Legal / illegal Issues Forum

[ferhanz]

there should be a forum regarding Legal / illegal Issues in Internet development

[SteveAZ]

I agree there should be. Not everyone is fluent in what is legal and what isn't. Also maybe something can be added to as to where to look for legal assistance in the internet marketplace.

[JKomp]

I quite agree.

[wintev]

Yes i Quite agree, i think it would be a valuable addition to this community.

[Chatmag]

A much needed addition, I agree.

When the topic is up, I can contact the people I know that are involved in Internet related law, let them know the topic is on, and see if they will join in the conversations. (of course, any advise given should not be taken as the final word, just as a reference).

[mike]

Chatmag's post pretty well sums up my reservations on a legal forum. I don't have legal people to take care of it and I shudder at the thought of someone sending me that (inevitable?) email telling me they got some bad legal 'advice' here -- and you know how it goes from there...

[Chatmag]

Mike, I can understand your reservations, however, legal issues are a part of the Internet industry, and a forum for that fits into the overall theme of WPW, my opinion :) There are plenty of posts in WPW that ask questions of a legal nature, so all you'd be doing is putting them all in one area, so not much change there really.

I think starting that forum, and putting a "sticky" with the caveat that any and all advise given is the opinion of the posters, and not by WPW would do the trick to keep WPW from being liable. (Hmmm, first piece of legal advise, and something that should be considered).

Someone in another forum asked how to get rid of spyware, and I posted a link to Spybot. If that person goes to Spybot, downloads and runs Spybot, and something bad happens to his system, I'm not liable, nor is WPW.

The legal issues forum would however provide members with some kind of a starting point, and it would be up to them to pursue it offline with their attorney. I've found that getting suggestions gives a person greater insight, and may also show them something they did not consider before. In the law field, Internet law is new, and laws are being written and modified every day to fit this new environment.

In the long run, the legal forum may go beyond here, and help to formulate legal opinions that would benefit all.

I think it's a good idea, as long as users understand the ground rules. Also, we list lawyer chat rooms and discussion forums in our directory, and it gets a fair amount of hits. I could link the law forum from WPW to that page, in addition to your other links in our directory.