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Legal & Ethical Considerations

Week 11
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Legal Issues on-line

Online advertising law: ethics and morals
Contract Law: United Nations Commission on International Trade Law
(UNCITRAL), Cancellations, returns etc
Country of Origin principle
Distance-selling law - e-commerce sites should contain: Company’s identity;
product features; price information plus tax, delivery, packaging etc; period for
which offer is available; cancellation terms; minimum duration of contract; e-mail
confirmation is legally binding
Licences: Contractual agreement between the consumer and software vendor,
which allow the buyer to use the product but restrict duplication or distribution.
Some are known as clickwrapped licences - click a button to demonstrate
acceptance of terms
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Shopping - CCPC Consumers

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Rights - European Consumer Centre Ireland (eccireland.ie)

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Legal Issues on-line

Data Protection: Collection and storage of personal data
Disability & Discrimination: Accessibility issues
Brand & Trademark protection: Affiliation sites?
Intellectual property rights: Images, video, sounds etc
Keywords & Metatags: Incorporating competitor names and brand/product
names to divert traffic to your site
COPPA: Children’s Online Protection Act – Collecting data about children
under 12
Data Protection 1988 & 2003
Obtain and process the information fairly Right of Access
Keep it only for one or more specified and lawful Right of rectification or erasure and
purposes
blocking
Process it only in ways compatible with the
Right of freedom from automated
purposes for which it was given to you initially
decision making
Keep it safe and secure
Right to have your name removed from a
Keep it accurate and up-to-date
direct marketing list
Ensure that it is adequate, relevant and not
excessive Right
to complain to Data Protection
Retain it no longer than is necessary for the
Commissioner
specified purpose or purposes Right to seek compensation through
Give a copy of his/her personal data to any courts
individual, on request.
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GDPR 2018
GDPR is built on the Data Protection Act 2003 with the following added;
obtain details about how their data is processed by an organisation or business;
obtain copies of personal data that an organisation holds on them;
have incorrect or incomplete data corrected;
have their data erased by an organisation, where, for example, the organisation has no
legitimate reason for retaining the data;
obtain their data from an organisation and to have that data transmitted to another
organisation (Data Portability);
object to the processing of their data by an organisation in certain circumstances;
not to be subject to (with some exceptions) automated decision making, including profiling.
Security & Accountability are key
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Cookies
Cookies are used in many different ways, and many of them make the
web experience much better. In fact, online shopping would not be
possible without cookies. If we didn’t have cookies, you could not
effectively login to a website. Instead you would have to tell it who you
are every time you went to a new page, which would be extremely
tedious.

Cookies can personalise a website in all sorts of other ways as well. For
example, they can be used to remember a user prefers a larger font size
than normal. A news website might remember that you like certain
types of stories and promote them to the home page.
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Cookies
Session Cookies - Session Cookies are only stored temporarily in the browser's memory, and
are destroyed when it is closed down. If you have to login to a website every time you open
your browser and visit it - then it is using a session cookie to store your login credentials.
Many websites use session cookies for essential site functions (eg shopping carts)
Persistent Cookies - As the name suggests, this type of cookie is saved on your computer so
that when you close it down and start it up again, it can still be there. Persistent cookies are
also used to track visitor behaviour as you move around a site, and this data is used to try
and understand what people do and don't like about a site so it can be improved. Analytics
cookies are probably the most common form of persistent cookies in use today.
Cookies can be first party (ie the owner of the website uses the cookie) or third party (eg
another group wants to track peoples activity on your site – analytics services, affiliate sites
etc).
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Cookie Law
Before somebody can store or retrieve any information from a computer, mobile phone or other
device, the user must give informed consent to do so. Cookies are integral to the way modern
websites work. Most personalisation and social media integration on websites relies on cookies in one
way or another.
However they can be used in a way that doesn’t benefit visitors, and they are often used to track
people across the web, and build up profiles that are very valuable to brands and advertisers for
targeted marketing.
This is often seen as an invasion of privacy, and because cookies are a fairly quiet technology – this
can be happening to you without you realising it, or being able to stop it. To help you become more
aware of this activity, and give you a say in whether you want to allow it to happen, EU-wide privacy
legislation was put in place in 2011. This has become known as the Cookie Law.
The Cookie Law requires that websites give you clear, detailed information about how they use
cookies, and provide ways for you to signal whether or not you want to allow such use. The website is
then required by law to respect your wishes. This might mean they block the cookies you don’t like, or
they don’t let you access the site – however you should expect to be given the choice.
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Copyright
Copyright is concerned with original literary works such as novels, poems and plays, musical
and artistic works such as musical compositions, sound recordings and TV and radio
broadcasts, software, multimedia films, drawings, maps, charts, plans, paintings, photographs
and sculptures and works of architecture.
The owner of copyright is the author, meaning the person who creates the work. For example
a photographer is the owner in the case of a photograph. However, as copyright is a form of
property, the right may be transferred to someone else, for example, to a publisher or
performer. Where an employee in the course of employment creates the work, the employer
is the owner of the copyright in the work, unless an agreement to the contrary exists.

