As social networking sites and internet blogs continue to increase in both popularity and use, the opportunities for defamatory and libelous actions increase proportionally. Defamation, sometimes called “defamation of character”, is spoken or written words that falsely and negatively reflect on a living person’s reputation. Slander is generally spoken defamation, while ‘libel’ is written. Blogs or social networks in which defamatory statements are written or recorded present several potential sources of liability and recovery for the person whose character was defamed. In cases where the defamation is proved, damages are presumed and often enforced with liberality.

Operators of blogs are generally immune from liability for defamatory statements posted on their websites, as long as they did not contribute to the posting. In 2003, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that a listserv moderator and operator of a website which allegedly published defamatory statements provided by a third party was eligible for immunity under the Communications Decency Act (CDA). Batzel v. Smith, 2003 US App.LEXIS 12736 (9th Cir. 2003). However, if the online service provider plays an active role in soliciting information from users that leads to the defamatory act, the operator may not be protected by the safe harbor provisions of the CDA. In Carafano v. Metrosplash.com, Inc., a federal court ruled on the application of the safe harbor of the Communications Decency Act (CDA). The defendant in that case operated a matchmaking website known matchmaker.com. As part of its service, the defendant collected profiles of singles based on an extensive questionnaire. The plaintiff sued Metrosplash because of a false profile of her which an unknown user had posted to the website. The court ruled that by creating the extensive questionnaire, Metrosplash played an active role in developing the information that had been posted. Furthermore, the court ruled that Metrosplash was an information content provider and thus not eligible for the CDA’s safe harbor provided to ” interactive computer services.” Carafano v. Metrosplash.com, Inc., Case No. CV 01-0018 DT (CWx) C.D. Cal. 2002) (subsequently reversed by appeals court). While operators of blogs and services are generally immune from such liability, the more active the service is with its member’s, the greater the likelihood of potential liability as a publisher of defamatory materials.

Another potential source of liability is the person who actually posted the defamatory materials. As with more general defamatory statements or materials, a poster can be held personally liable for anything posted which reflects falsely and negatively on a living person’s reputation. Posting false and explicit claims regarding a person will generally be held as defamatory for purposes of liability. However, other issues arise concerning the anonymity of the person posting the information, and if known, the jurisdiction in which they are subject.

Jurisdictional issues may arise in situations where the poster had no reason to expect that the effect of the posting would be felt in a certain jurisdiction. However, in defamation cases jurisdictional disputes are liberally ruled upon in favor of the victim. In Griffis v. Luban, the Minnesota court of appeals ruled that Alabama had jurisdiction over a Minnesota defendant who posted defamatory messages on the Internet. The defendant repeatedly posted messages on an Internet newsgroup attacking the plaintiff’s professional credentials. The plaintiff initially obtained a $25,000.00 default judgment in Alabama, which she was seeking to enforce in Minnesota. The Minnesota court ruled that the Alabama court had properly exercised jurisdiction because the effects of the messages were felt in Alabama and that the defendant should have expected that she would be sued there. An important factor in the ruling was that she had actual knowledge of the effect of the defamatory statements on the Defendant. Therefore, the Minnesota court enforced the $25,000.00 default judgment. Griffis v. Luban, 633 N.W. 2d 548 (Minn Ct. App. 2001).

However, there are cases where courts have refused to allow the exercise of personal jurisdiction based on defamatory statements. In a Pennsylvania case, the court refused to exercise jurisdiction over a New York defendant who had posted defamatory comments about a defendant on an offshore betting website. The court held that since the comments were not specifically directed at Pennsylvania, the court could not exercise personal jurisdiction over the defendant. English Sports Betting, Inc. v. Tostigan, C.A. No. 01-2202 (E.D. Pa. 2002).

The problems with bringing defamatory actions based on internet postings largely lie in proving that the defendant actually made the posting. If that connection can be made, a much stronger case can be presented and jurisdictional issues can be tackled. An attorney who is experienced in cyberlaw and internet cases can improve your chances in prevailing in any such case. Without the help of an attorney who can find and connect the evidence, most internet defamation cases will fail for lack of evidentiary sources and experience.

Defamation And Slander On The Internet

What you should know about forums but were afraid to ask. What’s a forum got to do with it….anyway? Well, plenty actually and not in a good way. When we think about Goldendoodle forums, we should be able to think about a place where one can make doodle friends…share goldendoodle stories with a nice approach..share photos and basically, share common canine information that would be of help to new doodle owners. A forum is also suppose to be a place to meet other doodle owners or others who share similar interests. On the surface, many are just that. However, the reality is, many forums have disturbing motives behind the facade of being a nice place to visit. Many are covered with a smoke screen and many people visit dog forums as a means of possibly finding somewhere to purchase a Goldendoodle or to obtain information about a Goldendoodle, but do not even realize they are being conned by the forum owner/operator and their diehard groupie members , even when it is right before their eyes!

It seems to be a part of human nature to tear another down. In our electronic world where so much content can reach millions in a single day, malicious persons feel empowered through their words whether true or not. People with ulterior motives to seek revenge against another use forums as a way to soothe their media seeking cravings. Many unsuspecting visitors of dog forums do not even realize it when they are duped and conned by these cyber bully, verbal criminals. When dissecting the reality of some Goldendoodle forums, there is a bottom line and that is the almighty dollar. There are two such Goldendoodle forum owner/operators who use their forum in this manner and one of them has been doing it for years…the other one has learned how to master the same game because she, herself, was targeted in the beginning by the other forum owner/operator and has learned how to play the same game by now doing the same thing to others as was done to her. Sad that people stoop to new lows in order to make a profit and a paycheck….but, stoop….they do.

It is always the case that when a business or person begins to grow and becomes successful , there seems to always be more and more people jumping on a bandwagon who feel they are entitled to take that person or business down. Some competitors become uneasy when they believe another has “moved into” their terrirory. As a business grows, they must think of themselves as a “celebrity”. This is because they will now be the target for gossip, rumors and many mythical stories that while hyped up and interesting on a national enquiry level, have no merit of truth to them. Such businesses or persons must just learn to “deal with it”. Or do they? Before we attempt to find out what’s behind the truth at such malicious abuse, you should know that there are newly enacted laws that can and will protect the one being abused over the internet by malicious persons. It was once the belief that cyber bullies could pretty much say and do whatever they wanted inside of forums towards their targeted victim, but times have changed. New laws have been enacted to protect people from malicious persons with ill intent, inside of dog forums or any forum for that matter. This includes building fake websites that causes harm to another in a malicious, slanderous way.

Some believe they can’t do anything about being targeted inside of forums, but think again. One recent example was when a jilted lover went to new levels when she decided the best way to get back at her ex-boyfriend was to create fake pages and advertisements all over the internet making claims he was seeking love in all the wrong places. She also wrote false information about his wife making up horrendous stories and spent countless hours posting the content on as many sites as she could! To my surprise, this story seemed very similar to what my very own sister did to me in 2006. As it happens, this womans’ ex-lover had been her ex for over ten years! But this person still harbored resentment and anger! When phone calls began to pour into their home from women all around the world about his supposesd interest in a pleasurable romp (His ex listed his home address and phone number for people to call, on all sorts of fake websites she built just for him), police were called and the couple turned to an attorney for help with the matter. They were able (Through the help of tracking down the culprits’ IP address and verifying it came from HER computer) to have the woman charged with secondary harassment and a breach of peace. I found this news delightful to my ears! The story was reported on CNN. I didn’t find the story delightul because the woman went to such extremes at ruining someone she had ill will towards, rather I was delighted that Finally, someone who harbored so much hatred towards another person and has done such a terrible thing on the internet to cause massive ruin of a reputation is getting what they deserved! Jail time! Many people believed and possibly still believe that they can hide behind their computers to spew whatever malicious, hateful words they want towards another person over the internet and never get caught! It seems easy enough if you are such a demented type of person who has no life outside of the internet! But times are changing! This type of abuse is making headlines and grabbing the attention of many and people, like myself relish new laws to help protect the innocent!

