Internet Law Articles

Monday, August 28, 2006

If you have an e-issue and don't know where to start, there's a really useful list of articles at Web Law. The advantage of using this website, is that they actual solicitors writing the articles, not just people documenting their personal thoughts or experiences.

Find them at http://www.weblaw.co.uk/articles.php.

Labels: legal

20 privacy tips

Sunday, August 27, 2006

Some of these tricks are US-oriented, rather than related to UK practice, but you can definitely learn something from the advice, unless you already practice safe-privacy of course!

1. You can teach a screen saver new tricks.
If you're concerned about others accessing your computer files when you're not around, but don't have time to keep turning the computer on and off, you can password protect your PC screen saver so that only you can deactivate it. To do so, go to the Control Panel (click Start, then select Settings, Control Panel) and double-click on Display. Select the Screen Saver tab and check the Password Protect box.

2. You can find out a lot by reading privacy policies.
Many stores now offer club discount cards that provide price discounts on certain items. Some also allow you to build up points similar to frequent flyer programs. In exchange for these and other benefits, you will be asked to share some personal information. So be sure to read the membership agreement fully, or speak to a member of the store's customer service team if you have questions about their privacy policies.

3. You can get more out of your mail by reading it.
Getting more mail lately? A new law requires financial institutions to clearly communicate their privacy policies to their customers. This means your banks, credit card companies and other financial institutions are sending you their policies on privacy and information sharing. PLEASE READ THEM! Most will allow you to opt-out of their information sharing programs if you so choose.

4. You can give identity thieves the slip by holding on to your receipts.
Many merchants are taking extra precautions to protect their customers from having credit card information stolen from discarded sales receipts. They do this through a process call truncating / replacing the last several digits with asterisks (e.g., 1234 5678 9101 ****). However, not all merchants choose to truncate the number, so when you pay with a credit card, make sure you either keep your sales slip or properly destroy it.

5. Identity theft is as close as your mailbox, so pay a visit to the Post Office instead.
Each payment envelope you send from your mailbox, inbox or outbox is a sitting duck for an identity thief. We often forget how much sensitive information is contained in just one statement stub, whether it is your electricity, water or credit card bill. Don't let it sit there for the taking. By dropping your mail in a USPS collection box, you can dramatically reduce your risk of identity theft.

6. You can increase your security by making it a monthly ritual.
Each month you receive a credit card statement with a list of charges. Each month you should carefully check each statement for charges you didn't make. Call your credit card company immediately to report any suspicious charges. For those who infrequently pay with credit, this may be the first sign that your credit card has been stolen.

7. Fido is a good name for a dog, but a bad password for you.
Hackers know common names people use. Always use a combination of numbers and words you can't find in the dictionary. It's also a good idea to change your password on a regular basis and avoid storing it near your computer.

LittleFish Comment - most hackers use brute force techniques, such as throwing every single word in the dictionary plus names, petnames and anything else they can think of, at your login. To choose a better password, take a simple, memorable sentence such as "LittleFish Web Design has a really useful blog", then write out the first letters of the sentence, including capitalisation - LWDharub - voila - instant password!

8. There's a reducing plan -- for your mailbox.
If you want to receive only certain catalogs, contact the organizations sending you the ones you don't want and ask to be taken off their mailing lists. Alternatively, you can remove your name from most national mailing lists by contacting the Direct Marketing Association at www.dmaconsumers.org/offmailinglist.html#how and click on Preference Services. If you're not online, you can also call the DMA at 212.790.1488. They will put you in a "delete" file that is sent to subscribing organizations several times a year.

LittleFish Comment - In the UK, try the Mailing Preference service. They won't take you off existing lists, but will prevent further unsolicited mail. Try sending mail back with "unknown at this address" printed on the envelope in big letters. It doesn't always work, but hey, it's worth a try!

9. You can give your Social Security number more security by not writing it on the back of a check.
Don't give it over the phone, either. Where possible, try not to use your SSN as your sole identification number. Make it difficult for thieves to steal it by crossing out the parts that contain your SSN or other identifying information when discarding pay stubs, credit card receipts and other such documents.

