The Patriot Act has provisions that permit government monitoring of e-mail, website visitors, and even "backdoor" access into private computers, while European Union regulations say exactly the opposite. Business owners may well get crunched between these contradictory legal requirements, since all internet sites are, by their very nature, viewable everywhere that a government has not blocked access. But does that mean you are subject to every bureaucrat's whims everywhere on the planet?

Foreign governments have increasingly claimed authority over websites that can be viewed in their countries. Even some states have said that any services or products that require a state license are subject to an administrative "cease and desist" order if a website based in another state can be viewed in their state. The Supreme Court will eventually have to address the issue of business owners properly licensed to conduct business in their jurisdiction, but their websites can be viewed everywhere (i.e. it's the WORLD-wide web, bureaucrats!).

A Canadian court has recently ruled that "...a web site owner who sent commercial junk e-mail, known as spam, had violated terms of their Internet service provider's contract...". The portion of the contract violated had to do with the fuzzy concept of "netiquette," which is generally defined as code of reasonable conduct or behaviour on the Internet, or as the Canadian judge stated, "...a largely unwritten and evolving code of conduct...based upon good-neighbor principles for the orderly development of the Internet."

The offending company had been sending out some 200,000 pieces of promotional e-mail per day. After the receipt of several complaints, their e-mail activities were shut down by their ISP. The service provider's contract did not specifically address "spam" e-mail, but did state that users must adhere to generally accepted netiquette when sending e-mail. The Canadian court agreed with the ISP when suit was brought by the user to re-instate e-mail services.

Of course, this ruling is not binding on the US and any spam cases now pending, but it does go a long way to supporting similar anti-spam sentiment building in the Internet community. Small businesses should beware: spamming is generally not a good business practice and can easily cost more than the money spent in defense of law suits it can also cost reputation.