FAQ'S ~ Issues, Questions and Answers for AIMwebs Clients'

FAQ ITEMS Privacy:  Visitor privacy for websites. COMING FEATURES 1.Contracts:  Put it all in the contract.   Do you have a topic for Client NEWSPAGE to cover?  Design ... Graphics ... Code Scripts ... You name it, we'll advise you on what, when, how, or who ... Just email us ...

ISSUES: Server Status: Up and Running: Last down time: 11-21-2011: 11:13.08 - 0:09 min. EMAIL - This is important. As you may know, we know your email addresses, but we can't, and don't, know any of the passwords. Each site owner, webmaster, needs to setup your own email accounts. Email links on your webpages are still on those pages. Using the CPanel is easy. You won't find any major differences from our current CPanel, just the extra functions that we've added. The statistics services are the same great ones, so if you like AWStats we still have them, and if you haven't looked, give them a try. We'll also be announcing some other new services during August. For management tools for Cpanel, go to: http://www.cpanel.net/. The servers are the newest Linux servers. Because they are UNIX systems, you can't use any capital letters in filenames, folders, image names or have any blank spaces in the names. When you look at your pages, and an image may not show, the odds are it has a name that doesn’t meet the UNIX standards. Check the image name or file name and see if that’s the problem, before you call us. We try to correct the obvious file-name errors, but we can’t catch them all. This is a major project and has involved the efforts of all our AIMwebs staff this week. If you have questions, please call us and leave a message, or email us at support@aimwebs.com . - PRIVACY IS THE LAW Legal alert: A new law on website privacy policies. A new California statute establishes minimum requirements for privacy policies of commercial websites. Effective July 1, 2004, the California law requires an operator of a commercial website that collects "personally identifiable information" (such as e-mail addresses) about consumers located in California to address certain matters in its privacy policy and to conspicuously post and abide by its policy. In addition to website operators headquartered in California, companies doing business nationwide, and their legal counsel, should consider their website privacy policies as they relate to the new statute. There is a chance that the California attorney general could attempt to enforce the new statute against national operators to the extent that California consumers are affected by such operators' violation of the statute.   Required Elements of a Privacy Policy The new statute, entitled the Online Privacy Protection Act (OPPA), states that a privacy policy of a commercial website or online service must do the following: Identify the categories of personally identifiable information (defined below) that the operator collects through the website or online service about individual consumers who use or visit its commercial website or online service, and the categories of third-party persons or entities with whom the operator may share that personally identifiable information. Describe the process, if any, that is maintained by the operator for an individual consumer who uses or visits its commercial website or online service to review and request changes to any of his or her personally identifiable information that is collected through the website or online service. Describe the process by which the operator notifies consumers who use or visit its commercial website or online service of material changes to the operator's privacy policy for that website or online service. Identify the policy's effective date. Key Definitions OPPA defines "personally identifiable information" as (a) a first and last name; (b) a home or other physical address, including street name and name of a city or town; (c) an e-mail address; (d) a telephone number; (e) a social security number; (f) any other identifier that permits the physical or online contacting of a specific individual; (g) information concerning a user that the website or online service collects online from the user and maintains in personally identifiable form in combination with an identifier described above. OPPA defines the term "operator" as any person or entity that owns a commercial website or online service that collects the personally identifiable information of consumers residing in California from such consumers using or visiting the site or service. The statute defines the term "consumer" as any individual who seeks or acquires, by purchase or lease, any goods, services, money or credit for personal, family or household purposes. Posting Requirements Under OPPA, an operator of a commercial website must "conspicuously post" its privacy policy on the website. To "conspicuously post" would include posting the privacy policy through any of the following: A webpage on which the actual privacy policy is posted if the webpage is the homepage or first significant page after entering the website. An icon that hyperlinks to a webpage on which the actual privacy policy is posted, if the icon is located on the homepage or the first significant page after entering the website, and if the icon contains the word "privacy." The icon would also use a color that contrasts with the background color of the webpage or is otherwise distinguishable. A text link that hyperlinks to a webpage on which the actual privacy policy is posted, if the text link is located on the homepage or first significant page after entering the website, and if the text link does one of the following: (a) includes the word "privacy;" (b) is written in capital letters equal to or greater in size than the surrounding text; (c) is written in larger type than the surrounding text, or in contrasting type, font or color to the surrounding text of the same size, or set off from the surrounding text of the same size by symbols or other marks that call attention to the language. Any other functional hyperlink that is so displayed that a reasonable person would notice it. In the case of an online service, any other reasonably accessible means of making the privacy policy available for consumers of the online service. Violation The statute provides that an operator will only be in violation of the obligation to post its privacy policy if it fails to do so within thirty (30) days after being notified of non-compliance. An operator will be in violation of OPPA's key provisions if it fails to comply with such provisions (or with the provisions of the posted privacy policy): (a) knowingly and willfully or (b) negligently and materially. The actual consequences of OPPA (including the courts' reception to enforcing the statute nationally) remain to be seen, but one California official has been reported as stating that the California attorney general could seek to bring actions on behalf of aggrieved consumers under California law that might result in fines or injunctions. As noted above, the statute should be consulted in connection with an individual company's website privacy policy. OPPA's official citation is Cal. Bus. & Prof. Code § 22575-22579. This article was written by John A. Gliedman with the law firm of Brown Raysman Millstein Felder & Steiner LLP. He specializes in IT and business process services agreements as well as intellectual property licensing. He may be reached at jgliedman@brownraysman.com.

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