10. Chat rooms are for chatting, not for dating.
When possible, avoid using your actual name or primary e-mail account and instead use a second alternate online account or screen name as an "alias" when taking part in online discussions.

LittleFish Comment - when setting up an e-mail account for chatrooms etc...make sure that you look through all the settings to ensure that your real name isn't displayed.

11. To read is to protect yourself.
Read the privacy policy of all the sites with which you do business, including your Internet service provider and other individual Web sites. You can to learn the type of identifying information, if any, they collect, how they use it, and with whom it is shared. Look for an e-mail address or phone number to contact in case you have questions about security procedures. Any site that asks for information about you should have a privacy policy statement.

12. There's no place like home for your sensitive information.
Increasing numbers of employers are monitoring employees' e-mail and Web usage in the workplace. To ensure the privacy of any sensitive information, keep it at home. And if you must discuss sensitive issues by e-mail, develop the habit of double-checking the header to make sure your message is going only to the intended recipient and not to a wider "reply to all" distribution list.

13. Strangers can be strange until you get to know them.
The age-old adage, "don't talk to strangers," has been updated in this age of online communications to "don't talk to strangers who ask for information they don't need to know." Unless it's with a trusted company or you feel comfortable with why your information is needed, it's almost never a good idea to release your personal information to someone you have never met. Increase your trust level by reading their online privacy policy statement.

14. You can keep your information private - even in public.
Ever use public computers, such as in the library or cafe? Or do you share your computer with others? As you browse, your cache stores Web sites you have visited so that your browser can store them locally instead of going to the Web site. This helps to speed up your browsing on a private computer, but can also allow your habits to be tracked on a public one. To prevent this from happening, go to the "Preferences" folder in your browser and click on "Empty Cache." Also, be sure to close the browser before leaving.

LittleFish Comment - And ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS logout before closing the browser.

15. ***** is a good name when shopping on the Internet.
When giving your credit card information online, be sure to ask whether they use encryption to scramble your data against third-party viewing and how they safeguard your stored data from online hackers. One of the easiest ways to ensure that you have a secure, encrypted connection while doing business online is to check whether the URL (Web address) begins with "https://" rather than simply "http://" before you transmit credit card information. To be certain, you may wish to install encryption software on your own computer to protect your e-mail and files from others who may disregard your personal privacy.

LittleFish Comment - And look for the padlock icon, either in the address bar, or in the bottom right of your screen. Double-clicking on this will tell you who owns the security on that site - if you are logging into PayPal, then PayPal should own the security certificate. If in doubt, don't.

16. Just because someone offers you a cookie doesn't mean you have to take it.
Browser users often have the option to be notified before accepting a cookie and to accept only cookies that connect with the originating server hosting the Web site that placed the cookie - rather than third-party servers for advertisers, for example. Reputable sites should clearly inform you how they plan to use the cookies deposited on your browser. Various types of software and services are available to help you manage cookies, including those that serve as a proxy or shield between you and the sites you visit. You can opt-out from online advertising cookies by visiting the Web site of the Network Advertising Initiative.

LittleFish Comment - You can always delete cookies - just check your browser's settings and look for 'clear cookies'. You might want to keep some (after all, it does help when the site knows you have visited before and fills in some of your login details), in which case just delete the ones you don't recognise, and believe me, there'll be a few!

17. You can choose your callers instead of them choosing you.
If you'd like to be on the "don't call" list, send your name, address and phone number to the Telephone Preference Service, c/o Direct Marketing Association, P.O. Box 9014, Farmingdale, NY 11735-9014. Major nationwide telemarketers participate in this service. Your local phone company may also offer some "custom calling services" like Caller ID and Call Block which can be used to limit unsolicited calls.

LittleFish Comment - In the UK, try the Telephone Preference service.

