SmallBusinessNewz

An interesting CNet article on the nine major ways that any startup can commit legal suicide in the Web 2.0 world, and what you need to be aware of legally with your company or application. The cool part is that if you were not careful, your company is probably already in violations that no one ever thought of while cranking out those great Web 2.0 applications. Probably the most intriguing, and one from experience that is easily understood is cooperating with the police. If you are collecting information about users as they traverse your web site, you have a lot of data, and that data is stored off. Some of the data that you store as a web 2.0 company is going to be private. If you run an alcohol rehab Web 2.0 web site, you really don't want to reveal personally identifiable information without a court order. Many police agencies will simply inquire, not go through the courts, and ask "what do you have on x". In wanting to do good, some companies will turn over the data. I know that on some of the more egregious cases I have worked on, that data was what convicted someone, who spent a lot of time in jail. As a public company, make sure you always have a court order, the desire to comply is there, and if they really want it, they will go through the proper channels to get a release of the data. It covers you, and it covers the police as well. Never think you are in the clear, there is always going to be someone who takes offense at something that otherwise is innocuous. Depending on what kind of Web 2.0 mashup's you are offering, the concept of someone, someday, is going to want you to take down some form of user generated content is going to happen. Reputation Defender and others rely on that, people who find out that their job prospects, and life prospects are being hampered by what others have posted about them. This becomes more and more a probable and realistic scenario as time moves on. Even if the user posted it themselves on MySpace, Facebook or other web sites, eventually someday someone is going to want something taken down. As CNet states:

The law is a snarling beast (according to me, not von Lohmann), and start-ups run fast and often headlong into its maw. Von Lohmann's two big takeaways: First, be sure you know when you're stepping into a danger zone. Music? Financial data? Private information? Kids? Don't let yourself think you're more clever than another industry's legal machine. Second, realize that no matter how hard you try to stay clean, "You're probably doing something wrong already. For the most part it doesn't matter, but something just might." Source: CNet

The EFF is offering a compliance boot camp on this very issue on the 10th of October down in California, and it might be something that is worth taking time out for to see what the issues and concerns are. You can get the details about the conference here. In all this is a fascinating article to read, and should be at the top of every CEO's and Startup management's morning report on the state of the industry. If you read nothing else, this is the one article to read this week. Comments