Every Blogger Should Know U.S. Law
May 3, 2007 | Comments (4) | Filed under: Blogging
While I was browsing the web today, I came across a great article, 12 Important U.S. Laws Every Blogger Needs to Know, that touched on a subject I was thinking of writing about myself.
The other day, I was having a conversation with a co-worker of mine, and somehow we got on the topic of whether or not we needed to care about U.S. laws being non-U.S. citizens. It was an interesting conversation, to say the least, with my co-worker taking sort of a screw the world attitude and me trying to set him straight. Blogging can and is done from every country in the world (this one is done from Canada, Go Raptors!), and I was trying hard to make the point that every blogger should be at least familiar with the common U.S. laws that could come into play with any site.
Like it or not, the US is one of the biggest players in online business (second only to this site 
). The US still controls the ICANN domain registry and virtually all major advertising opportunities for your site are U.S. based. Toss onto that the fact that most major search engines are U.S. based, most big business copyrights and trademarks are filed in the U.S., and a good chunk of the tools you might want to use are also U.S. based (PayPal for example) and you start to see a picture of why a U.S. law might come into play at some point in time.
Taking a stance like my friend and pretending we live in a world where one country can isolate itself from others is just asking for trouble. While you might not specifically break a law in your own country, you could jeopardize your ability to host your site (if you host in the U.S.) or find an advertiser if you blatantly mock U.S. regulations. Cutting off so many options because you couldn’t be bothered to learn about a few laws makes for very poor business at the end of the day.
Many of the laws outlined in the article are really simple points that I think any blogger in any country could benefit from reading. With so many blogs out there these days, it’s sometimes difficult to distinguish the difference between what you see everywhere and what is actually legal. Knowing the law that applies to your site and business can help you steer clear of common pitfalls and ensure your site stays online for many years to come.
After all, who wants to be the guy in prison there for violating federal trade commision recommendations on paid link disclosure?
feel free to leave a comment
Comment Guidelines: Basic XHTML is allowed (a href, strong, em, code). All line breaks and paragraphs are automatically generated. Off-topic or inappropriate comments will be edited or deleted. Email addresses will never be published. Keep it PG-13 people!
XHTML: You can use these tags: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <code> <em> <i> <strike> <strong>
All fields marked with " * " are required.
Welcome
Make Money
4 people have left comments
I think this one is very important. Search registered trademarks before you purchase the domain name or you may have to give it up later.
my very thoughts indeed. I have some friends who are blogging using methods that I find could be questionable, but that is rather in relation to plagerism and sourcing authors of which they obtain information.
Laptop Repair makes a good point. The last thing you want to do is register a domain, build a site, start promoting it just to get a cease and desist letter from some corporate lawyer. Would not be a good time.
Stark, fellow Canadian blogger here
Raptors lost but there is always next year… It doesn’t matter which part of the world we came from, there are certain rules and etiquette that we need to follow 