Thankfully! When I heard about this woman getting charged for being abusive towards another person over the internet in such a horrendous way, it gave me great hope! I for one have been the target of such abuse for years by spiteful, hateful people inside of dog forums who felt the need to create hyped up stories that had no merit, posting lies and ridiculous stories as a means of ruining my reputation and business. Much of it condoned by dog forum owners that are breeders themselves trying to sell their own dogs and being vendictive or jealous due to the rise in competition; other forums allowed vicious postings that slandered us over the years or allowed malicious, slanderous content to be posted by fictitious persons and those sites were either NOT properly moderated or were sites that doodle forum owners charge breeders to advertise on their site and by the site owner/forum operator allowing such nonsense to be posted about their competition (breeders who didn’t advertise and pay them for such) on their forum, it kept money coming in to their own pockets. How did this happen?

Unsuspecting and unwitting potential buyers would buy their dogs from the breeders that paid the forum owner/operator to advertise on their site and the forum/operator deliberately allowed bashings on their forum that specifically targeted supposed “problematic” breeders (including blocking IP addresses of anyone who came to the bashed breeders’ defense or by blocking the IP address of the targeted breeder themselves) to continue because it created a facade of supposed issues the problematic breeder had with their supposed potential customers or past customers. This would then cause unsuspecting potential buyers to bypass those targeted breeders and purchase from the breeders the forum owner/operator claimed were “Top quality” breeders when in fact, they were and are merely breeders who pay the forum site owner/operator to advertise! Many breeders pay to advertise on websites that get alot of internet traffic and they pay through the nose for such listings. We quit wasting our money years ago with this sort of advertisement because we got tired of such site owners getting rich off of our hard work. Quality is nothing more than a personal opinion or in this case, how much you are willing to pay the site owner for advertising! While disturbing in more ways than one, most people don’t take the time to find out whether malicious posted information is true or not. They take the information at face value and believe what they read as “gospel” when it comes to forums. For the life of me, I don’t know why…but they do.

Prior to 2006, we took the brunt of abuse by such forum owners/operators and their groupies who hang out and clan together inside of their forums. We let much of it ride because we knew then and still know now what the truth is and there is no merit to anything posted inside of forums harboring such malicious content. We did send letters to those sites telling them to cease the harassment and to remove the content. Some complied while others pushed the envelope. Over the years, both my husband and I became a target of such slanderous, vicious postings and endured alot of harassment from an estranged family members, who to this day, boldly create fake, abusive websites…company names…user names, etc…just to create smear campaign towards our personal name and business name. Some of the material had been posted for up to a year before we had even discovered it!!! They have gone into hundreds of forums as well as posting their slanderous comments on my articles and business sites, pretending to be various people, using various faked email addresses and fake user names making up slanderous accusations towards us as a person and towards our business. To my surprise, many people inside of the forums actually believe what they write because they do not know that these postings are merely untruthful accusations by my estranged family members! I have been printing out the comments as they are discovered and I have located one family members’ IP address of which has been forwarded to an attorney general’s office.

People who go to such great lengths to destroy a person’s reputation or business and enjoy what they are doing surely have emotional and mental issues. Such malicious content is verbal vandalism. Many celebrities just brush off such nonsense but when the author of such content goes to the extreme of methodically and deliberately ruining someones’ business or reputation, something has to be done to put an end to it. That is where the newly enacted laws comes to play.

For years, I’ve witnessed female entrepreneurs truly succeed (including myself) and watched as others began to pick them apart; criticize them and sometimes trash them all across dog forums to include writing letters to site owners who sell advertisements to breeders around the world, even when the person who was doing all the trashing and criticizing didn’t really know them at all on a personal level….sometimes not even really on a business level. Have you noticed that too? Ironically enough, it is nine times out of ten other women who are doing the criticizing. Instead of supporting each other not only because they are women who are trying to succeed in this sometimes hateful, difficult world, they do their very best at tearing each other down.

As much as I had to admit, I’ve partaken in that sometimes too, but never on the levels that I have seen that has been taken towards me! Much of my own venting has been at trying to defend myself on the internet “kangaroo court” held by nitwits and wackos inside of dog forums and until I recently discovered that people actually CAN BE held legally accountable for what they do or say about others on the internet, I felt I had no other recourse but to try and defend myself from these nutty forum people by writing about it.

But now that times are changing and new laws are taking place, every site that harbors such malicious content can now be held legally accountable and can not only be sued by the person they are harboring information about, but can find themselves being legally charged with second degree harassment and a breach of peace if it can be shown that the site owner deliberately and willfully harbored such slanderous, malicious content without verifying its authenticity before allowing it to remain on their forum for viewing by the general public. Especially content that harbors malicious material that holds the person’s name and address and phone number or other personal information in a slanderous manner. This is a very good thing for many people across the internet who is going through similar situations. I personally first attempt at calling the site owner and asking them to remove the content. Secondly, send them a certified letter and if necessary, have your attorney send them the letter via certified mail. Thirdly, through legal channels if you are not successful in contacting their IP server. I personally filed complaints with their IP servers…their host site servers and if that didn’t work, then of course they have get a personal visit. Now that there are laws to protect a person and business from being maliciously targeted by cowardly, vindictive people, charges can be brought up against those who are so abusive over the internet, once caught! I recommend printing everything you find so that you have evidence before you have it removed from the website, once it is found or discovered. If it’s email, then make sure you print out the header information that shows their IP address. Sometimes people can change their IP address but sometimes they can’t. Having supporting evidence is very important. In my sisters’ case, she changed the email content that satisfied her agenda when I replied to her to stop what she was doing. Instead, she kept the heading of my email and then typed her own words and claimed I wrote them. Because email can be modified and rewritten by the person who claims they received this type of email, this sort of internet evidence doesn’t hold much weight. However, when you can print what has been posted inside of a forum, it has the time and date of when it was posted and if the site owner is legally challenged, they have to produce the IP address of the person who posted the derogatory, slanderous information. This is how the “poster” is identified even if they fake a user name and fake an email address. Most IP addresses remain the same.

I’m very aware of the fact some forum owners “archive” malicious content and then they bury it deep inside of their forum as if the content is now hidden inside of a deep, dark, mysterious cave and they then tell others to “email” them for the links of they are interested in learning about their dirty little secrets (webs of lies and lies) …but we’re catching on to this little game as well. Little are they aware of how many people we have incorporated over time, acting as little gobblins requesting their dirty little secrets…..which is how we have come to know about it and are now writing about it. The dirty games played by vindictive people who have an ulterior motive can be very dark and the lows of which people will stoop at destroying another persons’ reputation and business never cease to amaze me. But the fact is, its very real and I think now that it has been happening to so many people over the internet that now people can actually do something about it, pleases me to no end!

If people are criticizing you as a person or a business over the internet, it’s almost never about you or the business. It’s really all about them. The person writing the insulting content. They felt scorned or hurt or “wronged” and so now they are going to “wrong” YOU, the person or the business. Some want you to pay dearly for it! When a person or business put themselves out there in a BIG way on the internet, just realize there WILL be a backlash from those who are jealous, envious, spiteful or who believe they in some way have been “wronged” by you. I believe it threatens or intimidates people when you as a person or business have the courage to stand out a little bit more than your competitors.

Cyber bullies are always in love with their “amazing accomplishments”. Cyber bullies are incapable of sustaining relationships with others outside the internet, so its of upmost importance they establish friendships inside of forums where they can have shallow friendships even if briefly.

If you are being attacked by a cyberbully inside of a forum, there are things you can do to help yourself and your sanity. It’s very frustrating being attacked by people who can create fake email addresses, user names and personal names and use their pen to cause personal harm. It is more frustrating because it’s hard to take immediate action against these persons.

The solution for getting over the fear of criticism from becoming larger in business or by becoming well known over the internet, is to come from a place of compassion and purpose. Compassion because I believe that deep down, people who go inside of dog forums and write content that is malicious and that is written to cause harm to the targeted person they are writing about, are really writing the content because they have stuff going on inside of their own lives that they feel is over-whelming or its something they can’t control. By writing and targeting someone else inside of a dog forum, they are able to generate a feeling of sympathy by people who don’t know them and by people who are not aware that the content they have written is completely not true! That their content is just a facade of lies upon lies. Their own feelings of inadequacy or jealousy or emotional issues that they have not been able to resolve all come into play. So really, the people who go into forums seeking such shallow sympathy are very sad people, indeed.