18. Records are for remembering more than just memories.
Most e-commerce sites present you with a summary of your transaction before you click a send or buy button. Print this out or save it as a file to refer to later if necessary.

19. Most credit cards companies give you credit when something goes wrong.
If someone steals or uses your credit card number, most credit card companies cover fraudulent charges or limit your liability resulting from unauthorized use of your card. Keep the phone numbers of the credit card companies you deal with in a safe place so you can contact them immediately if something goes wrong.

20. You can stop the e-mail before it becomes mail.
Getting mail is fun but if you'd like to cut down on the amount of unsolicited commercial e-mail, you can contact the e-Mail Preference Service (e-MPS) offered by the Direct Marketing Association. You can register with the service by logging on to http://www.e-mps.org/. All DMA members who wish to send unsolicited commercial e-mail must purge their e-mail prospecting lists of the individuals who have registered their e-mail address with e-MPS. The service is also available to non-DMA members.

Labels: security

How to Use Simple Tag and Ping Marketing Techniques

Wednesday, August 23, 2006

Following on from my post yesterday on social bookmarking, tagging and pinging, I came across this excellent article which explains the concepts in context:

How to Use Simple Tag and Ping Marketing Techniques (To Boost Your Site's Ranking, Traffic and Sales)

If you're just heard the phrase 'Tag and Ping' and scratching your head in puzzlement - this article may be worth your time. Not that Tag and Ping is some magic marketing formula that will deliver untold riches. It won't.

It is just one more marketing tool professional online marketers are using to give their site or sites a competitive edge over their competition. It will help put your site on the Internet map and if done right, Tag and Ping will deliver plenty of very
targeted traffic to your sales pages. It will boost your rankings and increase your sales.

Tag and Ping is one of those simple, yet relatively unknown marketing techniques savvy Internet Marketers have been using and trying to keep quiet for years. To truly understand how Tag and Ping works, you will have to know some basic background information on keywords, blogging, tags, and how all these can work in sync to deliver traffic, links and sales to your site.

What are Blogs?

Most web users will know a blog is an online journal where bloggers post their daily or hourly entries (their opinions, views, info, links) on any subject that interests them. The most popular blogging systems are Blogger.com (owned by Google), Bloglines (owned by Ask Jeeves), LiveJournal, and many professional marketers use the free WordPress software which they can host on their own websites.

Each blog has its own RSS feed - RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication although its original acronym stood for Rich Site Summary. These RSS feeds broadcasts the information in the blog posts to all concerned parties - those who have subscribed and use an RSS reader or aggregator. Or more commonly, subscribers use the FireFox browser, Google Desktop, or MyYahoo to access their favorite RSS feeds. The next version of Windows will have RSS embedded into its operating system.

What are Tags?

Tags are really another name for keywords. Most surfers will know keywords are the exact words Internet users type into search engines to find what they're looking on the world wide web. Tags work in the same way and are a form of social bookmarking, a way of classifying and accessing all that content in all those countless blogs.

Many major blogging directories such as Technorati use tags to serve up the information to its patrons. One simple technique to create a tag in Technocrati:

<a href="http://technorati.com/tag/Laptops" rel="tag">Laptops</a>

Or if your blogging software supports categories; this will be recognized by Technorati as a tag.

What The Heck Is A Ping?

A ping is a simple way to notify the different search engines to let them know that your blog has been updated. You call up or ping your blog post.

You bookmark or place an entry in any one of the countless blogging sites such as Technorati, Furl, del.icio.us, Blinklist, Flickr --- you go to these sites and click your blog or tag to inform them you have updated your blog. Many blogging systems will automatically ping your blog updates.

Or you can do this manually, for example Technorati's ping form is here http://www.technorati.com/ping

Simple Way to Ping

If this is still confusing to you, one simple way to ping your tags/blogs is to use a site like: http://pingomatic.com/ and it will automatically ping your blog in many of the most popular blogging services.

Enter The Online Professional Marketers and It All Hits the Fan

Of course, online marketers have long discovered that the whole blogging system - blogs, rss, tags, pinging - is an excellent marketing vehicle. One great marketing system delivering targeted traffic to their products and services.

