Tips Guides

If you’re a new website operator or you own a business website that children under 13 may use, you need to understand and comply with the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act, or COPPA. This act was passed on April 21, 2000 to protect the privacy as well as the safety of children under the age of 13 who use the Internet.

COPPA outlines specific requirements website operators
must adhere to, and ignorance is no defense when it comes to COPPA. If you violate the rules outlined in this important Act, you could be charged up to $11,000 per violation.

The rules outlined in COPPA regarding the responsibilities of web operators are very clear. Every website owner or operator should be able to understand the Act completely by reading through it, but if you have questions or doubts about compliance or whether or not your rules apply to your website, don’t leave it to chance.

Regardless of whether or not you operate a site aimed at children under 13 or collect any personal information at all online, you should read and understand the COPPA. If you are operating a website or an online business, it is your responsibility to abide by COPPA, but you can also use your knowledge to look out for other web sites that could be violating the Act. It’s the least you can do to help keep kids safe online.

If you do operate a website that is aimed at children under the age of 13, it is imperative that you completely understand this Act and are positive you are abiding by every rule outlining your responsibilities. If you’re not sure, the easiest way to find out is by seeking assistance from the FTC. You can refer to the FTC’s COPPA website which you can access online. If you have a question about the Act or your responsibilities, pick up the phone and call the COPPA Compliance Information Line at 202-326-3140.

What are some of the Website Operator requirements outlined in COPPA? Websites must post a privacy policy in accordance with COPPA guidelines. Any website directed towards children that collects information from kids under13 must disclose their information collection practices. This disclosure must be created and even placed on your website in a very specific way that is outlined in COPPA. Some websites also must obtain parental consent before they collect, use or disclose personal information about a child under the age of 13.

This is a general overview of three of the types of regulations COPPA holds website operators to, and there are more. You are not necessarily excluded from regulations if you have what you believe to be a general audience website. The only way you will know for certain whether or not COPPA applies to your website is to obtain a copy of the Act and read through it thoroughly. You can also obtain a very helpful COPPA checklist online through the FTC.

You may or may not agree that it is every Internet user’s responsibility to help protect children’s privacy and ensure their safety online, but it is undoubtedly the responsibility of every web operator. It only takes a small investment of your time to read through the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act.

Make the effort today to ensure your websites are in compliance with FTC regulations, and learn how to spot potentially dangerous websites that could be threatening the privacy of children online.

Download Web Legal Kit today to learn about email compliance measures.

Find out how you can protect your intellectual property with copyrights, trademarks, and patents, including search functions.

http://www.weblegalkit.com

Is your website accessible to people with disabilities? It seems like today, website owners are more concerned with mobile web design than they are with making their sites available to the millions of people around the world with disabilities. It makes sense from a business perspective to make your website as accessible as possible to everyone, but it is also becoming a legal matter and much for many businesses and organizations.

The World Wide Web is classified as a form of Information and Communications Technology, or ICT. Laws and policies regarding ICT accessibility that are already in existence are being considered in terms of the Internet. In addition, more and more legislation addressing ICT accessibility is being enacted around the world.

Although the Internet is for the most part unregulated, laws can apply to the Web as ICT. Many countries currently have government laws, policies, regulations and recommendations in place regarding Web accessibility. An abbreviated list of these countries includes: Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Israel, Japan, Spain the United Kingdom and the United States.

The Americans with Disabilities Act and Internet Accessibility

In the United States, rulings regarding the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA) resulted in the determination that State as well as local governments and the business sector must provide “effective communication” during Internet communications.

A significant point of the ADA policy rulings is that communications in graphical format are almost impossible for people with visual disabilities to understand. Screenreaders cannot make sense of graphic images: text format is absolutely essential, including text for navigational tools, graphs, tables and charts.

You can find out more about the ADA and rulings regarding the Internet at the US Department of Justice (USDOJ) website.

Implementing Universal Design

Whether laws are governing your website today or not, it is in your best interest to make your site accessible to all Internet users - especially if it is a business website. How can you accomplish this? By implementing the elements of Universal Design on all of your web pages. Your entire website will then be available to the widest range of Internet users possible, regardless of the type of technology or equipment they use, disabilities, age, or level of education.

The following are some of the specific ways you can apply Universal Design principles to your website:

1. Provide text browser support

2. Present documents in text format rather than in frames or PDF

3. Avoid requiring visitors to download software to view information

4. Add “Alt” tags to your graphics so screenreaders can “read” images

5. Hyperlink all photos with descriptive text

6. Hyperlink video and audio clips with captioning

7. Provide email or voice/TTY phone number alternatives for on-line forms

8. Avoid relying on color to convey information

You can obtain more complete information about website accessibility guidelines from resources such as W3 online.