Their personal issues are not your problem or your issues, so ignore them if you can and with compassion, especially if you’ve been there too at one point. And Purpose. When you stay focused on the purpose for your business (helping OTHERS), then anything else becomes secondary, even if it hurts sometimes. Trust me, when I found out my very own sister was going into dog forums as well as other places and writing nothing but lies upon lies about me, my family and my business, I was dumbfounded! I had not personally seen her since 1996! I had not personally spoken to her in person since 1999 and suddenly in 2006 I find out she has been spreading malicious lies like a fire out of control, one after the other about me and going to the extreme of extremes by posting fake websites using my name, my phone number, stealing photos from my personal website
of not only me but my dogs…..going into an ancestry forum and writing malicious content about our family and the list goes on…yes, it hurt me! It hurt my business as well. People out there don’t know the content they’ve read and posted by another is nothing but lies and it hurt me on a personal level because she is, even if estranged from the family, my own sister. But you have to remember that your personal success as a person can’t be removed by malicious postings. None of what my sister said took away from all the merit badges, the awards and my success achieved through out my life! None of what my sister said took away from the fact that over the years, I’ve built up a very large list of happy consumers since 1996 and none of what someone claims inside of a forum can take that fact away. My business has been built from a life long list of skills, sweat and hard manual labor! My business has been built from my own personal knowledge. Those are things, that no matter what someone says with words, can take away. You have to remember that angry words can’t actually remove all of the skills and knowledge you have come to know and learn. They are, after all, just angry words. My business which has served the general public since 1996 in a very successful way continues to grow because of my own determination to succeed and because I am doing something that I firmly believe in. My expertise has helped hundreds of thousands of people across the internet and my web site host has the tracking numbers to prove it! My personal knowledge and my expertise in my field has served the general public since 1996 for free even though I myself pay for my website out of my own pocket. By my serving others, not by hurting others, allows ME and my business to shine even through the darkest paths some people desire to put in my way.

In a battle between fear of criticism and of helping others, inner courage to continue to succeed even when it seems the odds are against you, will take anyone through the fear and into the path of doing the right thing, despite what snippy people will say inside of dog forums or anywhere else for that matter. Some people are just plain bad and those people need to be hit back when they hit you. Somebody has to hit bad people back and this takes the courage to do so. I don’t mean this in a literal sense of hitting. If someone takes verbal swipes at another person as a deliberate attempt at trying to ruin them as a person or as a business, the targeted person has to have the courage and inner strength to hit them back. I’m not afraid to hit back. I don’t appreciate being verbally hit by bad people nor will I stand by being verbally attacked by bad people who enjoy writing lie after lie as a means of revenge for something they feel I’ve done to them or they seem to enjoy writing fictitious information that doesn’t even describe me in any way shape or form, which by the way, has been blown so out of proportion that I’m still waiting for BIG FOOT to appear or an alien ship to land in my front yard! I’m all about being positive and helping others, not taking them down or taking swipes at people who really deserve swipes, but I’m also not going to stand by and watch nasty people take untrue pot shots at me or the business I’ve worked for 11+ years building nor do I think anyone should stand by allowing bad people to do horrible things to them whether in person or on the internet. Courage and strength is a must to fight these sort of terrible people back. A person will always be successful if you love what you do and as Donald Trump said in his book, you have to have knowledge to succeed in something you love to do. If you don’t love what you do, you won’t take the time to acquire the knowledge it takes to succeed. I didn’t just wake up one day and think that breeding dogs would be interesting. All of my life I have had a huge heart for animals. All of my book reports in grade school was about dogs and cats. In the 5th grade (and I still have what I wrote that my mother saved for me all these years) I wrote an essay about living on a farm and owning multiple animals and raising them and taking care of them. I wrote, as a fifth grader, what I thought my life was going to be as an adult, and I wrote that I would be completely surrounded by animals. What I do has been a life long inner part of me. I didn’t jump on any bandwagon. I didn’t follow in anyone’s footsteps. My personal page at http://www.goldendoodleworld.com is all about what I have spent years researching, doing, learning and understanding. Bad people will always want to try to take away what someone else has no matter what their reasoning is because bad people DON’T reason. They don’t function on an intelligent level nor do they achieve much in their life. Inner hatred has a way of tearing a person apart. Inner hatred has a way of preventing people from moving forward in life in a positive or successful way. My sister and people like her who spend all of their time tearing others apart inside of dog forums or any forum for that matter, are bad people. The bottom line is, the crummy people will go and the the yummy people will stay. That’s all that matters. As Dr. Seuss once said: “Those Who Mind Don’t Matter and Those Who Matter Don’t Mind.

About the Author:

Dee Gerrish has been a private, professional breeder for 12 years as of 2008; She was a respite and foster care provider in Mannheim, Germany and won many community awards for her dedicated service. Dee has written very popular Goldendoodle articles that are listed across the internet.

Read more: http://www.articlesbase.com/forums-articles/what-you-should-know-about-forums-and-were-afraid-to-ask-579549.html

Divorce by You Tube

When UK actress and playwright Trisha Walsh-Smith was served with divorce papers last year by her husband, 74 year old Broadway bigwig Phillip Smith, the results were theatrical.

The ditched drama queen created a vitriolic video and posted it on video hosting site You Tube. The six minute online rant, Walsh-Smith says; ‘We never had sex. He said it was because he had high blood pressure. I accepted that. Then last year I found Viagra, porn movies and condoms.’

She also flips through their wedding album and points out family members as nasty, bad or evil. But the video done her more damage than good. Watching it, you realize that the actress is not only seeing red, but she is deeply, and tragically sad.

Ex Effect

Tired of being dumped by losers. US blogger Tessa Martin created a blog called ‘Ex girlfriend’s revenge with the subtitle ‘Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned’. Although she doesn’t name the men, she does post their pictures, with the eyes blacked out. Among the exes she exposes are a male model who made her feel the firmness of his butt on their first date, a part time lifesaver, who ‘moonlighted as a complete pervert’, and ‘burrito-guy’, her first boyfriend, who dumped her via his best friend. But mostly her rants concern ‘The Beast’, who she discovered was getting married to someone else.

‘I thought of going big… Calling the venue, pretending to be the bride and telling them the wedding is off. How I dream of perfect revenge,’ she blogs.

But possibly the most popular website is dontdatehimgirl, where women can anonymously post names, pics and addresses of ex-boyfriends. The site names and shames thousands of men – and one of them struck back. Todd Hollis claimed that the site allows users to post lies about him anonymously, such as that he was gay, had fathered several children, suffered from herpes and gave a girl a STD. His lawsuit was dismissed on grounds of free speech.

Then there was the STD All-stars blog. Its author, in New York explained; ‘I started this blog because I contracted herpes and I’m pissed off. If you are free of STDs, you should read this blog as a cautionary tale. If you are among the inflicted, maybe you would like to use this blog as a means of venting your frustration. Do you know someone who is knowingly spreading disease? Send me a picture, I’ll be happy to post it.’

She was eventually forced to shut down her blog after one of the male subjects of her story complained.

Sandra Prior – About the Author:

For more articles on sexual health subscribe to Sandra Prior’s online newsletter at http://intercell.shacknet.nu.

Read more: http://www.articlesbase.com/dating-articles/is-evenge-sweet-534113.html

User-generated content (or “Participatory Media” as some call it) can be a great way to boost the value of your website, and the traffic that’s driven to it. Many website owners have already found that developing online communities greatly increases their financial bottom lines. Sometimes, as has been the case with YouTube, user-generated content can even be a great business model in itself.

But user-generated content can also be a great source of risk and exposure. Again, there’s probably no better example of this than YouTube. YouTube was sued by the Viacom studio in 2007 for $1 billion in damages, for allegedly distributing Viacom’s copyrighted materials without permission.

If you understand the risks associated with user-generated content, you can take steps to reduce your exposure and protect your online assets, while at the same time increasing the value of your website.

What is User-Generated Content?

User-generated content is a broad term that includes any material that a website user posts on the website for others to see. This can include not only blog comments, but also pictures, videos, articles, or anything else that a user might post in a forum or bulletin board section of your website, or as part of their own personal profile on the website.

What are the Risks with User-Generated Content, and How Can I Address Them?

There are a number of legal issues that you will need to become familiar with if you permit or promote user-generated content on your website.

a. Intellectual property infringement. There are two primary types of intellectual property infringement issues that you should be aware of. The first is copyright infringement. Key elements of liability include knowledge of the infringing activity, inducing or contributing the improper conduct, and attaining a direct financial benefit in the infringing activity when you have the ability to supervise the direct infringer.