It really is a corruption or commercialization of blogging and this surely wasn't the idea the original designers of blogs had in mind. But the whole blogging system is so lucrative, many professional marketers (the author is pleading the fifth!) are using blogging systems like WordPress to create mainly marketing sites that may have little resemblance to a real blog. It just uses the backbone structure of blogs, RSS, Tags to give their sites a slight competitive edge in a very competitive world.

As we saw with the 'comment spam' there is a great likelihood that Tag and Ping will be misused and further antagonize the blogging purists. So if you are going to use Tag and Ping make sure you're creating valuable, usable content - then most sites will want to link to your site anyway. Content is still king no matter what tricks the professional marketers want to use. Always will be!

Using a Simple Tag and Ping Marketing Technique With Technorati

To explain further the whole idea of Tag and Ping. Lets just walk through a marketing system you can quickly create using Technorati - one of the most popular blogging services.

First, sign your blog up with Technorati. This is quite a simple procedure. Just upload a photo, doesn't have to be of you - your site's logo will do. Register your profile with your 20 or so tags relating to your blog. Make sure these are keywords you're marketing with your blog. Then you have to place the Technorati code on your blog for a link back.

Next, you must understand that Technorati creates a landing page for each tag in their system. This page is made up of four parts:

* Flickr Photos

* Recent blog posts tagged with that keyword or phrase

* Who's Blogging About sidebar which links to any profiles of blogs that those same keywords or phrase in their profile

* Links from Furl for the same tag

So to take full advantage and to use this marketing technique you have to sign up with both Flickr and Furl. Your aim is to get your links in all four spots on this Technorati landing page for your tag or keyword.

When signing up for Flickr, many marketers use their site's name for their Flickr username - just use a dash instead of a dot in your site's url. You can use a photo of the product they're promoting to get a link from Flickr in the top spot on the Technorati landing page. Pick your tags and description for the product.

Set up a Furl account and download the Toolbar - bookmark a few sites to get the hang of how its done.

Now You're Really To Put Everything Together To Tag and Ping

1.) You can start with the Flickr photos at top of the Technorati page.

Just post a photo or cover image into your Flickr account, making sure you tag it and use a catchy headline in your description. Link it to your landing or affiliate page url.

<a href="http://www.marketingtoolguide.com">Don't buy another
marketing tool until your check out this site.</a>

2.) Next, make the first of your blog posts on your particular subject or product to your blog, making sure you tag it with your keywords and then ping Technorati. Make all your posts good content, reviews, product information or free downloads. Your entry will appear on the top of the list for that tag shortly in Technorati.

3.) Furl your blog post and your landing/affiliate page with your tags to make sure your entry/post is listed the bottom section of the Technorati page for your tag.

To work this system, add another blog post every few hours, Tag and Ping, plus Furl your posts. For better results you can sign up for countless other social bookmarking sites and bookmark your pages. Here are just a few good ones: del.icio.us, blinklist, moreover, icerocket, weblogs...

Flickr, Blog, Tag, Ping, Furl

This is just one Tag and Ping method - professional marketers have countless systems and sites working many variations on this relatively new marketing technique. But the information given above should get you started on your own Tag and Ping marketing system.

Remember, blogging and RSS are the wave of the future, make sure you're geared up to take advantage of all they have to offer. You must have at least one blog on your site. Use WordPress if you can - Blogger will do in a pinch!

Just make sure you're using some Ping and Tag marketing techniques to harvest all those links, traffic and sales for your site. This is one marketing technique you should now be using. Just remember to Flickr, Blog, Tag, Ping, Furl - Rinse and Repeat!

About the author

The author operates numerous sites on the web, his first was a general Internet Marketing site http://www.bizwaremagic.com. And his latest site is Marketing Tool Guide where you can find all the latest helpful and effective marketing tools, including Free Internet Marketing manuals. Internet Marketing Tools can be found at: http://www.marketingtoolguide.com. Copyright © 2006 Titus Hoskins.

