February 10, 2009

SEND THIS NEWSLETTER TO A FRIEND

Please feel free to forward this newsletter to others who can benefit.
They can sign up for my Special Reports: "Determine Which Legal Documents
Your Website Really Needs", "Draft Your Own Website Privacy Policy",
and "Write Your Own Website Marketing Copy - Legally", and the newsletter here

Dear {!firstname}:

Welcome to Your WEBSITE LAW ALERT by Chip Cooper and DigiContracts.com

Chip's Commentary:

You may have seen the entertaining movie, Charlie Wilson's War.

At the end of the movie, Charlie Wilson (played by Tom Hanks) and the C.I.A. agent Gust Avrakotos (played by Phillip Seymour Hoffman) are assessing their success in the Afghanistan War against the Soviets.

Gust shares a story about the Zen master.

There's a little boy and on his 14th birthday he gets a horse... and everybody in the village says, "how wonderful; the boy got a horse". And the Zen master says, "we'll see." Two years later, the boy falls off the horse, breaks his leg, and everyone in the village says, "how terrible." And the Zen master says, "We'll see." Then, a war breaks out, and all the young men have to go off and fight... except the boy can't cause his legs are all messed up. And everybody in the village says, "How wonderful."

At this point, Charlie Wilson (thinking back to Afghanistan) adds: "Now the Zen master says, "We'll see."

I've tried to apply the Zen master story to our present economic situation -- with little success. There must be a lesson in it somewhere... we'll see.

There's More To Your Privacy Policy Than Meets The Eye.

If you collect personal information from site visitors (even as little as an email address), you are required to have a privacy policy.

The general purpose of your privacy policy is to state how you collect, use, and share information, including personal information, collected from site visitors.

But there's more to it than that.

I'm planning an article for publication later this year about what's involved if you decide to sell your online business, and you may be surprised at some of it.

For example, what are your most valuable assets? For most online businesses, they would include your opt-in list and your customer list. Recent rulings by the Federal Trade Commission (Toysmart and Gateway Learning cases) will significantly impact the value of these assets.

The Toysmart case teaches us that your privacy policy should state that you reserve the right to share these assets with a purchaser of your business. Failure to do so means that you'll not be authorized to share with a purchaser.

The Gateway Learning case teaches us that sharing policy statements should be made prior to collecting personal information, not after. The sharing statement is not effective if made retroactively.

So, prior planning is imperative, and this type of planning is not present in most of the privacy policies we review. More on this later with the article specifically on point.

To learn more about the Toysmart and Gateway Learning cases, click here.

Comments From Digicontracts.com:

We've decided to add a short video to our site to explain how our MySiteDocs service works.

I created a test video using a slick little program, Jing. To view the video, click here. Viewing time is 5 minutes.

If you're interested in checking out Jing for yourself, click here. There's a Fr*ee download.

We'd very much like your feedback regarding the video. You may email me your comments at ccooper@corplaw.net. Thanks in advance for your comments.

Regards,

Share the "Website Law Alert" and my Special Reports:
"Determine Which Legal Documents Your Website Really Needs",
"Draft Your Own Website Privacy Policy", and
and "Write Your Own Website Marketing Copy - Legally",
with your colleagues and business associates.