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The Law Governing “Spyware” or “Malware”

The EU E-Privacy Directive (2002/58/EC) is aimed at modernising existing law in the area of e-privacy. Its focus is on the dangers of so-called spyware which, in extreme cases, can allow third parties access to your machine, storing knowledge of all kinds of information from the software on the system to user names and passwords. In essence, it allows someone you do not know to gain access to your confidential information, store their own information and also trace your activities.

Facilitate Disabling of “Spyware”

Whilst it seems that prior consent is not required from you in order to this, under the Directive a business must allow people to notify them that they do not want it. In simple terms, they must make it clear how to disable it. Furthermore, companies can only use such software for legitimate purposes and with the knowledge of the user.

Effectiveness of the Law

The problem with this is that the main offenders are people who will have little respect for the law and therefore policing it as a problem in the same way that the legislation allowing people to opt out of unsolicited marketing calls (the telephone preference service) has not been very effective due to the large use of such sales approaches by companies that are less than legitimate.

Best Practice

Our view, as solicitors representing the interests of businesses rather than individuals whose rights need protecting, is that even without the Directive the best practice is not to use spyware unless there are very compelling reasons to do so which add value to the end user in some form or other. It is not rocket science: the company wishing to acquire a good brand reputation will want to adopt a higher standard even than required by law if it is serious about building its brand.

Alternative Remedies

As an aside, for the more extreme cases of the use of spyware or malware, the Computer Misuse Act 1990 covers unauthorised access to computer material amongst other things and already makes this a criminal offence.

Core obligation

Under the Directive, service providers (ie. businesses) must inform individuals of the risk involved if they allow the spyware into their system. In essence, the bottom line message is: be transparent.

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The finance of a business is its lifeblood without which there is no point in putting up or maintaining one. At the end of the day, money is what matters in any kind of business and that is an established fact. Most of us know how elaborate money matters are. Loosely translated, that means dealing with finances is a pain. This is especially true for people who dont know the first thing about it and I believe that comprises majority of the population.

Mortgages, trusts, annuities, bonds and brokers are only a few of the facets of finances. If that doesnt make you cringe, the likes of auditing and secured loans will. Im tempted to say that rocket science would be easier to understand. Although I know that is not true, they do share an element of difficulty that the ordinary layperson would be hard pressed to comprehend. It would be grand if we didnt have to deal with finances. But just like death and taxes, we are sure to deal with money matters in the course of our lives.

Going back to business and its financial aspect, who or where do you go to in order to get the much needed help? I presume financial advisers or accountants would be the first people that wed think of. But which financial adviser do we approach? What do we say when we get hold of one? Would they know what to do with our specific need immediately? The only logical thing to do would be to employ a skill that we have acquired way back in elementary school: research.

The Internet is always a good place to start when doing research. Business and financial sites are abundant in the net, you just have to sift through to find the good ones and ignore the irrelevant sites. The way to go would be to look for a good business portal. Portals are basically sites with a collection of topics or subjects that acts as a launch pad. This will enable you to spring to several sites that contain pertinent information about the subject that you are interested in. The apparent advantage when using a portal is that all the data and information that has to do with what you are looking for is already within reach.

You dont have to go to a search engine to look for a subject within the same topic. Take for example a business or financial portal. Ive mentioned about where to find good accountants earlier, heres the place. The obvious link to click on would be accountants in the portal. Details like services an accountant offers and how to pick the right one for your needs are discussed in-depth. After youre satisfied with the information youve gathered, you can simply go back to the portal and select another link that you might also be interested in like maybe loans or insurance and do the same thing again. Thats how convenient it is to use a business or financial portal. Information is indispensable in the realm of business. Find the right portal and get on the road to financial success.