WHAT DOES "TRESPASS" MEAN IN CYBERSPACE? Recent court cases have used the ancient law of "trespass" to rule against companies that used software robots to search the public Web sites of other companies to capture sales leads for mass marketing purposes. However, the original idea of trespass is that trespasser causes some kind of harm (such as crashing the site being trespassed upon). But what if there is no harm - crash or traffic gridlock or anything else? The recent decisions do not seem to require that a plaintiff allege real harm, and some legal observers are concerned that the decisions will have bad unintended consequences. Dan L. Burk, a University of Minnesota law professor, warns: "If I don't like your linking to my site, or searching my site, even though it is open to the public, and I say, 'Stop,' you have to stop... whether you are actually hurting me or not." (New York Times 12 Jan 2001) http://partners.nytimes.com/2001/01/12/technology/12CYBER...
INTERNET ECONOMY GREW BY MORE THAN 50% IN 2000 Despite the dot-com crisis of recent months, the "Internet economy" grew more than in 50% in 2000, according to a study commissioned by Cisco Systems (www.internetindicators.com). At mid-year, 3.1 million U.S. workers were employed in Internet-related jobs (of which 28% were in technical positions and 33% in sales or marketing), and the Internet economy generated $830 billion in revenue. A co-author of the study explained, "Dot-coms may continue to go out of business, but the Internet economy will continue to grow" as traditional companies continue to expand their online activities. (Reuters/San Jose Mercury News 12 Jan 2001) http://www.mercurycenter.com/svtech/news/breaking/merc/do...