MARIANNE M. JENNINGS
7th Ed.
Its Legal, Ethical, and
Global Environment
Chapter 8
Cyber Law
Copyright ©2006 by West Legal Studies in Business
A Division of Thomson Learning
Overview
• Cyber law is traditional law applied
to disputes in the on-line venue.
– Tort Issues.
– Contract Issues.
– Intellectual Property Issues.
– Criminal Violations.
– Constitutional Restraints, and
– Securities Law Issues.
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Copyright ©2006 by West Legal Studies in Business
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Jurisdiction
• Case 8.1 In the Matter of Maxine
Allen (2003).
– Ms. Allen lived in Florida but did her
work on the Reuters computer in New
York.
– What factors influenced the court in
making its decision?
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Tort Issues in Cyber Law
• Privacy Issues.
– Email and Worker Privacy.
• 90 Million Americans send 2.8 billion emails
per day.
• Email exists as an electronic record not only
between sender and receiver but across the
network as well.
• Do the parties have an expectation to privacy?
– Generally, Employers do have the right to
access an employee’s email.
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E-Mail and the Law
• Case 8.2 Garrity v. John Hancock
Mut. Life Ins. Co. (2002).
– What type of e-mail did the employees
send to one another?
– What was Hancock’s policy on its access
to e-mail?
– What liability does Hancock have for
monitoring e-mail?
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E-Mail and the Law
• Case 8.3 Doe v. 2TheMart.com, Inc.
(2001).
– What type of information was posted to the
website?
– Why do the shareholders, officers, and
directors want the identity of NoGuano
revealed?
• Case 8.4 U.S. v. Bailey (2004).
– Did the Defendant have an expectation of
privacy on his work computer?
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E-Mail and the Law
• Email Privacy and Statutory
Protections.
– Electronic Communications Privacy Act
(1986) prohibits the interception of
“live” communications.
– What about the information collected by
online e-tailers in their ‘cookies’?
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Cyber Torts
• Appropriation in Cyberspace.
– Making an image or likeness and then
using it for commercial advantage.
• Digital Millennium Copyright Act.
– Case 8.5 RIAA v. Verizon (2003).
– Is an ISP liable for the acts of its
subscribers?
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Cyber Torts
• Trespass in Cyberspace.
– Are cookies trespassing?
– What about ‘spiders’ from search
engines?
– Case 8.6 Intel Corp v. Hamidi (2003).
• Defamation in Cyberspace.
– Elements of traditional defamation are
the same.
– What about chat room defamation?
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Copyright ©2006 by West Legal Studies in Business
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Contract Law in
Cyberspace
• Formation Issues.
– Online contracts formed between
businesses (B2B) and business and
consumers (B2C).
– Is there an offer and acceptance?
– Is there a writing?
– Is the contract enforceable?
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Contract Law in Cyber
Space
• E-SIGN, federal law on Electronic
Contracts and Signatures.
• UETA, the Uniform Electronic
Transactions Act, adopted in 18 states,
including Texas.
• These laws provide a framework for
enforcing online contracts.
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Cyber Fraud
• Federal Trade Commission is actively
involved in shutting down illegal
online activity.
• Identity Theft occurs when hackers
find social security numbers and
personal information.
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E-Intellectual Property Issues
• I.P. law has not changed, even though
the internet allows the easy exchange
of documents, pictures and music.
• Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon.com,
patented the ‘one-click’ process.
• Free Music (Napster) vs. Royalties.
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E-Intellectual Property Issues
• Copyright Infringement and Technology
– Digital Millennium Copyright Act provides
‘safe harbors’ for ISP’s.
• Protecting Domain Names.
– ICANN.
– UDRP: domain name disputes.
• Trademarks in Cyberspace.
– Federal Trademark Dilution Act provides
private cause of action.
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E-Criminal Law Issues
• Most cyber crime is ordinary crime
carried out by a computer.
• Computer Fraud and Abuse Act and
Economic Espionage Act (see Ch.9).
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Constitutional Restraints
• The First Amendment in Cyberspace.
– Speech on the internet enjoys the same
protections as ‘real space’ speech.
– Cyber Promotions v. AOL (1996)
– Child Pornography Prevention Act was
ruled unconstitutional in U.S. v. Hilton
(1999) and Free Speech Coalition v.
Reno (1999).
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Constitutional Restraints
• Commerce Clause in Cyberspace.
– Constitutional requires some “nexus”
between taxing authority and business
paying tax.
• Due Process in Cyberspace.
– When does an out-of-state, online
company have sufficient presence to be
hailed into local court?
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E-Securities Law Issues
• ‘Pump and Dump’ occurs when online
traders post information on the web to
make gains on their stock.
• SEC and FTC still monitor and
prosecute on-line security offerings and
scams.
• Any disclosures made to the public must
apply same principles to real-space
companies.
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Cyber-International Law
• Traditional notions of American
jurisdiction do not always fit on the
web.
• Case 8.7 Yahoo! v. La Ligue Contre
le Racisme (2001).
– Yahoo! appealed French court order and
U.S. Court held France had no
jurisdiction over Yahoo!.
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Copyright ©2006 by West Legal Studies in Business
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