Copyright holders generally try to enforce their rights by means of “takedown notices” that are sent in accordance with the requirements a particular Federal law (the Digital Millennium Copyright Act). You’ll have to decide what position to take once you receive takedown notices. Do you evaluate each and respond notice as you feel appropriate? Or do you simply honor all takedown notices immediately? It’s a balance between avoiding legal risk of a lawsuit by those who claim to hold a copyright to the material that someone else posted, versus possibly alienating your users if you aren’t giving any consideration to their “fair use” rights in that content.

Trademark law prevents the use of trademarks of others in a manner that creates a likelihood of confusion about the source of goods or services or in a manner that dilutes the value of the trademark. User-generated content sometimes falls afoul of trademark law.

b. Defamation. You should also be aware that there is potential liability for allowing users to post defamatory statements about others on your website. There is a Federal law (The Communications Decency Act) which can provide some protection against defamation claims based on what your users do on your website, but the scope of the protection is still somewhat uncertain, so you should not ignore the possibility of claims against you based on user generated content.

c. Obscenity and Child Pornography. The Federal laws that provide protections to website owners generally exclude protections for obscene materials that appear on such websites, even if the materials are posted by users themselves.

How Can I Reduce My Risks?

One common technique for a website operator to reduce their risks of legal liability for user generated content is to not actively monitor the user activities on the website. While this may seem counter-intuitive, the relevant Federal laws provide a greater degree of protection (through a so-called “safe harbor”) for passive web services that do not actively manage or supervise user content.

If your business model requires you to actively monitor user activity on your website, then you may wish to retain a third party to actually conduct the monitoring. The relationship with the third party should be properly structured as an independent contractor relationship, which will likely include giving the third party some degree of control over the user generated content, in order to avoid you being held liable for the third party’s actions.

You should also have a mechanism in place for promptly responding to legitimate complaints about user-generated content. These complaints may come from other users themselves (another reason to nurture your web-based communities; if the members are loyal to your website, they’ll be likely to flag any improper or possibly illegal user-generated content).

It is very risky to allow anonymous visitors to post content (particular pictures or video content). You should therefore plan to prepare and use comprehensive agreements that submitting users must agree to. At a minimum, these user agreements should state that users are prohibited from engaging in any conduct that is illegal or would give rise to any legal liabilities, or that otherwise interferes with the operations of the site. In order to qualify for the Federal law safe harbors, the agreement must also state that repeat offenders will have their website user accounts terminated.

Another solution may be to use a third party service for the user generated content. By this, we mean allowing users to post direct links to, or by using “plug-in” players for, videos that are hosted on YouTube, MetaCafe, Vimeo, or any of the other services available. You are less likely to receive the takedown notices – since the content isn’t actually hosted by your website, the notices would be sent to the entity actually providing the videos. But you also lose control over whether the videos are actually taken down, and you aren’t the sole source for that user generated content – people can also view it by going directly to the hosting entities website, and other people are likely to link directly to that other site as well. Again, it’s a balancing act between your business objectives and the legal risks.

Other Issues to Consider. Apart from the purely legal issues, if you make a strong push to user generated content then you’ll have to consider bandwidth issues as well. If there’s a chance that any particular post will generate a very large amount of traffic to your website, you should have a plan for what to do if the traffic crashes the server, or exceeds that bandwidth that you are paying your hosting company for. You may want to consider capping the amount each registered user can upload in a day or month.

The possibilities for user-generated content to boost your website are great, as are the risks. If you take steps to understand the legal issues and reduce your risks, then you be able to maximize your business gains while still protecting your online assets.

Jeremy Gislason – About the Author:

Discover how to protect yourself & your business from the devastating financial and security risks you face every day your website is online here: http://www.ProtectYourOnlineAssets.com

Read more: http://www.articlesbase.com/internet-marketing-articles/reducing-the-risks-of-usergenerated-content-676409.html

Public relations expert Justine McGuiness is suing Mirror Group Newspapers because of an article that appeared in the People magazine in October 2007. Justine was supposed to be an advocate on behalf of the McCanns to raise money to aid in the search for their daughter. The article claimed that she overcharged the McCanns for expenses and in turn it cost the family $51,000 of their funds that had been raised. The story claimed that she was charging them for things that she was not entitled to receive, and inflating her overtime hours far beyond what she was supposed to be working. She has stated that since the story it has caused defamation of character and embarrassment. She said this has hurt her job considerably and caused a lot of problems for her.

After the story appeared her reputation was tarnished because people did not want to hear what she had to say, and assumed she was doing something illegal because this was a story heard all over the world. It put everything she did in jeopardy, and her honesty and integrity were continuously questioned. She claims that she would never go out and do something like this to rob money from a very worthwhile and profitable cause. She has complained to the newspaper, but yet they refuse to do anything or offer any type of apology. The newspaper fully stands behind what they said, and it was published in other media as well.

This story was not just something that happened and then nobody heard any more about it. It was a story that was widely publicized for quite some time, and for someone who was supposed to be supporting the cause to do what was done was seen to be inexcusable. If she did not do anything wrong, then there should have been no reason for her to stop working on the fundraising efforts. People think that if someone is fully supportive of a cause and believes that they are doing the right thing, then there should be no reason whatsoever to stray away from the search.

She should have stayed with the McCann’s and helped them continue their search and fund raising efforts, but instead she walked away and decided ‘this is not for me’. Why would anyone walk away from helping a family with their charity pr, after they had put so much effort into the cause? It just doesn’t make any sense and perhaps someone found her out? In time the answer will reveal itself, and the truth will be known.

Rakesh Gaikwad – About the Author:

The SPA Way is an award winning charity pr agency

Read more: http://www.articlesbase.com/law-articles/lawsuit-over-libel-825027.html

Introduction

Some groups refer to it as the Matthew Shepard Act while others like to call it the Local Law enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act (LLEHCPA). Both titles refer to a piece of legislation that was designed to protect members of certain communities that may be targets of hate based crime. The paper will look into the details of the Act, the motivations for passing the Act and other details surrounding its implementation.

What is entailed in the Act

This Act was passed in order to give the Department of Justice the mandate to deal with cases involving violence that is motivated by certain biases. Usually, these are the types of crimes that are committed on the basis of disability, gender, sexual orientation, national origin, religion, color, perceived or actual race. The Justice Department is given the mandate to either work hand in hand with local jurisdictions in cases where that respective group does not display that they actually have the ability to deal with this or in order to assist state jurisdictions. This Department is supposed to have an upper hand in the process prosecuting and investigating cases caused by such biases. (Anti Defamation League, 2008)

Through this Act, local governments are also empowered to deal with the latter category of crimes if they have been committed by juveniles. This is possible through grants that are meant to assist in the process of training law enforcement officers here or during the process of prosecuting such officers.

Reasons behind the LLEHCPA

The reason behind the passage of this Act was that violent crimes generally demand special attention. However, because of the overall effect of hate crimes, then there I a need for special legislation in this area. Not only do hate crimes cause physical injury, but they also create scenarios in which different groups in society are divided. It breaks down the fabric of society by making certain communities full of fear. Such types of violence are not just motivated by financial needs; they are usually done in order to tell members of that chosen community that they will not be accepted by that society. Additionally, when a person is a victim of bias motivated crime, then chances are that they will feel unprotected by their society, they may also fell sidelined and particularly vulnerable. (ADL, 2007)

This Act came against the backdrop of crime Statistics released by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. In the year before the passage of this Act, it was found that the greatest percentage of hate based crimes were against the individuals with different races. The second highest category was those crimes motivated by religious differences and the third category was against people with different sexual orientations. Overly, these statistics revealed that there was still much that had to be done to combat hate crimes thus propelling legislators to act against such biases.

The importance of the Local law enforcement hate crimes prevention act

This Act is important in ascertaining that state and local authorities have been given the power to deal with these bias motivated crimes. Federal groups are incorporated in dealing with these crimes in order to reinforce justice and effectiveness through greater expertise in investigative processes. Additionally, federal authorities’ involvement is meant to relieve local authorities from being overburdened by these types of cases. (Stout, 2007)

The reason behind increasing support for this legislation by certain interest groups is the capacity and the levels of hate crimes committed against certain individuals in society. This is particularly the case for certain categories of people who had not yet been included in the federal hate crimes laws. These groups included;

* Disability
* Sexual orientation
* Gender identity
* Gender

It should be noted that prior to this Act, only a narrow definition of victims of hate crimes was considered. In this case, the only groups recognized were religion, national origin, color, ethnicity or race.

