On-line Business

Internet Business Risks

Protecting Trademarks & Business Assets

As you implement your good ideas in developing a Internet business, there is a substantial risk that other individuals and businesses may quickly see your good ideas, copy them and use them to compete against you.  Accordingly, legal protection of your ideas can maintain a solid position on the Internet for you and your company.  As you involve web designers, programmers and other employees, your intellectual property and physical assets are vulnerable to more and more people.

Intellectual Property & Business Practices at Risk

Any employee or subcontract may divulge, sell or outright steal trade secrets including sales lists, customer lists, email lists, unique methods or processing or even unique ideas. While not all assets can be protected against unscrupulous people, many assets can be protected.

Let Domain Name Lawyers help you keep an employee from walking out the door with software created while employed with you. Similarly, we can help prevent your employees or subcontracts from becoming your competitors using your intellectual property. If you don’t want your intellectual property put up for bid to the highest bidder, talk to a Domain Name Lawyers’ attorney today. If you want to keep private customer data from being used to extort your financial assets, you need an experience Domain Name Lawyer’s attorney on your team.

Trade Secrets & Noncompete Agreements

Domain Name Lawyers drafts trade secret and noncompete agreements for clients to help protect their valuable business assets which may include intellectual property such as: processes, ideas, and secret methods or formulas. Our attorneys help you assess which assets can be protected and the necessity of doing so. E-commerce businesses need attorneys like Domain Name Lawyers who understand Internet technology and the legal ramifications.

Business on the Internet poses more risk than a bricks and mortar business due to the possibility that competitors can quickly a formidable virtual company very quickly -- creating a virtual location out of a bit of HTML and a few images. A virtual store may or may not be in actual existence.

Understandably, potential customers want to know which online businesses they can trust and they want to have assurances that their private data will be kept private. As a good business person, you also want assurances that your customers' data is not open to hackers or other potential abuses. Not only are these business risks bad for business, they may provide legal liability issues.
Domain Name Lawyers conducts website audits for clients, providing your business an assessment of vulnerabilities and possible legal issues. The following legal issues may exist with a website:

• Trademark infringement – If your website contains the trademarked images or symbols of another entity, you are at risk. In addition, your domain name itself may violate trademark laws.
• Copyright infringement - If your website allows others to post or upload content and images, you may be liable for copyrighted material posted by others.
• Sexual content also known as 2257 (for 18 U.S.C. 2257 ) – Often people talk about free speech, a right protected by the Constitution. What they don’t talk about is the limitations. The 2257 law protects under aged children and unintentional adult victims from being exploited on the Internet. The law requires that if you display pictures of models on your website in sexually explicit poses (including nudity), then you must have legal documentation showing the persons are of legal age and have given consent to display the images on your website. Sexually explicit sites also require certain notices by law.
• Defamation – Once again, if you allow people to post content on your site, you may be liable for any defamatory statements they post.
• Data Mining and Customer Privacy – The information age finds various types of people collecting various types of information for various purposes. Data provides information about customers likes and dislikes, their actions on a web site, and their preferences. However, when collecting data, do you know and understand the laws surrounding data mining? Is your web site privacy policy in concert with your practices? How is the information you receive from customers shared and with whom? Are your clients’ personal data secured?

Domain Name Lawyers assists clients in auditing their web sites for trouble areas that may run afoul of Internet laws. We will advise you about agreements you may need with your website designer, content providers, image providers and security people. We can advise you about any require for a “terms of use” agreements, affiliate agreements and whether your web site business falls within specific content laws. Domain Name Lawyers also advises clients of potential risks in mining data and the applicable privacy laws.
Contact Domain Name Lawyers today for a risk assessment of your web site.

Ecommerce Business Risks

Domain Name Lawyers can assist you in assessing the risks involved with starting an Internet ecommerce business and provide you ways to ensure you protect your personal assets against the risks involved.

Remember that Internet ecommerce legal issues continuously emerge.  An experienced attorney involved in the ground floor of your e-commerce business plan adds protection and security.

Ecommerce Business Start-ups Need Legal Advice

Do not set out with an idea for an Internet ecommerce business without understanding the legal issues involved with e-commerce on the Internet. Be advised that many people set out with e-commerce business ideas and due to lack of research, a good business plan and adequate legal counsel, end up losing not only their unique ideas and their ecommerce business, but their personal assets as well. Another entity’s implementation of an ecommerce business is not a guarantee that the Internet business is legal or won’t eventually run afoul of laws; nor is it even a sign of a successful venture. What you appear to see or read on the Internet is not always actually based in fact or even legal.

Ecommerce Internet Business Plan

Let a Domain Name Lawyers’ attorney help you solidify your ecommerce business plan, outline the risks and provide solutions that protect your unique ideas and your personal assets. We can assist you with a risk analysis, helping you determine if the risk is worth the potential income; and what you are willing to risk for this potential income.

Setting up an ecommerce shop on the Internet is not as simple as it may appear. It requires capital sufficient to sustain your Internet business through start-up and gradual income building, at least a 5 year business plan, concerted security measures, experts who understand design, programming, search engines, security, inventory and ecommerce and an experience attorney who understand e-commerce law good business practices and technology.

Here  is just one example of possible legal pitfalls involved in an Internet business:

Many physical store merchants don’t understand that they may not use their physical store merchant account number for processing credit card transactions on the Internet. Because of the risk involved in Internet e-commerce, most Internet businesses are required to have a separate merchant account for processing e-commerce transactions. If they fail to do this, they risk their physical store merchant account along with their Internet business itself.

Let Domain Name Lawyers become part of your ecommerce team. Contact a Domain Name Lawyers attorney now.

 

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