communication – Duane Morris TechLaw

March 10, 2020March 11, 2020 by Eric J. Sinrod

The Internet Can Help When It Comes To The Coronavirus

Modern life of planes, trains and automobiles brings people together in close physical proximity like never before. Once upon a time, and actually not that long ago in human history, most people never saw anyone else outside of their own village or tribe. Those days are gone, and now we frequently are exposed to people from other cities, states, and countries. That is all well and good for the most part in terms of business and pleasure, except, of course, when it comes to the transmission of communicable diseases.

Just a couple months ago, most Americans had not even heard of the coronavirus which began in China and then started to spread. Now we are bombarded 24/7 with news, facts and fiction about the virus on television, radio, news sites, social media, podcasts and in everyday conversation. We are told that the coronavirus is highly contagious, is spreading exponentially, is a pandemic, could be with us for quite some time, and poses grave health dangers for at risk segments of populations. Continue reading “The Internet Can Help When It Comes To The Coronavirus”

July 28, 2015January 12, 2016 by Eric J. Sinrod

Adultery Gone Awry on the Internet

The Ashley Madison site declares on its home page that “Life is short. Have an affair.” The home page goes on to state that “Ashley Madison is the world’s leading married dating service for discreet encounters.” The site also boasts “over 38,050,000 anonymous members!” But how anonymous are those members, really?

People engage in all sorts of communications and transactions on the Internet. Generally, they like to believe that their personal information is handled confidentially. For example, if someone buys an item from Amazon, she hopes that her name, credit card information, and address will not be publicly disseminated. Continue reading “Adultery Gone Awry on the Internet”

August 26, 2014May 20, 2016 by Eric J. Sinrod

It’s a Small World After All

It just is not realistically possible for countries to be isolationist in this current era. Indeed, the entire world is interconnected by the Internet and other technologies.

Consider this fact that shows how the world is becoming smaller as we group together even more closely: 3,000 years ago there were about 600,000 independent world communities; now there are fewer than 200 such communities.

And when a disease breaks out like Ebola in Africa, with our means of transportation, such a disease can show up and infect people in distant other places.

Continue reading “It’s a Small World After All”

June 24, 2014May 20, 2016 by Eric J. Sinrod

Internet Law Is All Grown Up

When I first started working on legal issues relating to electronic data, we were back in the dark ages of the 1980s. This was well before Bill Clinton talked about the coming “information superhighway” when he was running for president in the early 1990s. We were living in a world where document production in legal cases meant the production of actual hard copy pieces of paper and nothing else. There was no “e” when it came to “discovery.”

As we all know, the technological communications age started to grow exponentially in the late 1990s and early 2000s. During this time, people began communicating more and more by email, cell phones, Internet chats, and website postings.

Continue reading “Internet Law Is All Grown Up”

July 26, 2012July 18, 2016 by Eric J. Sinrod

Russian Internet Bills Revive Soviet-Era Censorship Concerns

People tend to think that anything goes on the Internet. But is that true everywhere? Perhaps not. Indeed, according to a recent New York Times article, a series of controversial Russian Internet bills, approved last week by Parliament, seeks to strengthen the government’s Internet controls.

The Russian Parliament’s approval of the bills reportedly follows the Russian government’s imposition of fines relating to unsanctioned protests and the reinstitution of criminal charges for slander.

Continue reading “Russian Internet Bills Revive Soviet-Era Censorship Concerns”