The purpose of the Hate Crime prevention Act was to expand the definition or the categories of people who may qualify as victims of hate crimes in the eyes of the law. Additionally, because the legislation is also designed to assist local authorities, then chances are that it will prevent occurrence of hate crimes through the rigorous training and interventions proposed in the Act. (Human Rights Campaign, 2007)

It should be noted that a high percentage of people were motivated to consider hate crimes as a likely issue owing to the fact that this category of crimes are usually quite severe. In fact no single person should ever tolerate being harmed, brutalized, beaten, attacked or hurt in any way just because of what or who they are. This is one of the reasons why the legislations stirred up a lot of reactions from various interest groups.

Besides these, it should be noted that the prevention of hate crimes dates back to as far back as the nineteen sixties. At that time, the issue of race was particularly sensitive and many violence based crimes were committed against racial minorities. Consequently, it became necessary for civil rights groups to rise to the occasion by speaking out against these forms of violence. This was the reason why there were certain movements that occurred in that era. In the year 1968, legislation was passed to prevent such hate based crimes. Ever since that time, the definitions of violence based crimes began increasing to a point where a substantial majority of individuals who were commonly affected by such crimes were included in the definition.

However, with the passage of time, violence against people with different sexual orientations, gender identities and gender have become increasingly common. This has caused wide concerns from a series of stakeholders thus necessitating the Matthew Sheppard Act. This also means that there is a need to create a situation in which most of the people who may be future victims are protected by the legislation.

The public’s reaction to the legislation

Numerous individuals have demonstrated their support for the legislation. Some of them emanate from political groups, civic rights organizations, religious group and many others. President George Bush was one of the many supporters of this Bill. The Episcopal Church and Presbyterian Churches were also some of the religious groups that demonstrated their support for this legislation. Additionally, the International Association of chiefs of Police also showed their support for this piece of legislation. Additionally, many groups such as the National Disability Rights Network, The Interfaith Alliance, The National District Attorney’s Association and well known attorney General Dick Thornburgh have demonstrated their support of this Act. (US Department of Justice, 2008)

Besides individual endorsements by numerous groups, one cannot ignore the fact that the overall public usually supports legislations designed to combat hate crimes. This is something that was ascertained through opinion polls. In 2007, the Hart Group; a research based company found that almost all subgroups within the electorate supported legislations designed to combat hate crimes. These subgroups included certain categories that were normally considered as very conservative. For instance, fifty six percent of all republicans support this legislation. Also, sixty three percent of evangelical Christians threw their weight behind laws that would allow inclusion of persons with transgender identity and differing sexual orientation.

In terms of racial support, it appears as though almost all races support this legislation. For instance, the same research group found that in that year, close to seventy four percent of the entire white respondents demonstrated their support for the bill. Additionally, a similar percentage of African Americans threw their weight behind the Bill while seventy two percent of Latinos supported this Act. (National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, 2007)

A Gallup Poll conducted in the same year also wanted to find out what people thought about the expansion of this legislation to include other categories of individuals who had not been considered as serious victims of hate crimes. It was found that a substantial percentage of people felt that including persons with differing sexual orientation and transgender identities in this category was supported by close to sixty eight percent of all Americans within the country.

The Kaiser family Foundation also conducted its own research and found that about seventy three percent of the public supports this Bill. The latter research was conducted during the month of November 2007. Additionally, the Lake Snell Perry & Associates group found that sixty eight percent of the public believe that persons with transgender identities should be included in prevention of hate crime laws. Given this overwhelming support, then one can see just how serious this problem of hate crimes is in the public arena.

The Status of the LLEHCPA

In the third month of the year 2007, the local law enforcement hate crimes prevention act was introduced into the house by two major legislators i.e. Republican Mark Kirk while the Democrat legislator was John Conyers. The House decided to approve this Act by an overwhelming vote of two hundred and thirty seven votes against the neighs who were one hundred and eighty votes. Twenty five percent of the yes votes were Republicans with the rest falling to the democrat group.

In the Senate, the bill was introduced during the next month i.e. the month of April. At that time, Democrat Edward Kennedy and Republican Gordon Smith were the ones who introduced this Bill into the Senate. Also, there were forty bipartisan co sponsors. Additionally, this was an amendment to the Defense Authorization bill that now became known as the Matthew Sheppard Act.

In the month of September during 2007, it was found that sixty against thirty nine members of the Senate voted for closure of this debate on the legislation. In accordance with this, the LLEHCPA was added into the Department of Defense Act. (Arams, 2007)

In the final version of the Bill, the issue of the hate crimes provision was not included. This was as a result of the opponents in the house who did not support this provision. There was a veto threat made by the white house that caused this kind of reaction. Additionally, there were many Republicans who opposed the passage of the legislation and they were highly responsible for causing this poor turnout in the voting system. Additionally, the provision was also affected by certain Iraq related interests. Consequently, most of the assertions made with regard to the latter group caused dwindling support for the legislation. Additionally, certain representatives felt that military personnel would be adversely affected in terms of their pay if they did not pay any attention to the veto threat that had been issued by President Bush. Consequently, all these factors resulted in poor performance of the Bill thus causing it not to be passed by members of the House.

Through this legislation, all legitimate human beings will be accorded the same rights as those who may not belong to their group. They also have the right to be heard and to be protected by the law just like all other individuals.

As of 2005, the Federal Bureau of Investigation asserted that there are approximately seven thousand, one hundred and sixty three hate crimes committed at that time. Besides that, they also claimed that fourteen percent of these crimes were all based on sexual orientation. It is also a worrying trend that the Federal Bureau of Investigation does not collect statistics based on crimes committed against persons with differing gender identity. Consequently, one cannot assert the extent to which these crimes are prevalent in society. (The Federal Bureau of Investigation, 2007)

It is should also be noted that there are many hate crimes that may not be reported to law enforcement authorities. Part of the reason for this is that victims may not be very sure about state support when it comes to protection of their rights. Consequently, most of them see no point in reporting those cases. Additionally, others may fear judgment from the people around them. These are all reasons that propelled the discussion, debate and support of the Matthew Shippard Bill.

It is also important to note that hate crimes have certain peculiar characteristics that make them particularly sensitive. This also forces various groups to give them particular attention. First of all, hate crimes are normally committed randomly. It is normally difficult for law enforcement
officials to look for patterns of hate crimes or areas where they will occur in the future. This kind of trend is not prevalent in other types of legislation. Also, the potential perpetrators of hate crimes do not fit the typical criminal profile. Most of them maybe emanating from other categories. Consequently, society should look for ways in which they can minimize this through institution of better laws. However, one should not conclude that hate crimes cannot be prevented at all; they simply take differing approaches form the typical methods.

Opposition against the LLEHCPA/ Matthew Shepard Act

While a substantial number of people support the latter Act, there are still many more who oppose it. Most of the people who fight it are conservative groups that refuse to accept the fact that society is changing. These are mostly religious groups that may be interested in maintaining the status quo. Such groups usually believe that persons with unconventional sexual orientation or gender identity are not behaving morally. Consequently, by protecting their rights, the state will be legitimizing their actions.

In fact, the New York Blade reported that the Traditional Values Coalition chairman Reverend Louis Sheldon asserted that the hate crimes bill would a platform against which people who acted in accordance with strict religious teachings were investigated and persecuted. He believed that business owners, pastors and business persons would be turned into criminals because they are likely to depict signs of supporting such values.

The sentiments carried forward by these religious groups have also been held by other political groups. These are usually the house of representatives that are emanating from the conservative side. (US Department of Justice, 2008)

In responses to these sentiments, many gay rights movements have asserted that the law is treating them unfairly. They have claimed that the law protects pastors and other religious leaders to preach hatred in the pulpit yet the same law does not recognize the rights of those people who are targeted by such moral ideals.

One can assert that these two sides gave very radical sentiments. However, there are still certain things that have to be tackled with regard to these issues. The people who oppose this piece of legislation are those ones who are founded on the issue of fear. They need to realize that there is indeed nothing to be afraid of. Additionally, there is a need for the gay rights participants to consider the fact that religious groups are not their enemies. Instead, they need to look for more sober methods of voicing their issues rather than confrontational politics.