The ownership length of time for copyright varies between countries.

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Copyright
The Twitter Terms of Service state that - You retain your
rights to any Content you submit, post or display on or
through the Services.

The Facebook Terms are similar, stating that you (the

Facebook user) own "all of the content and information you
post on Facebook, and you can control how it is shared
through your privacy and application settings."
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Copyright
Fair use and attribution aren’t related. Fair use is about how someone is using content
and it’s one of those gray areas. Courts in America use a four-factor test to determine
whether fair use is in play:
1. The purpose and character of the use (whether it’s for commercial or
nonprofit/education purposes). The more on the side of education, the more likely
it’s fair use.
2. The nature of the work.
3. The amount of the work used compared to the whole work (meaning, was it a
paragraph from a book or was it the entire book?) – ties into educational purpose
4. Effect on the market or value of the work.

Attribution (referencing the owner) is helpful but does not allow copyright infringement.
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Twitter Libel – Twibel ?

In a moment of frustration Paul Chambers, 27, from Doncaster, sent a tweet reading:
"Robin Hood Airport is closed. You've got a week and a bit... otherwise I'm blowing the
airport sky high!"
He was convicted of sending "a message of a menacing character", contrary to
provisions of the 2003 Communications Act, fined £385 and ordered to pay £600 costs
after judges said it was "clearly menacing".
The tweet led to an "I am Spartacus!" campaign backed by broadcaster Stephen Fry and
comedians including Al Murray. Some 4,000 people supported the campaign by
tweeting his message and an appeal at the High Court - for which judgement has been
reserved - was told that the Crown Court had erred in law and common sense.
Competitions
The advertising on all promotional materials (both hard and soft copy), will be subject to
the Misleading Advertising Regulations, 1988 which state that:
“Misleading advertising means any advertising which in any way, including its
presentation, deceives or is likely to deceive the persons to whom it is addressed or
whom it reaches and which, by reason of this deceptive nature is likely to affect their
economic behaviour or which, for those reasons, injures or is likely to injure a
competitor”.
The Gaming and Lotteries Act of 1956 prohibits unlicensed lotteries. The Irish courts have
taken a wide approach to the interpretation of the concept of a lottery and as a result
instant win promotions frequently contravene this legislation. If a promotion constitutes a
lottery, a permit or a licence will be required to operate the promotion legally.
Rules in relation to drink (eg happy hour), smoking and pharmaceutical products have
additional legalisation.
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Cash Machine T&C's (todayfm.com)

