Re: Open Letter To Ivan (was RE: Collecting Information From Clients)

First of all, if you don't see me as your ally, someone who cares about
your welfare and wants you to succeed, then you are not paying attention.
That I am also representing clients from this list (which frankly is a very
small part of my total business) is just part of what I do. Do you find it
difficult to accept that humans act often with multiple purposes?  Is
anyone on this list a pure altruist?  Get real!

I teach a class called "Make Money as a Web Designer."  I've been teaching
it for over a year and the single biggest and clearest thing I've found is
that virtually every designer and developer I've ever met has almost no
knowledge of what the law is regarding their business.  

The Internet is about protecting rights, making deals and marketing.  There
is a great deal of money at stake.  Site development brings in tens and
hundreds of thousands of dollars.  For that money, you had better know
what's going on with the law so as to protect yourself and your client.  

And when it comes to privacy and collecting information, this is a big
issue and the federal government and many state governments are looking for
ways to levy heavy fines.  Indeed, if a site violates the Children's Online
Privacy Protection Act the operators could in liable for fines of up to
$11,000.00 per violation.   If you, as a designer, don't know anything
about COPPA and fail to advise your clients about it, perhaps you can be
sued by the client for breach of your duty to the client.  

Finally, I refer you to my articles because I've already spent the time and
written what needs to be said.  Many of these articles are so valued that
they are syndicated all over the Net and carried on many other sites.  My
site has already won *5 awards* for the very articles you refuse to read.
I am invited to teach about Internet law all over the country and indeed in
other countries.  If you refuse to read what I write because I make you
click a few times you have only yourself to blame. I'm sure that if I
repeated the entire article on the list, that those of you who want to be
petulant children would chide me for wasting bandwidth.

So which would you rather be: a designer who refuses to read an article to
which I generously refer you or do you want to grow up and participate in
the Internet revolution?  Get professional and educate yourself.


IVAN HOFFMAN, B.A., J.D. 
Attorney At Law
Lawyering With Integrity (sm)
Internet Law, Copyrights, Trademarks, Writing and Publishing Law, Web
Design Contracts and Law, Business Plans, Web Site Audits, Recording and
Music Law.  *A 5 Times Award-Winning Site.* http://www.ivanhoffman.com

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