Technology Media and Telecom

  • Intimidation Goes Online

    Bullies used to be fairly easy to identify: Bigger than most of us, intimidating and often vicious. While bullies haven't disappeared, they have become more difficult to detect, launching scathing attacks behind the relative anonymity of the Internet. Such acts, known as cyberbullying, are becoming easier to carry out with text-messaging, blogs and interaction through social-networking sites. And they're a growing concern not only for the victims, who can be targeted round-the-clock, but also for educators, parents and lawyers.

    March 27, 2008Douglas S. Malan

  • Web 2.0 at Work

    In recent years, millions of employees have joined the world of Web 2.0, which includes social networking sites such as Facebook and LinkedIn, blogs, wikis, podcasts, video sharing sites and RSS feeds. In this constantly changing new world, where individuals have the ability to disseminate information about their employers to a potentially world-wide Internet audience, employers need to evaluate their existing technology policies and, where necessary, implement new policies and strategies.

    March 25, 2008David W. Garland and Kristina R. Haymes

  • IP Storm Awaits Microsoft/Yahoo

    If Microsoft can conquer Yahoo with its blustery takeover bid, there may still be another storm on the horizon over intellectual property. The two companies' views about what should be shared and what should be kept proprietary have been as different as Yahoo's sunny Silicon Valley and Microsoft's dreary Seattle.

    March 25, 2008Zusha Elinson

  • Product Review: Abbyy FineReader OCR 9.0: Experience Efficiency

    One of the basic challenges to law firms since the advent of the PC has always been how to convert paper documents into a searchable or editable electronic format. I have been using a product for many years that has continued to improve itself with each new version. I am speaking of Abbyy FineReader OCR 9.0, which comes in two editions, Corporate and Professional.

    March 25, 2008Alan Pearlman

  • e-Working For a Living

    No one would deny that those in the e-commerce economy 'work hard for the money,' in the words of nascent e-commerce entrepreneur and one-time disco queen Donna Summer. But is 'workin' for a living' any different for an e-commerce manager or executive than for the rest of us? To consider how dot-com employment has evolved over the past few years, I looked at a random sample of recent employment agreements to identify current practices and techniques in e-commerce employment contracting.

    February 29, 2008Stanley P. Jaskiewicz

  • Franchisors: Exercise Your Contractual Rights

    With the explosion of e-commerce and the easy availability of often free information on the Internet, franchisors have the ability like never before to expand their businesses into global markets. While the rapid growth into international markets has increased revenues and brand awareness, it also has added a layer of complexity and risk in monitoring franchisee compliance with the terms of the franchise agreement.

    February 29, 2008Dana Trexler Smith

  • FTC Staff Proposal Raises the Bar for Behavioral Advertising

    On Dec. 20, FTC staff released for public comment proposed online behavioral-advertising privacy principles in an effort to guide self-regulation of this nascent industry. The release of these Principles followed a two-day Town Hall meeting the FTC held late last year on behavioral advertising, which itself followed the FTC's Tech-Ade Workshop in 2006.

    February 29, 2008D. Reed Freeman, Jr.

  • Net News

    Congress Considers New Net Neutrality Bill
    Judge Cuts Court Award in Internet Defamation Case

    February 28, 2008Samuel Fineman, Esq.

  • When 'Web Presence' Creates Jurisdiction

    The Web may not be truly worldwide, but it is getting fairly close, and while this has created enormous opportunities, it is not without its challenges. Among the thorniest of these have been issues of jurisdiction, which have been a staple of Web jurisprudence since the earliest days of e-commerce (and even before that). This has only gotten more complex as Web business models have diversified: A modern Web site for a company based in Chicago might be designed in New York, coded in California, supported in India, connected via a Virginia Internet service provider and hosted on servers in the Bahamas (offshore hosting being more and more common for both cost and privacy reasons). More importantly, the company might reasonably expect that site to be viewed by users from Brooklyn to Beijing, and perhaps to be subject to the laws of every jurisdiction in the world.

    February 28, 2008Stephen M. Kramarsky