Details about the legislation

In the month of May 2007, the Senate in its first session debated on the Local law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act. The major objective of the Act was stated as “provision of assistance to local jurisdictions, stage jurisdictions and natives by the Federal government in the prosecution to hate crime”

Section 2 of the Act classifies hate crime as a definition that is contained in section sixteen and title eighteen of the US Code. Hate crime in this Act also refers to a similar term that is contained in the Violent Crime and law Enforcement Act of 1994; this is in number 280003 (a) of that Act. Additionally, this section of the Act defines the term ‘local’ as used on the title of the legislation as any parish, village, township, city, county or town. (Arams, 2007)

Section 3 of the legislation defines the intricate issues surrounding the Act. In other words, it looks into the assistance to be provided to state, local and tribal enforcement officials. Part (a) of section three examines one form of assistance which considers non-financial assistance. In this case, there is reference to the general assistance that local, state or tribal law enforcement agencies are entitled to upon request from the Attorney General. Here, the latter group can either be aided in the technical, prosecutorial or forensic aspects of the law only when the crime under consideration is a crime of violence, it is a crime under the local, tribal or state law or it is motivated by biases on religion, place of origin, sexual orientation, disability, gender identity, color or race of the victim.

This latter section also gives priority to certain areas. For instance, it is clearly stated that priority will be given to rural areas that lack adequate finances to tackle this issue. Besides this, crimes that have been committed by perpetrators in two States or more will have greater priority.

Part (b) of section three considers the financial aspect of the Act i.e. the issuance of Grants, in this regard, persons who are entitled to grants are those ones who are having difficulties investigating or prosecuting these cases. Usually, the category considered for this grants may either be tribal, local or state law enforcement agencies. (Arams, 2007)

Additionally, the process of implementing this part of the legislation relates to the office of justice programs as specified in the subsection. The latter office ought to cooperate with grantees in order to ascertain that the following groups affected by these concerns are attended to.

* Schools
* Colleges
* Community groups
* Universities
* Particular groups
* Etc

All this will go a long way in ensuring that the local infrastructure is made so as to create better ways of handling the issue.

Section three subsection (b) also looks at some of the details surrounding applications for these grants in paragraph 3. All the law enforcement agencies mentioned above are supposed to adhere to all the requirements made by the Attorney General during the application process. Besides the latter, they are also supposed to submit their application within a period of sixty days from the time which the attorney general chooses to describe in the law stated above.

Some of the requirements of the grants as specified in this subsection include; the existence of extra ordinary circumstances that would really necessitate the grant. Secondly, applicants need to show that they lack the resources to either investigate or prosecute those crimes on their own. Also, law enforcement agencies must show that they have engaged in intense consultation with non profit or non-governmental organizations that specialize in the issue of hate crime. (US Department of Justice, 2008)

Another stringent requirement during the process of application of this grant is the non existence or inadequacy of other nongovernmental organizations’ grants in handling hate crimes. The reason behind this is to ascertain that the grants supplement and not supplant one another. Lastly, the deadline for approval or rejection of these grants is outlined at thirty business days after reception of the application. All single jurisdictions cannot receive more than one hundred thousand dollars within the period of one year. The appropriations of these grants are supposed to be five million US dollars within any fiscal year.

Section four of the Act specifies the Grant program. In other words, it looks at some of the groups that have the power to authorize these grants. The Office of Justice Programs is the one given this mandate and it operates under the Department of Justice Programs. Additionally, care should be taken to ascertain that there are indeed adequate reforms available to deal with these.

Section size of the Legislation looks at the prohibition of hate crimes. Here, the Act describes some of the punishments that an individual will face in case they are found guilty of such offences. In Subsection one of the Act, anyone who may be found guilty of causing body harm to another individual willfully will be prosecuted and charged for their crime. In other words, when someone uses an incendiary device, a firearm, fire or actual harm to another owing to their color, race or any of the latter mentioned categories, then they are liable to imprisonment for a period of not greater than ten years or they are required to pay up a fine.

In this section of the Act, directions are given on what to do in case a victim dies as a result of these crimes. It is stated that the criminal may be susceptible to severing a life sentence. Additionally, the latter punishment is also plausible in the event that the crime constitutes kidnapping or it entails certain forms of sexual abuse or attempts to do the latter.

Section six of the Act also defines some of the terms used in the Act, in other words, an incendiary device carries the same meaning as that asserted in sections 232 of this Act. The word firearm refers to the meaning created in section nine hundred and twenty one of the constitution. Gender identity in this section of the constitution refers to the perceived or actual gender characteristics of a certain individual. (US Department of Justice, 2008)

It should also be noted that in section six, there are specifications of the circumstances under which evidence may be expressed. Evidence in hate crime can only be admissible in court if it found that that evidence relates specifically to the case under consideration. However, when a witness has to be impeached, then these rules do not necessarily apply to him or her.

Section seven of the Act looks at the severability of its application. If it has been found that the person to who the latter amendment has been applied is not treated constitutionally, then all these requirements will not be deemed relevant with reference to that person.

Conclusion

The Matthews Sheppard Act 2007 was proposed in order to amend certain sections of previous hate crime laws. The most notable amongst them is the incorporation
of persons with disability, gender identity or sexual orientation into the ACT. The second aspect is with regard to assistance offered to local law enforcement agencies by the attorney general.

Reference

ADL (2007): Hate Crime Sentencing Act, retrieved from http://www.adl.org accessed on 5th November 2008

Stout, D. (2007): House Votes To Expand Hate Crime protections, The New York Times, 3rd May 2008

Human Rights Campaign (2007): The local Law Enforcement hate Crimes Prevention Act, Free Press

National Gay and Lesbian Task Force (2007): Hate Crimes protections Timeline, retrieved from http://www.thetaskforce.org accessed on 5th November 2008

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (2007): Hate Crime Statistics, retrieved from http://www.fbi.gov accessed on 5th November 2008

Arams, J. (2007): House Passes Extended Hate Crimes Bill, Guardian Unlimited, 3rd March

Anti Defamation League (2008): Hate Crime statutes by State, associate Press

US Department of Justice (2008): Hate Crime Legislation, retrieved from http://www.ncjrs.gov accessed on 5th November 2008

About the Author:

Author Carolyn Smith is associated with ResearchPapers247.Com which is a global Research Papers and Term Papers Writing Company. If you would like help in Research Papers and Term Paper Help you can visit Custom Essays> and Custom Research Papers> or Term Paper Help>

Read more: http://www.articlesbase.com/criminal-articles/the-law-enforcement-hate-crimes-prevention-act-1924510.html

This article will discuss the variety of attacks and how they can be mitigated by the internet professionals adherence to basic internet security protocols. Jonathan Hawfield of Texas Matrix states “While attacks cannot be prevented, using these techniques can shield the internet professional from physical threats as well as harmful personal or business defamation.”

Internet Defamation
All too often a competitor or personal enemy will exploit the business information of a victim to threaten, harass, or defame an internet professional via review websites such as Rip-off Report.com or other common business review websites. Once harmful material is published, it often is difficult, expensive, and sometimes impossible to remove.

Internet Threats
Many CyberStalkers often use commonly available public records systems to obtain personal information such as property tax records, telephone numbers, home addresses, as well as relatives information on their intended victim. This information in the past was obtained by professional investigators at great expense, but is now available in one easy search for as little as $29.95 from many online services.

Client Theft and Harassment
Unethical business competitors of internet professionals often use DomainNameTools.com to monitor a web host. They gain the domain names of your clients which they then contact to defame, harass, or steal from the web host. Often clients do not easily fall for such tactics, however it creates a great embarrassment to the web host.

Solutions
Do not personally identify yourself in concert with your internet company on your website or social networking mediums. If you must give some identification, do not use your full name, or perhaps even adopt a common retail security tactic such as using a nickname.

Do not use your personal cell phone or home office phone for internet business. It is wiser to use a dedicated voip number for calls and faxes. Also, do not use your personal email address to contact anyone in relation to your internet business.

Do not use your home address or physical office address in published information about your internet business. P.O. Boxes are perfectly acceptable and quickly becoming the new standard among internet professionals.

Do not use your business email address or regular blog user screen name when commenting on other blogs or social media. These are easily tracked via search engines and can create issues far beyond the date of your posting.

Do not use your twitter or facebook page for both personal communication and business communication. Keep them completely separate to insure personal anonymity.

The above are some simple security guidelines that are easily modified to fit a particular operation by an internet professional. No longer are you able to rely on internet anonymity. Using these suggestions may not only save you thousands of dollars in revenue, but hours of hard work, and peace of mind.

