Posted by arlene

Digital contests: In Canada, promotional contests are governed by the Criminal Code and the Competitions Act. The rules of running a contest on the Internet or through any other digital tool are:

• You cannot give prizes away using games of chance which require the entrant to pay in order to participate.
• If participants don’t have to make a purchase to enter a contest, they must answer a skill testing question to receive the prize if they win.
• You must make public the number of prizes, the value of the prizes, and the chances of winning (if you know them).
• If you make a contest available to people outside Canada, you must meet all the Canadian rules and regulations.
• If someone outside Canada offers a contest to Canadians, the
  contest must meet all the Canadian rules and regulations.
• If you run a contest on the Internet, make sure to consult a lawyer who specializes in marketing law.
• 

Online provider liability: If you set up a BBS or a Web site, you are responsible for all the content seen on it, or transmitted through it. For example, if you set up a private online network (BBS), you are responsible for all the content exchanged on the system, even if you have no knowledge of it. If someone decides to use your BBS to distribute pornography or hate literature, you could be arrested. If you set up a Web site Chat Room, and people use it to conduct criminal activity, you could be found guilty as an accomplice. If you set up a newsgroup, and people use it to slam your competitors, you could be sued for libel or slander. Although punishing the online service provider for the crimes of its users seems unfair, there are many precedents of this happening.

Recently, the Church of Scientology sued an Internet service provider for giving its subscribers access to a newsgroup which criticizes the church. A lower court in the United States ruled that the church has a possible case against the ISP, even though the news- group is available through every other Internet provider i_n the

world. Taken to an absurd degree, this type of liability is chilling. What happens if you provide links on your Web site which lead to a Web site that has further links to hate literature? Are you promoting hate literature? Are you engaging in a criminal activity? Because every site on the Internet eventually leads to every other site, what legal responsibility do you assume when you set up a Web site? Unfortunately, no one really knows the answer to these questions because the laws are too ambiguous.

As time goes by and the international legal system begins to grapple with these issues, some of these laws may be rescinded. But until then, you must make sure your online network, or any other digital tool, is not used by your customers or prospects to conduct an illegal or unethical activity. Remember, you could be legally culpable even if you have no knowledge of the activity.

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