Fear and loathing on the Internet
As fun as it may have been to tease this guy, I found myself thinking that if this letter hadn't been so obviously not a legal threat, it might have been kind of scary. After all, we do live in a pretty litigious world.

Many of the "wired" folks I've talked to have expressed emotions ranging from doubt to confusion to downright terror about how new legal problems arising from Internet-related stuff can affect them and their businesses.

Because you, our PalmPower Magazine readers, pretty much fall into the "wired" category I figured that the subject of legality and the Internet would probably be pretty interesting to you. As a matter of fact, in DominoPower (another one of our ZATZ publications) we've run several articles by Victor Woodward, Vice President of Content Technologies, Inc., related to spam and legality issues. A list of these articles can be found at http://www.zatz.com/authors/authorpages/victorwoodward.html.

Some of the information in these articles is a little dated, which brings me to my next point. How many of you have gotten frightening emails with alarming news that the Government of the United States is attempting to quietly push through legislation that will affect your use of the Internet? I've gotten a number of them. As with jokes I know I got half a year ago, some of these are pretty old and still circulating. How do you know what's real and what isn't?

I remember a cute comment that an old friend of mine made about how dealing with legal issues when you're scared is like going to the grocery store when you're hungry.

We're all pretty busy, but it's definitely important to keep abreast of laws that can impact your company. This is a fact to which any company who has been sued for creating an inhospitable or sexually harassing work environment because of spam that's been circulated among employees can attest.

Another rampant rumor is the intent of the US Postal Service to force through legislation requiring each email message to be taxed, offsetting the lost revenue due to the increasing use of email. This rumor/myth/urban legend is like to concern any company whose business model is based on the company's ability to use the Internet without a per-message charge (remember how expensive all those mailings and software upgrades used to be when you had to pay for postage?)

I'd like to share with you a great resource I found called Tech Law Journal. Visit http://www.techlawjournal.com for news, records, and analysis of legislation, litigation, and regulation affecting the computer and Internet industry.

I sure hope that discovering this resource makes you as happy as it made me, even if it's only because you'll now be able to reply, with a cool URL, to those scary spam emails from well-meaning friends.

Good luck! Email me at denise@palmpower.com with any Internet law-related comments you might want to share with me or our other readers.

Denise Amrich is the Managing Editor for PalmPower Magazine (at http://www.palmpower.com), Windows CE Power Magazine (at http://www.windowscepower.com), and DominoPower Magazine (at http://www.dominopower.com). She can be reached via email at denise@palmpower.com.