About the Author:

Jonathan Hawfield is a CyberSecurity consultant for Texas Matrix. For further knowledge and resources visit http://texasmatrix.com

Read more: http://www.articlesbase.com/seo-articles/internet-professionals-and-personal-security-1827633.html

INTRODUCTION:

With the day to day evolution of human mind , the modes of committing crime are also drastically changing . Criminals are getting smarter day by day and are applying there minds in this context to commit crime and escape without getting caught. With the advent of computers no one thought that it will become a mode or source of committing crime . Charles Babbage who is well known as the father of computer would not have dreamt that the machine he is giving the world may become a source of crime and would ever influence the society in a negative way.

Whenever we talk about cyber crime we can make out that its something related to a wrong done were a computer system is involved .

The term ‘cyber crime’ is a wrongly applied name. This term has nowhere been defined in any statute /Act passed or enacted by the Indian Parliament. The concept of cyber crime is not radically different from the concept of conventional crime. Both include conduct whether act or omission, which cause breach of rules of law and counterbalanced by the sanction of the state. Though cyber crimes is a new breed of crimes which came into being just after the advent of the computers and the scenario has become more worse with the influence of internet in our day to day life.

CONVENTIONAL CRIME-

Crime is a social and economic phenomenon and is as old as the human society. Crime is a legal concept and has the sanction of the law. Crime is defined as “a legal wrong that can be followed by criminal proceedings which may result into punishment.”. A crime may be said to be any conduct accompanied by act or omission prohibited by law and consequential breach of which is visited by penal consequences.

CYBER CRIME:

Cyber crime is the latest and perhaps the most complicated problem in the cyber world. “Cyber crime may be said to be those species, of which, genus is the conventional crime, and where either the computer is an object or subject of the conduct constituting crime. In general cyber crime may be defined as “ unlawful acts wherein the computer is either a tool or target or both”.

The computer may be used as a tool in the following kinds of activity- financial crimes, sale of illegal articles, pornography, online gambling, intellectual property crime, e-mail spoofing, forgery, cyber defamation, cyber stalking. The computer may however be a target for unlawful acts in the following cases- unauthorized access to computer/ computer system/ computer networks, theft of information contained in the ,electronic form,

e-mail bombing, salami attacks, logic bombs, Trojan attacks, internet time thefts, web jacking, theft of computer system, physically damaging the computer system.

DISTINCTION BETWEEN CONVENTIONAL AND CYBER CRIME-

There is apparently no distinction between cyber and conventional crime as both the crimes results into some sort of loss to one of the parties. However on a deep introspection we may say that there exists a fine line of demarcation between the conventional and cyber crime, which is appreciable. The demarcation lies in the involvement of the medium in cases of cyber crime.

MODE AND MANNER OF COMMITING CYBER CRIME:

1. HACKING:

This kind of offence is normally referred as hacking in the generic sense. However the framers of the information technology Act 2000 have no where used this term so to avoid any confusion we would not interchangeably use the word hacking for ‘unauthorized access’ as the latter has wide connotation.

2. THEFT OF INFORMATION CONTAINED IN ELECTRONIC FORM:

This includes information stored in computer hard disks, removable storage media etc. Theft may be either by appropriating the data physically or by tampering them through the virtual medium.

3. EMAIL BOMBARDING:

This kind of activity refers to sending large numbers of mail to the victim, which may be an individual or a company or even mail servers there by ultimately resulting into crashing of the entire system.

4. DATA DIDDLING:

This kind of an attack involves altering raw data just before a computer processes it and then changing it back after the processing is completed.

5. SALAMI ATTACKS:

This kind of crime is normally prevalent in the financial institutions or for the purpose of committing financial crimes. An important feature of this type of offence is that the alteration is so small that it would normally go unnoticed.

6. DENIAL OF SERVICE ATTACK:

The computer of the victim is flooded with more requests than it can handle which cause it to crash. Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack is also a type of denial of service attack, in which the offenders are wide in number and widespread.

7. VIRUS OR WORM ATTACKS:

Viruses are programs that attach themselves to a computer or a file and then circulate themselves to other files and to other computers on a network. They usually affect the data on a computer, either by altering or deleting it. Worms, unlike viruses do not need the host to attach themselves to. They merely make functional copies of themselves and do this repeatedly till they eat up all the available space on a computer’s memory. E.g. love bug virus, which affected at least 5 % of the computers of the globe. The losses were accounted to be $ 10 million. The world’s most famous worm was the Internet worm let loose on the Internet by Robert Morris sometime in 1988. Almost brought development of Internet to a complete halt.

8. LOGIC BOMBS:

These are event dependent programs. This implies that these programs are created to do something only when a certain event (known as a trigger event) occurs. E.g. even some viruses may be termed logic bombs because they lie dormant all through the year and become active only on a particular date (like the Chernobyl virus).

9. TROJAN ATTACKS:

This term has its origin in the word ‘Trojan horse’. In software field this means an unauthorized programme, which passively gains control over another’s system by representing itself as an authorised programme. The most common form of installing a Trojan is through e-mail. E.g. a Trojan was installed in the computer of a lady film director in the U.S. while chatting. The cyber criminal through the web cam installed in the computer obtained her nude photographs. He further harassed this lady.

10. INTERNET TIME THEFT:

Normally in these kinds of thefts the Internet surfing hours of the victim are used up by another person. This is done by gaining access to the login ID and the password. E.g. Colonel Bajwa’s case- the Internet hours were used up by any other person. This was perhaps one of the first reported cases related to cyber crime in India. However this case made the police infamous as to their lack of understanding of the nature of cyber crime.

11. WEB JACKING:

This term is derived from the term hi jacking. In these kinds of offences the hacker gains access and control over the web site of another. He may even mutilate or change the information on the site. This may be done for fulfilling political objectives or for money. E.g. recently the site of MIT (Ministry of Information Technology) was hacked by the Pakistani hackers and some obscene matter was placed therein. Further the site of Bombay crime branch was also web jacked. Another case of web jacking is that of the ‘gold fish’ case. In this case the site was hacked and the information pertaining to gold fish was changed. Further a ransom of US $ 1 million was demanded as ransom. Thus web jacking is a process where by control over the site of another is made backed by some consideration for it.

CLASSIFICATION OF CYBER CRIMES:

The subject of cyber crime may be broadly classified under the following three groups. They are-

1. Against Individuals :

a. against person
b. their property of an individual

2. Against Organization :

a. Government
c. Firm, Company, Group of Individuals.

3. Against Society at large

Against Individuals: –

They can be:
i. Harassment via e-mails.
ii. Cyber-stalking.
iii. Dissemination of obscene material.
iv. Defamation.
v. Unauthorized control/access over computer system.
vi. Fraud and cheating

Against Individual Property: -

i. Computer vandalism.
ii. Transmitting virus.
iii. Netrespass
iv. Unauthorized control/access over computer system.
v. Intellectual Property crimes
vi. Internet time thefts

Against Organization: -

i. Unauthorized control/access over computer system
ii. Possession of unauthorized information.
iii. Cyber terrorism against the government organization.
iv. Distribution of pirated software etc.

Against Society at large: -

i. Pornography (basically child pornography).
ii. Polluting the youth through indecent exposure.
iii. Trafficking
iv. Financial crimes
v. Sale of illegal articles
vi. Online gambling
vii. Forgery

Some of the above mentioned offences may discussed in brief as follows:

1. Harassment via e-mails-

Harassment through e-mails is not a new concept. It is very similar to harassing through letters.

2. Cyber-stalking-

The Oxford dictionary defines stalking as “pursuing stealthily”. Cyber stalking involves following a person’s movements across the Internet by posting messages (sometimes threatening) on the bulletin boards frequented by the victim, entering the chat-rooms frequented by the victim, constantly bombarding the victim with emails etc.

3. Dissemination of obscene material-

Pornography on the net may take various forms. It may include the hosting of web site containing these prohibited materials. Use of computers for producing these obscene materials. Downloading through the Internet, obscene materials. These obscene matters may cause harm to the mind of the adolescent and tend to deprave or corrupt their mind. Two known cases of pornography are the Delhi Bal Bharati case and the Bombay case wherein two Swiss couple used to force the slum children for obscene photographs. The Mumbai police later arrested them.

4. Defamation

It is an act of imputing any person with intent to lower the person in the estimation of the right-thinking members of society generally or to cause him to be shunned or avoided or to expose him to hatred, contempt or ridicule. Cyber defamation is not different from conventional defamation except the involvement of a virtual medium. E.g. the mail account of Rohit was hacked and some mails were sent from his account to some of his batch mates regarding his affair with a girl with intent to defame him.

