NOT a Guru!
Keeping it simple, without the hype. PC tips and Internet advice for mom and pop businesses.
Keeping it simple, without the hype. PC tips and Internet advice for mom and pop businesses.
H.R. 1966, the “Megan Meier Cyberbullying Prevention Act“, was introduced in early April to add “cyberbullying” to the U.S. Criminal Code.
There have been some reports by other bloggers that the Act will criminalize blog articles, comments or Web 2.0 activities that offend someone. I don’t believe that this is true.
It has to do with intent.
Megan Meier, for whom the legislation is named, was bulled on MySpace by the mother of an estranged friend. The mother, Lori Drew, posed as a 16-year-old boy, leading Megan on and then dumping the fictitious relationship, saying emotionally painful things. Megan committed suicide as a result.
Ms. Drew’s actions clearly had intent. She was angry over the falling out between her daughter and Megan.
The summary of the legislation reads,
Amends the federal criminal code to impose criminal penalties on anyone who transmits in interstate or foreign commerce a communication intended to coerce, intimidate, harass, or cause substantial emotional distress to another person, using electronic means to support severe, repeated, and hostile behavior.
The full text recites Congressional findings, including a surprising statistic that 60% of the mental health professionals who were surveyed said that they had treated at least one person who had had a problematic experience on the Internet, can be found at the Library of Congress’ Thomas service: http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c111:H.R.1966:
The legislation itself would add the following to the U.S. criminal code:
Sec. 881. Cyberbullying
- `(a) Whoever transmits in interstate or foreign commerce any communication, with the intent to coerce, intimidate, harass, or cause substantial emotional distress to a person, using electronic means to support severe, repeated, and hostile behavior, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than two years, or both.
- `(b) As used in this section–`(1) the term `communication’ means the electronic transmission, between or among points specified by the user, of information of the user’s choosing, without change in the form or content of the information as sent and received; and`(2) the term `electronic means’ means any equipment dependent on electrical power to access an information service, including email, instant messaging, blogs, websites, telephones, and text messages.’.
The key is intent. Nonetheless, it is a good idea to have a sound privacy policy and terms and conditions page on your website, particularly given this bill and other regulatory rules affecting the Internet. Here are some resources that can help you out.
Disclosures for Bloggers
DisclosurePolicy.org is a free online service created especially for bloggers. You are asked a series of questions about your blog, such as whether you are paid to write opinions for the products you recommend, and based on your answers, the online software will generate a disclosure policy that you can copy and paste directly into your blog. The disclosure generated by DisclosurePolicy.org chiefly involves your relationship, as a blogger, with companies that you promote. For this reason, you should supplement your disclosure with a privacy page that addresses your visitors’ concerns about whether their information is tracked or what is done with their subscriptions or other user-provided data.
Privacy and Policy Statements for Ecommerce and Other Sites
Regardless of whether you operate a blog, have an article site, or operate an ecommerce site in which you collect credit card information, it is important to have a good privacy policy page to address concerns about use of private data and a terms page that answers questions about shipping policies, returns and so forth.
You might want to hire a lawyer to write your privacy policy and other terms. If you need a lawyer, LegalMatch is free and confidential, and allows you to respond to screened and pre-qualified lawyers. If this is not palatable, then another option is to take a look at the Internet Law Compliance program that was created by attorney Shawn Casey. This program addresses COPA issues and other matters that you might not find in a free privacy policy generator.
If I were to choose any of the programs, I would go with the Internet Law Compliance program because it is drafted by a lawyer and has some comprehensive language concerning minors and children.
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