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Accessibility
Web accessibility is a way of designing websites, tools, and technologies so that everyone, including
people with disabilities, can use them as easily as possible.  
There are different types of disabilities to consider when designing accessible websites and digital
media: 
• Blindness and low vision 
• Deafness and hearing loss 
• Limited movement 
• Speech disabilities 
• Neurological limitations (e.g., Alzheimer's, Parkinson’s, etc.) 
• Cognitive limitations (e.g., learning disabilities) 
When building an accessible website, you can use a range of different design and web development
practices that help people with disabilities navigate the site. For example, by ensuring sufficient color
contrast between the text and background colors on your site, you make it easier for those with low
vision to read the text. 
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Accessibility
Many brands still fall short of expectations for a digitally accessible user experience— in
effect, leaving the door shut on an enormous market segment. 
A few facts about people with disabilities: 
• One billion people (or about 15% of the global population) has some type of disability
• Globally, this population has a spending power of more than $6 trillion
• In the UK, businesses lose about £2 billion a month by ignoring the needs of disabled
people 
• 80% of people with a disability have taken their business elsewhere 
because of poor accessibility 
Simply put, if your website/ digital presence is not accessible, you’re excluding a significant
percentage of the global population, which not only threatens disabled people’s rights to
the same opportunities as abled people, but also has consequences for your business.   
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Accessibility – Guidelines (Web)

Content - When writing content for web, emails, social media, etc., it’s important that content is
accessible for people with all four types of disabilities: visual, hearing, motor, and cognitive.
Structure - To help those users with a screen reader or other visual impairments easily read your
content, use headings properly. That means using the proper heading tags (e.g. use the H2 function,
instead of simply using a bigger or bolder font). Your headings should also follow a logical hierarchy: the
title or H1 is followed by an H2 etc. Label forms and tables.
Readability - Making content easy to read and follow is important for readers with cognitive disabilities,
but it also makes your content easier to scan and read for other users as well. Keep your sentences
short and to the point. Use bulleted lists, summary sections, and bolded keywords for easier scanning.
Start with the most important information and end with the least important information. Avoid jargon
and overly complicated words. Left align all text, including headlines.
Link text - When linking to other webpages, don’t use “click here” as the link text. Using descriptive link
text make it clear to users with screen readers or visual impairments which link is which and where
each one leads. Watch for CTA buttons (Alt, colour, font, position, size)
Accessible files - If you link to PDFs, PowerPoints, Word documents, or other types of files, make sure
those files are accessible.
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Accessibility – Guidelines (Content)

Videos
Subtitles: Make sure all videos have them. This not only helps people with hearing disabilities but is also useful for
people in crowded settings or who don’t want to put in headphones to watch a video in public.
Transcripts: Include a transcript that has the text version of any speech in a video. The gold standard is a
descriptive transcript, which includes a description of what’s happening in the video.
Audio description: This a speech version of a descriptive transcript and it makes it easier for blind people or people
with visual disabilities to consume content.
Images - All images should have alt text, which is a short text that clearly and neutrally describes what’s going on in
the image. This is the text screen readers read when they come across an image, so file numbers or unhelpful
information can cause major usability problems for visually impaired users.
Color - About 4% (or 312 million people) of the world’s population has some form of color blindness, which means
that using color alone to communicate information can cause problems for some users. Use patterns, fill, sizing,
borders, icons, or whitespace to communicate in addition to color. When using color, make sure that the contrast is
sufficient enough that users can read text or see color differences.
Fonts - Sans serif fonts are easiest to read, as they don’t include the small decorative markings. Limit the number
of fonts you use (e.g. one for body text and one for headlines). Always use at least size 12 font and use bold for
emphasis, rather than italics.   
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Corporate Social Responsibility

Niall FitzGerald, the former co-chairman and chief executive at Unilever when
once asked about the topic of corporate social responsibility replied;
“Corporate Social Responsibility is a hard-edged business decision. Not
because it is a nice thing to do or because people are forcing us to do it, but
because it is good for our business” (Elliott, 2003)
 
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Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) or Environmental, Social, and
Governance (ESG)

For many businesses, CSR has never graduated beyond being an add-on to
their main purpose and overall direction, a footnote in the annual report.
Some use it as a marketing tool, allowing an organisation to say what it is
doing well without having to back up its claims or talk about areas where it
may be failing.
ESG policies, in contrast, are criteria led and require that they be embedded
in the core of a business’s strategy, rather than side lined. The power of ESG
lies in its integration into a business. And its momentum is being driven by
asset managers, consumers, and employees demanding transparent,
purpose-led business practices that align with their own priorities.