Depending on your skills, you may or may not need assistance redesigning or developing your next website for full accessibility. Whether you make changes to your website design yourself or rely on professional assistance, remember to evaluate the results.

There are many free evaluation tools available online that can help you test web pages on your site for accessibility. For a comprehensive evaluation that would ensure compliance with web accessibility laws, you will need to rely on the expertise of a knowledgeable professional as well as evaluation tools.

Additional Benefits of Web Accessibility

Whether you need to bring your website to full web accessibility standards to comply with legal requirements, or you’re primarily interested in providing access to those with disabilities, you’ll discover some surprising additional benefits.

A website with a flexible design is more accessible to people browsing the Web with limited technology, such as dial-up Internet connections or outdated computers. Your fully accessible website will also be available to those with temporary disabilities, such as people recovering from surgery or accidents. With the right equipment, even people with limited or no literacy skills will be able to browse your website.

Regardless of what type of website you have, focusing on web accessibility will benefit your visitors as well as your business in a variety of ways.

Download Web Legal Kit today to learn about email compliance measures.

Find out how you can protect your intellectual property with copyrights, trademarks, and patents, including search functions.

http://www.weblegalkit.com

A home based online business has to legally comply with the same regulations as an offline business from any other location. Below are the basic legal issues with which a real home based Internet business owner must be familiar.

The first one, a real concern for any home Internet business is the age restriction. The U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) follows regulations spelled out in COPPA, the Children Online Privacy Protection Act.

The above act requires that children under the age of 13 cannot disclose their personal information unless a parent consents to it. Children under 18 years of age cannot, under any circumstances, be allowed to view pornographic content on the Internet, nor are they allowed to enter into any contract.

Real time occurrences on the Web, including chats and forums, must be carefully controlled by the home based Internet business owner. Bulletin boards will have the same control issues.

The rules of using each should very clearly solicit and retain the consent of each online user to refrain from posting pornography. Also, in this category are, defamatory or hate material or anything that infringes on the rights of others.

It is probably not a law and may never be so but respecting, truthfulness and fairness to other human beings should be a serious concern also.

Your company should also clearly state, on its site, that you are not liable for other users that commit to following your policies and guidelines but subsequently violate them. I always keep a sharp eye out on my web sites for this anyway and hope others will do the same.

We should all keep an eye out to preserve the integrity of the internet for all of us.

To make your ownership of all property real and keep content rights safe, on your home based business Internet site, you will need a copyright notice on the site footer, maybe on every page. The notice should clearly have the date, your name and the statement, All rights reserved.

A real copy of your business online site should be filed with the U.S. copyright office. This will effectively record ownership of the site contents, as well as its look and its feel. Incidentally, this will instill confidence in your site visitors that you are sincere about having a worthy web site.

Your site domain name is a dramatically important part of the branding and marketing for your Internet business. It is best to tie that domain name as closely as possible to your logo, your brand and your business name. This is so very important.

Carefully choose a domain name that clearly conveys the products or services of your real home based Internet business. It is the beginning of every sale or donation you ever get from your home business.

It is your very valuable headline. Register your domain name as a trademark and you can retain ownership should it be challenged by another business. Sometimes this will happen.

Your site is on the World Wide Web so you must comply with export regulations. If you sell goods over the Internet to these global consumers, which you should want to do, then you are exporting items for sale and entering into international countries and commerce. Your market increases by hundreds of millions of flesh and blood humans.

If your site is encrypted then you are exporting to other countries per U.S. Department of Commerce and Defense technology regulations. There are many U.S. federal agencies that have regulations in force.

Enforcement agencies are expected to enforce them with the intent of the law, for doing business with other countries. This is their job. Times and circumstances require a firm to get an export license to send information, technology or goods abroad.

Regarding other countries, there is now software on the internet that translates into many of the major world languages. If your web site can sell goods world wide you can use this software to major advantage to sell in many more places.

Your Google Ad Sense will be in other languages giving you more action also so many millions more prospects can read and buy from you. Your online pages will increase dramatically giving you far more links and exposure. Your Alexa rating will begin to rise. Understand the immense benefit from this.

There are countries with whom business transactions are limited severely for U.S. firms. These countries are Cuba, Iran, Iraq, North Korea, Syria and Yugoslavia.

Romania and Malaysia are rife with dishonesty on the internet. It is best to risk losing business with these two countries for now because your chances of being cheated are very high and not worth the risk with such poor odds that are not in your favor.

The best decision about the real problems you might encounter for your home based online business doing commerce with these countries and or the residents should be made with your attorney. Better yet, forget all of these until international relations with them get a lot better.

James M. Lowe writes original articles about home business issues.