Jurors
October 27, 2010
At the office, in the car or anywhere else, we share every detail of our daily existence in real time on Facebook. Most of the time, this is acceptable and constitutionally protected behavior. But what happens in the courtroom when jurors post their opinions about a case online during trial?
Who Is Dealing With Social Media Policies?
October 27, 2010
Survey results show that 38% of the 1,700 respondents didn't know who was dealing with social media in their company. The remaining answers were spread across human resources, compliance, marketing, and, at the bottom of the list, the legal department. And while 84% say companies should have policies in place to address social media risks, only 35% say they do have them. But the risks of social media ' legal and reputational ' are real, and companies need to deal with them.
How Private Is Facebook Under the SCA?
October 27, 2010
Despite huge technological advancements in the 25 years since passage of the SCA, and the ever-increasing prominence of electronic communication in our society, Congress has not amended the SCA to keep pace with changing technology. Rather, courts have had to lead the charge in applying the decades-old statute to modern Internet technology and electronic communication disclosure issues.
Unmasking Anonymous Online Defamation
October 27, 2010
The explosion of "Web 2.0" phenomena has brought with it a deluge of published material that is arguably defamatory or otherwise actionable. While some actually welcome this development ' preferring the Web to be, and remain, "a frontier society free from the conventions and constraints that limit discourse in the real world" ' many others do not, especially those worried about the potential impact of disparaging online material on their corporate reputation. But many of those troubled by the threat to corporate reputation from defamatory online content also have discovered that mitigating its effect, or getting it removed, is far from easy.
Data Transfers and the EU
October 27, 2010
The last couple of months have seen a number of challenges for U.S. corporations doing business in Europe, particularly those that rely on the Safe Harbor scheme to legalize the transfer of customer or employee data to the U.S.
