Legal, Ethical, and Regulatory Risks

Whether an internal or external team develops the site, it is extremely important to identify and plan for legal, ethical, and regulatory compliance during the Definition phase. Consider contractual obligations and ownership issues between the client and an external Web development team. For example, do aspects of the Web site require licensing fees, or will software and content components of the site be owned solely by the client? When the site is developed internally, there are fewer ownership issues to address. If you use commercially available products to build the site, you must address licensing issues.

Internet Business Strategist
The following actions can help manage legal, ethical, and regulatory risks during the Definition phase:

1. Establish what confidentiality restrictions apply to both the client and the team.
2. Understand the client's legal and regulatory environment.
3. Identify taxation and commerce regulations that may apply to interstate or international e-commerce sales.
4. Negotiate and clearly establish ownership of the solution/product.
5. Negotiate and clearly establish ownership for all original content, including editorial, illustrations, photographs, and multimedia content. Understand that some content is not sold, only licensed for strictly defined use.
6. Assess and manage liability as defined in the proposal.
7. Establish who will be responsible for managing and obtaining any required permissions for copyrighted material, trademarks, service marks, and/or patents.
8. Understand warranty responsibility and communicate to the client how work will be guaranteed.
9. Identify and incorporate the requirements of various legislative acts governing the Internet, such as the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA).

We will return to our development process model in the next lesson by examining phase 3: Design.

If you have an idea for a service or a product, you can start an online business. The web eliminates the immediate need for a storefront, where you can promote on social media sites such as Facebook or Twitter, and you will be up and running in a day or less. Starting a business does not take much business knowledge or any experience because of major search engines like Google, you have direct access to all the resources you will need. While most entrepreneurs have a sense of what they are doing, most have started a business before and some still have a tendency to ignore the legal risks of conducting business online.
Failure to adhere to the legal risks of conducting business online include:

1. Loss of your good standing.
2. Loss of well-known clientele.
3. Loss of your business license.

It is your responsibility to make yourself fully aware of the legal risks of doing business online.

Click the Quiz link below to test your knowledge of success factors and risks in the Discovery and Definition phases.
Success Factors Risks in Definition Phases - Quiz