Introduction

Website content providers should seek the advice of lawyers whenever legal problems are encountered or suspected. This guide is not exhaustive nor definitive. Nothing substitutes for proper legal advice. If nothing else, it will give you peace of mind.

There are significant differences between the legal systems of different countries. Since the Internet does not respect borders, it is important to be aware of such differences. If not observed, these differences can cause serious problems.

Laws on the Internet

Laws relating to broadcasting and publication such as defamation, contempt, copyright and trademarks apply equally to the Internet.

It should be noted that online services are subject to the laws of any country where they are received and if the Website (when capitalized, it refers to the Website seeking to abide by the laws and to its owners) breaks or infringes these laws the Website’s owner may be legally liable. With copyright and trademarks, it may be possible to clear material for use online.

Defamation

Particular care must be taken to avoid the publication of defamatory material through user-generated content on bulletin boards or other interactive areas. One option for Websites is to pre-moderate high risk sites but this may not always be practicable or the best legal solution.

Pre-moderating material can require the Website to adopt an editorial role, so deciding how and when to intervene when moderating is key. Too much editing may ‘transform’ the material from a user-generated content to the Website’s own material.

This is important because of Section 10 of the Electronic Transactions Act. That section gives network service providers (and the definition is wide enough to include a Website owner) immunity from any civil or criminal liability for third party content once certain conditions are met.

Irrespective of how the user-generated content is moderated Websites should respond to complaints as soon as reasonably practicable. This may include removing the material complained of. Failure to do so could constitute failure to take reasonable care precluding the Website from using certain defences.

Contempt of Court

Where legal proceedings become "active", there are concerns about contempt of court in addition to the usual issues. Consideration should be given to links to archived stories which could create a substantial risk of serious prejudice. Where appropriate, these should be removed.

Intellectual property

Intellectual property: protecting Website’s copyright and trademarks

The Website may wish to protect its own material particularly if it is likely to be commercially exploited by others online. This extends to website content and to domain names (urls or web site addresses) whether or not they are connected to a site. However, at the same time the Website may not want to discourage genuine "fan sites", provided these do not confuse the public into thinking they are official sites or encourage large scale copying of material.

Appropriate copyright and trademark notices should be used on sites to indicate the website’s ownership of material. Domain names should be considered for early registration.

Legal action should be considered if another site operates for commercial gain and trades off the Website’s name, damages the Website in some other way or where a domain name conflicts with the Website’s trade mark or brand. Action should also be considered where a site is non-commercial but contains a large amount of the Website’s copyright material or uses the Website’s logo, but often an informal initial approach is more appropriate on these occasions.

Note that sometimes a Website may decide that its materials will be licensed to the public via say the Creative Commons Licences. In such cases, any action will depend on the licence used/adopted.

Intellectual property: use of third party material on the Website

All third party material e.g. text, pictures, graphics, audio, video and trade marks which the Website does not own, should be cleared in advance for use on the Internet through the relevant rights / clearance organization.

Never assume that copyright owners of material on Internet sites have waived their rights simply by putting material online. Even if material appears on a site, the copyright owner may not have given permission and so care should be taken to check any disclaimers on sites.

Unless it is made clear that the material may be used without permission or acknowledgement, always make sure that the copyright owners have been contacted and have given their permission in writing before using the material.

Deep linking to and/or framing of third party sites, inappropriate use of metatags and use of third party logos as linking icons can, in certain circumstances, amount to infringement, although the law is not well-developed. Caution should be exercised and if in doubt, advice sought.

Care should be taken to observe authors' moral rights and make sure that appropriate notices and credits are given to third party copyright and trade mark owners.

Intellectual property: moral rights

Moral rights impose additional obligations on Website content providers and others who use copyright works.

• Authors have the right to be identified correctly as authors.
• Images should not be manipulated in a way which would damage the reputation of the author of the original image. For example there may be legal dangers in altering photographs graphically on the Internet.
• There may also be dangers in showing privately commissioned photographs without the permission of the commissioner or the subject.

Data Protection

Singapore intends to introduce data protection legislation. The Minister of Information, Communication and the Acts informed Parliament of this in February 2006.

Any Website that collects personal information will likely need to comply with the proposed legislation. Based on broad principles found in other legislation, personal information is any information that relates to a living individual who can be identified:

• from that information or
• from that and other information in the Website’s possession or likely to come into the Website’s possession.

Personal information can include:

• an email address or telephone number, collected for example when people enter competitions, sign up for a newsletter or become part of a programme's database of contributors.
• information about people's personal experiences and opinions collected for use online or elsewhere.

The Website should not collect personal information from users and then pass it on to others without their consent.

Websites that collect personal information should include a "Use of Data" notice, explaining every purpose for which the information will be used.

Any information requested should be the minimum necessary. Think about :

• whether collecting a date of birth is really necessary. Use age or age range instead
• whether a full post code is necessary. The first part is enough to check what region or area of the country the person lives in
• whether a full address is necessary. For example, it may be necessary to deliver a prize or an information pack.

Personal information should only be kept for the minimum length of time necessary and appropriate to the uses for which it has been agreed. Whilst kept, the Website is responsible for ensuring it is stored securely, including when it is handled by an agent or partner on the Website’s behalf. A written contract between the Website and the agent or partner must require the information to be used only for the purpose the Website has agreed. Once the purpose for which the information has been used has come to an end, it must be disposed of securely.

"Use of Data" Notice

Websites that collect personal information should include a "Use of Data" notice. This should describe all the purposes for which the information collected will be used. This includes information collected via cookies or other covert software.

If any information collected is going to be used for promotion, marketing, research or any other "secondary purpose", the "Use of Data" notice must give individuals the opportunity to agree to this. An "opt-in" box should be included in the notice. This means that if the individual does tick the box, they have given permission for the "secondary" purpose.

Any notice should explain whether any information will be shared with others. The Website must also tell people if it uses agents or contractors to deliver a service on the Website’s behalf e.g. to deliver email newsletters or to reply to questions from users on the Website’s behalf.

The "Use of Data" notice should be as close as possible to the "Submit" button. It must be sufficiently prominent that the user's attention is drawn to it and be of a font size that is readable with ease (or can be enlarged for viewing in an acceptable font size). Placing a notice in some obscure section of the document or screen is unacceptable.

If a Website is aimed at children of 13 or under, and the Website intends to collect and keep information, they should normally be asked to confirm that a parent's permission has been granted before their details are recorded in any system. For example by the use of a clickable box placed in the "Use of Data" notice. Some data protection legislation requires any person who collects personal data to be registered with the relevant authorities. Singapore may follow suit.

User Rights

Most data protection legislation allows people to request details of the personal information held on them by the Website. This is called a subject access request. Such requests should be forwarded immediately to the relevant compliance department due to the highly technical legislation concerning such requests.

Anyone has the right at any time to tell the Website to stop sending them marketing material, by emailing or writing to the Website. The Website must stop sending them such material as soon as is reasonable to do so. Singapore’s proposed Anti-Spam Bill sets a limit of 10 days.

Anyone also has the right to request corrections of any inaccurate information held about them. Wherever possible, an 'update details' feature should be built into Websites to allow users to check and update for themselves any personal details previously supplied.

Access for people with disabilities