Labels: blogging, internet, seo

Social bookmarking, tagging and pinging explained

Tuesday, August 22, 2006

You might have heard of social bookmarking, tagging and pinging, but if you're not sure what all those terms mean, Wikipedia says:

"Social bookmarking is ... where shared lists of user-created Internet bookmarks are displayed."

"Social bookmarking sites generally organize their content using tags. Social bookmarking sites are an increasingly popular way to locate, classify, rank, and share Internet resources through the practice of tagging and inferences drawn from grouping and analysis of tags."

"A tag is a keyword or descriptive term associated with an item as means of classification by means of a folksonomy."

Example:
A web page hosted on a web server or blog server which supports tagging, might have the tags Baseball, Red Sox, Tickets, Away Games (tags can be more than one word), and Discounts. A human reader can probably tell the purpose of the page by quickly scanning the list of tags. Typically, the server would display the tags in a list on that page, with each tag displayed as a web link leading to an index page listing all web pages which use that tag. This allows a reader to locate quickly all pages which have been associated with the term Red Sox. If the server supports tag searching, a reader would be able to find all pages that use a particular set of tags, such as Red Sox and Tickets.

If the page's author wishes to reclassify the page, all that is required is for them to change the list of tags. In this case, the author could add the tags Blue Jays, and Paypal to their page. All connections between pages are automatically tracked and updated by the server software. There is no need to relocate the page within a complex hierarchy of categories.

Pinging is the process of letting different social bookmarking sites know that you have added tagged content to your website or blog.

See also - a list of 124 tagging sites and Changing Earth's example of inviting visitors to socially bookmark a website or webpage (look for the 'socialize' button in the right hand column).

Labels: internet

3 Surefire Techniques to Get More Traffic Than You Can Handle

Monday, August 21, 2006

Gone are the days of cheap banner ad and pop up traffic. It is becoming increasingly harder to develop good traffic sources, and even more traffic and more highly targeted traffic is needed as web searching becomes faster. It is not unfathomable to click through 20 or 30 or even 50 websites in 20 minutes, searching for exactly what you are looking for. As more people get hi-speed internet, I believe it will be even more difficult to keep a customer on your site. Only the very best will survive--are you ready?

Today I will cover some of the best techniques that are currently available and how to maximize your return on each, and literally generate more traffic than you can handle.

Pay-Per-Click (PPC): PPC is extremely popular today among internet marketers because it circumvents the search engine optimization process. You literally buy your way to the top of the list when you buy PPC. Two keys here: 1) You must be highly targeted. If you only sell specialized hunting equipment for elk hunting, you cannot afford to buy "hunting" or "fishing" as keywords. You must buy "elk hunting". You won't get as many clicks, but they should cost you less and they will convert at a much higher rate than the general terms. 2) Do not bid your way to the very top of the list. You will pay too much for the spot. You see, the first spot gets a lot of clicks from "happy clickers"--they click in to your site, and if it isn't exactly what they want or doesn't load fast enough, they click right back out--leaving you with the bill for their click. But if you bid the 3rd or 5th spot, it is less expensive, and the people clicking on those ads are more likely to be genuinely reading your ad to see if it is what they want.

Article Writing and Submission: Article writing and submission creates some of the most highly targeted traffic possible, as long as you write specifically to your purchasing web site audience. One thing that is incredibly powerful with this is the emotional connection a reader develops with the style of writing in the article. Therefore, it is important that the copywriter for your web site also be the writer for your articles, if at all possible. The style of writing is one of the things that prompts a reader to click through to your web site, and if the style remains the same, you are more likely to create a customer out of the click.