5. Unauthorized control/access over computer system-

This activity is commonly referred to as hacking. The Indian law has however given a different connotation to the term hacking, so we will not use the term “unauthorized access” interchangeably with the term “hacking” to prevent confusion as the term used in the Act of 2000 is much wider than hacking.

6. Computer vandalism-

Vandalism means deliberately destroying or damaging property of another. Thus computer vandalism may include within its purview any kind of physical harm done to the computer of any person. These acts may take the form of the theft of a computer, some part of a computer or a peripheral attached to the computer or by physically damaging a computer or its peripherals.

8. Intellectual Property crimes / Distribution of pirated software-

Intellectual property consists of a bundle of rights. Any unlawful act by which the owner is deprived completely or partially of his rights is an offence. The common form of IPR violation may be said to be software piracy, copyright infringement, trademark and service mark violation, theft of computer source code, etc.

9. Cyber terrorism against the government organization

At this juncture a necessity may be felt that what is the need to distinguish between cyber terrorism and cyber crime. Both are criminal acts. However there is a compelling need to distinguish between both these crimes. A cyber crime is generally a domestic issue, which may have international consequences, however cyber terrorism is a global concern, which has domestic as well as international consequences.

The common form of these terrorist attacks on the Internet is by distributed denial of service attacks, hate websites and hate emails, attacks on sensitive computer networks, etc. Cyber terrorism may be defined to be “ the premeditated use of disruptive activities, or the threat thereof, in cyber space, with the intention to further social, ideological, religious, political or similar objectives, or to intimidate any person in furtherance of such objectives”

Another definition may be attempted to cover within its ambit every act of cyber terrorism.

A terrorist means a person who indulges in wanton killing of persons or in violence or in disruption of services or means of communications essential to the community or in damaging property with the view to –

(1) putting the public or any section of the public in fear; or

(2) affecting adversely the harmony between different religious, racial, language or regional groups or castes or communities; or

(3) coercing or overawing the government established by law; or

(4) endangering the sovereignty and integrity of the nation

and a cyber terrorist is the person who uses the computer system as a means or ends to achieve the above objectives. Every act done in pursuance thereof is an act of cyber terrorism.

10. Trafficking

Trafficking may assume different forms. It may be trafficking in drugs, human beings, arms weapons etc. These forms of trafficking are going unchecked because they are carried on under pseudonyms. A racket was busted in Chennai where drugs were being sold under the pseudonym of honey.

11. Fraud & Cheating

Online fraud and cheating is one of the most lucrative businesses that are growing today in the cyber space. It may assume different forms. Some of the cases of online fraud and cheating that have come to light are those pertaining to credit card crimes, contractual crimes, offering jobs, etc.

STATUTORY PROVISIONS:

The Indian parliament considered it necessary to give effect to the resolution by which the General Assembly adopted Model Law on Electronic Commerce adopted by the United Nations Commission on Trade Law. As a consequence of which the Information Technology Act 2000 was passed and enforced on 17th May 2000.the preamble of this Act states its objective to legalise e-commerce and further amend the Indian Penal Code 1860, the Indian Evidence Act 1872, the Banker’s Book Evidence Act1891 and the Reserve Bank of India Act 1934. The basic purpose to incorporate the changes in these Acts is to make them compatible with the Act of 2000. So that they may regulate and control the affairs of the cyber world in an effective manner.

CONCLUSION:

Capacity of human mind is unfathomable. It is not possible to eliminate cyber crime from the cyber space. It is quite possible to check them. History is the witness that no legislation has succeeded in totally eliminating crime from the globe. The only possible step is to make people aware of their rights and duties (to report crime as a collective duty towards the society) and further making the application of the laws more stringent to check crime. Undoubtedly the Act is a historical step in the cyber world. Further I all together do not deny that there is a need to bring changes in the Information Technology Act to make it more effective to combat cyber crime. I would conclude with a word of caution for the pro-legislation school that it should be kept in mind that the provisions of the cyber law are not made so stringent that it may retard the growth of the industry and prove to be counter-productive.

Sidhartha Roy

Read more: http://www.articlesbase.com/cyber-law-articles/cyber-crimes-539363.html

Consider the case of Megan Meieras as reported by Fox News:

Megan thought she had made a new friend online when a cute teenage boy named Josh contacted her on MySpace and began exchanging messages with her. Megan, a 13-year-old who suffered from depression and attention deficit disorder, corresponded with Josh for more than a month before he abruptly ended their friendship, telling her he had heard she was cruel.

The next day Megan committed suicide. Her family learned later that Josh never actually existed; he was created by members of a neighborhood family that included a former friend of Megan’s.

Are there other stories equally as tragic going on this very second that never get reported on the news? Of course there are.

The phenomena of Myspace stalking is something relatively new. Myspace has only been around since 2003 yet its already a household name. Myspace stalking has been around since the creation of Myspace but today there are several software programs designed specifically to aid in Myspace stalking. In fact there’s even a cottage industry of tee shirts and bumper stickers that proudly declare “I’m a Myspace Stalker”.

There are steps you can take to avoid becoming a victim of a Myspace stalker.

1. Do not use your real name when opening you Myspace account
2. Set up a special free anonymous email account specifically for your Myspace account
3. Do not reveal , your name , age, birthday, employment or school in your profile.
4. Carefully study any pics you post to be sure there is no identifiers like a licence plate, street sign or house number.

If you do feel you are becoming the recipient of unwanted attention or possibly the target of a cyber stalker set your profile to private and remove the stalker from your friends list.

Document everything, save to disc and print out a hard copy for your records.

Use caution when reporting the stalker to Myspace. If you do they will usually shut down the account making it more difficult for the stalker to be located and identified should you need to report them to police or initiate a civil lawsuit for defamation.

If you feel you need to protect yourself you can hire an investigator that specializes in Myspace stalking and cyber talking cases in general. These investigators have tools and techniques to locate and identify your stalker, perform complete background checks and give you an idea of the threat level of your stalker.

An investigator can even perform an Online Risk Assessment to see how vulnerable you are to cyber stalking and identity theft. They will take your information, and playing the role of a stalker attempt to obtain your personal information with the information that is available online.

If you are getting unwanted attention and you are concerned you may become a victim on an online stalker you should have an online risk assessment performed on yourself.

There are several online investigation services that offer these types of investigations but before hiring one do a little investigation on them first. Check them out on Google to see if they are recognized as an expert in the field of Internet investigations and email tracing.

About the Author:

ED Opperman is president of Opperman Investigations Inc.He is considered an Email Tracing Expert. His website http://www.emailrevealer.com/, offers Blog Or Social Network Identification Investigations, Email Tracing and Online Risk Assessments.

Read more: http://www.articlesbase.com/internet-articles/myspace-stalking-how-to-cope-614715.html

There are exceptions, however. There are a few types of statements that are, by their nature, presumed to damage a person’s reputation. This is called “slander per se”. These classes of statements are considered so harmful to a person’s reputation, that monetary damages are presumed. In such cases, the victim of the slander does not need to prove specific damages, just that the statements were made. There are 4 types of statements that constitute slander per se:

1. A statement that a person has committed a major crime
2. Statements that a person has a “loathsome disease”. This could include any disease which is serious and highly contagious. Modernly, it would probably also include sexually transmitted diseases.
3. A statement that a person is incompetent at their business or profession. This might include a statement that a soldier is cowardly, or that a lawyer is illiterate.
4. Statements of serious sexual misconduct. A public statement that someone engages in sexual behaviors that are generally considered perverse would fall into this category. It would probably vary between communities, based on their moral standards. A clear example that would apply in virtually any community is a statement that someone is a pedophile.

In a lawsuit for slander per se, all a plaintiff needs to prove is that the statements were made, and not that he or she suffered direct harm as a result. The statements themselves are considered to be the harm.

About the Author:

Ken LaMance is Corporate Counsel for LegalMatch.com – the easiest way to Find an Attorney Online. Ken is a well respected San Francisco Lawyer who has worn many hats at LegalMatch – from court litigator to project manager. He has been instrumental in creating LegalMatch’s Law Library, as well as expanding their online attorney search platform to hundreds of cities. LegalMatch is the nations leading online matching service for clients looking for representation in everything from Child Support to Personal Injury.

Read more: http://www.articlesbase.com/law-articles/slander-per-se-782976.html