UK: Playing Safe On The Internet

Whilst entrepreneurs are leaping to the fore in an attempt to ensure that they do not miss the opportunity to take a piece of the cake, legislators are rushing to update existing laws and create new ones for the dot.com economy. This article outlines briefly how to avoid some of the more prominent pitfalls.

These are among the most valuable components of an e-commerce business in that recognition and appeal of the domain name will increase the number of website visits by users, but remember, registration of a domain name is on a first-come first-served basis.

The key to the likely availability of a domain name and scope for obtaining registered trade mark protection, lies in conceiving a name which is sufficiently striking without being too descriptive. Domain name, trade mark and company name searches should be carried out at an early stage to avoid the risk of confusion with the business of third parties and possible infringement of others' registered trade marks.

Even if you are the proprietor of a registered trade mark, if this appears on a website you could unwittingly be at risk of infringing trade mark rights owned in other countries by third parties. If your site is, therefore, only directed to a particular country or countries, appropriate disclaimers should be included on the website which make it clear that the site is targeted towards that particular country (or countries).

These should always appear on your site and care needs to be taken to ensure that such terms are communicated and consent given at the appropriate time so that they are incorporated into any contract. In addition, liability for various claims should be excluded, as far as possible.

Following the implementation of the EU's Distance Selling Directive on 4 June 2000 an e-commerce supplier will be required to give consumers a 7-day cooling-off period and, unless otherwise agreed, must effect consumers' orders within 30 days of formation of the contract.

There are three principal areas for concern:

1. Information sent or received via the internet may be delayed, misdelivered or corrupted
2. Information may not have originated from the apparent sender
3. Information may be, or be evidence of, an unlawful activity which should be accessible to law enforcement agencies

Preventative measures against the first two risks include encryption and electronic signatures (a draft Electronic Communications Bill has been introduced and is due to be enacted shortly). E-commerce traders will, however, need to be alert to the third risk since participation in such activity could lead to the imposition of criminal sanctions.

The recent publicity surrounding the infiltration of the web by the LoveLetter virus, along with the unsolicited appearance of 'Melissa' last year, has demonstrated the destructive effect which viruses can have on the global network.

LoveLetter was carried in an attachment to an e-mail and, when opened, the virus forwarded itself to every e-mail address contained on the user's PC and continued searching both the PC and the entire network for files ending with particular extensions, the contents of which were subsequently replaced with the virus. As a result, networks and e-mail services were brought to a halt, data was destroyed and communications disabled.

In order to minimise the risk of being attacked by viruses, the following procedure should be followed:

1. Never open a file attachment unless it is expected.
2. Make it a policy for passwords to be changed regularly.
3. In the event that your systems are infected, clean the entire system with anti-virus software.