A website owner can be sued and can be liable to everything he or she puts on her website. And the Internet legal obligations are even more precise for e-commerce website owners so that knowing your rights and obligations before starting an Internet business is vital. You don’t want to be like Target who was penalized for failing to make its website friendly to the blind.

Customer Privacy Law

Like you want your personal information to be kept between you and the store you bought items from, your customers want you to protect personal information you collect from them too. When you have an e-commerce site, you always collect some information you’re your customers or your website visitors like name, email address, to more sensitive information like credit card number or bank account number. You are required by federal and state laws to protect this vital information! This entails installing the latest security system on your e-commerce site to deter identity theft.

Tax Law

Unlike collecting sales tax in a physical store, a slightly different approach is applied to online stores. The Supreme Court states that if you don’t have a physical store in a particular area where a tax law applies, then you are not required to collect sales tax from customers in that area. However, if you have a physical store in a particular tax law jurisdiction, then you are obliged to collect sales tax from your customers residing in the area. Moreover, aside from sales tax, you are also responsible for your personal income tax arising from the sales you made from your e-commerce site.

International Sales

Since you sell products on the Web, you’re most likely going to ship products outside the nation too. Once you ship a product or service abroad in exchange for money, then your e-commerce site is subject to duties, customs, and international protection laws. Make sure you adhere to the laws of the land and the laws that apply to Internet businesses to the country you sell your products to if there are any. However, it’s also not surprising that there are countries, especially from the third world, that do not have laws that govern Internet business yet. So it’s still okay to accept buyers from these countries without worrying too much about which law should apply.

Advertising and Marketing Law

Whatever advertising and marketing law that applies to a physical store also applies to an e-commerce site plus more. In the internet, it’s easy to put hidden codes that can solicit other information aside from what your customers think they are giving. This is clearly a violation to fare advertising and marketing laws. And this is very important: you must provide your subscriber an option to stop receiving promo/email newsletters from you should they wish to.

Digital Rights Law

The intellectual copyright law also applies to your e-commerce business. You can’t use copyrighted digital works such as text, sound, movies, or clips on your site without prior notice and consent of the owner.

Pamela Upshur
http://www.iprofitarticles.com


Submitted by pupshur