Ezine Advertising: One of the keys with ezine advertising is targeted ezines. The more tightly targeted the topic of the ezine, and the more highly correlated that topic is with your web site, the higher the chance that you will be productive using that ezine. Another key with ezine advertising is testing and tracking. You must track every source. Create a spreadsheet and put in each of the sources, the price you paid for the ad, and the number of leads or sales you generate. If you do not do this, you will likely fail at ezine advertising. Some ezines will make you a lot of money, and others nothing, but if you do not know which, you might simply break even, or worse yet, lose money.

About the Author Sean Mize is a successful offline and online entrepreneur and marketer, and has developed the online manual, 15 Steps to Internet Success. To download your complimentary copy today, click here: Secrets of Internet Success

Labels: seo

Small business web hosting tools

Thursday, August 17, 2006

Our sister site LittleFish Web Hosting offers web hosting tools and advice for small businesses.

A hosting comparison table shows reliable and affordable hosting from sources that we use whilst if you need a domain name to go with your hosting, current prices from two of the largest domain registrars are shown, and just to help you out with some of the terms used on the site, there is a glossary.

Labels: domains, hosting

Experimenting with Windows Live

Tuesday, August 15, 2006

I'm not always a big fan of Windows software, but after reading a post on Digital Inspiration about Windows Live Writer, I thought I'd give it a go.

At the moment, I'm writing this from the comfort of my desktop, without having to be connected to the Internet. Setting up was easy - once downloaded, just enter your Blogger or other blogging details and Live Writer sorts it all out.

Different views allow you to see how your post will look before publishing, and you can save as many draft posts as you like. The interface seems simple enough, and for the technophiles you can see your HTML whilst the technophobes can stick to the 'What you see is what you get' interface.

Multiple blogs can be added, which is a bonus. The only drawback that I can see is that you can't schedule posts - a feature that is also currently missing in Blogger, but is in WordPress.

Further exploration shows that you can set up your services to be pinged when you've posted.

If anyone knows where to get plugins, which sound like a good idea, please let me know!

Labels: blogging, resources

Resell rights explained

Monday, August 14, 2006

Resell rights can be confusing, especially when there are so many offers on the Internet. Wikipedia gives a concise explanation of the differences between resell rights and master resell rights:

"Many ebooks and pieces of software, especially in the field of online or internet marketing, are sold with resell rights included. It is therefore necessary to distinguish between normal resell rights and master resell rights. Normal resell rights mean that after you buy the item you will be allowed to sell it to your customers. On the other hand, when you acquire master resell rights, not only you can sell it to your customers, but your customers also have the rights to sell it and pass on the resell rights.

Most resale rights packages will not let you alter any of its content or in any way change/tamper with the information. Always read the disclaimers surrounding them. If you wanted to change the content you would have to contact the author and request a partner ship or buy the editing rights to the product."

Labels: biz, internet

Free search engine optimisation tools

Sunday, August 13, 2006

SEO Chat has an amazing range of tools to help you optimise and analyse your website. What's more - they're free to use and tools are constantly being added. Explanations of each tool can be found on its page:

...is there any other tool you could possibly want?

Labels: resources, searchengines, seo, webdesign

eKstreme Domain Geographical Locator Review

Tuesday, August 01, 2006

I've just discovered a new toy!

The Domain Geographical Locator at eKstreme.com is an easy and brilliant way to find out where your backlinks come from.

As well as showing the TLD (top level domain e.g. COM or UK) of a backlink, the country where the site is hosted is also shown.

According to eKstreme, Google puts emphasis on the TLD in search results whereas MSN and Yahoo (probably) use the hosting country as their geographical guide.

To use this, just enter your URL into the search box and hit 'Localize domain'. You then get a list grouped by TLD of your backlinks. Clicking on the 'more' button will list all the backlinks with that TLD and where the site is hosted whilst clicking on the excel icon will download the list in, unsurprisingly, excel format.

You can click through on each sitename but you are only taken to the front page rather than where your link is. To find that out, just click on the Yahoo icon on the previous page.

I think the only thing missing is a visualisation of the data - for a quick overview this would be much easier than trying to absorb all the text data.

Oh, and it's free to use.

Labels: domains, searchengines

Subscribe | By e-mail