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Dangers of email and internet use in the workplace

Please note the Law may have changed since publication of article.

Because employers can be held legally liable for the content of e-mails sent from their premises and for the content of downloads from the internet onto their computers, it is vitally important for companies to ensure that they establish and enforce a policy on the use of electronic communications at work. The policy should set out clearly to employees the circumstances in which they may or may not use the e-mail system and internet access for private communications. Any failure to enforce such a policy, however, could result in two adverse consequences for employers:

  1. any policy which is not generally enforced cannot then later be relied upon when instigating disciplinary proceedings for an offence under the policy as it will be the practice rather than the policy which determines whether the monitoring is appropriate; and
  2. failure to enforce a policy which involves the monitoring of e-mails and internet access can lead to an expectation of privacy on the part of employees.

It is only if employees do not have a reasonable expectation of privacy that e-mails (and other communications) can be monitored. Further, any monitoring must be proportionate to the risks an employer is trying to avoid. Normally, monitoring e-mail traffic rather than content would be as far as an employer could reasonably go without being in breach of their employees’ right to privacy under the Human Rights Act 1998.

The decision by Ford to give a two week ‘amnesty’ to all its twenty thousand employees in which to delete any offensive e-mails and downloads from their computers, suggests that there have been numerous complaints and perhaps a number of allegations of discrimination against the company. All employees were sent an e-mail which warned against “transmitting or possessing ‘jokes’ of an offensive nature, for example, content of which is sexually explicit, racially offensive or otherwise demeans people on the basis of their religion, disability, sexual orientation”. They were further warned not to return to any banned internet sites as internet access would be monitored.

Ford have made it clear that any failure by the employees to adhere to these instructions will lead to summary dismissal. However, they will need to be very careful to ensure that they stick to their stated policy. Any failure by them to do so could lead to an expectation amongst employees that it is not being enforced and could then lead to a finding of unfair dismissal if any employee is later dismissed for breach of the policy.

© This article is copyright Simon Halberstam 2008 and should not be construed as legal advice or opinion in any specific facts or circumstances. the contents are intended for generic information purposes only. You are urged to contact a suitably qualified lawyer for specific advice.

SLAs

Seven steps to Service Level Agreements (SLAs)

Please note the Law may have changed since publication of article.

The author has created a model service level agreement for its webdesigner clients. Working from that template, he sets out some of the most important points for designers to bear in mind when constructing a SLA.

1. Classification of Problems

You do not want your client on the phone the whole time citing the SLA and demanding immediate attention. It is vital that in drawing up the SLA, a sensible categorisation of problems has been set out. A typical categorisation would be threefold, demarcating at one extreme those problems which are crippling the client’s website, passing through a median category which covers problems which substantially degrade the performance or functionality of the website to the other end of the spectrum, which covers problems which are minor such as cosmetic problems relating to the “look and feel” of the site.

For each category, the SLA needs to set out the proposed response and fix times.

2. Level of Commitment

In setting out proposed response and fix times, there are certain very important factors to bear in mind and which the SLA should reflect. These include:

  1. you should only commit yourself to using your “reasonable endeavours” to meet those times – “best endeavours” is, in legal terms, far more onerous;
  2. you should ensure that you distinguish between working and non-working hours in setting out the response and repair times;
  3. the SLA must make allowance for delays caused by matters outside of your control, including lack of assistance from your client, problems with internet connectivity and matters usually referred to as “force majeure” including strikes, terrorist acts etc

3. Service Credits

The SLA should provide for a system of service credits where if you fall below the agreed service levels, your only “punishment” should be that you give a credit to your client against the next period’s service fees. This clause must be very carefully drafted so that it limits your client’s remedy to a credit and does not become a “penalty” which is legally unenforceable.

The formula for calculation of service credits must be clearly and unambiguously set out and must cover the different types of failure, including single extended outages and cumulative periods of downtime within a fixed period.

The SLA must clearly exclude a range of outages from the ambit of service credits where the outages occur, for example, as a result of necessary scheduled maintenance to the servers or upgrades to the software.

The SLA must also set out the maximum credit available in respect of any period and that the service credits cannot give rise to a refund or credit against fees due under any other agreement in place between the parties.

4. Problem Notification

The SLA must clearly set out the obligation on the client to provide you with accurate and prompt notification of any problem and oblige the client to assist you as required to diagnose the problem and implement any solution.

5. Emergency Maintenance

The SLA should make it clear that, without triggering any service credits or breach of the SLA, you reserve the right to carry out emergency repair or maintenance work at any time. In fairness, the SLA should affirm that you will give the client as much notice as is reasonably possible.

6. Client Obligations

The SLA should clearly set out what is expected of the Client. This may include the obligation to make regular back-ups (although this may be your obligation) and may cover the requirement that the client has a disaster recovery plan in place if there is a problem with the website which you cannot solve quickly. These sorts of obligations may substantially reduce your exposure should such problems arise and lead to the client losing business and making a claim against you for its losses.

7. Payment

You also need the right to charge extra sums where you spend time going beyond the call of duty. Such work would include:

  1. dealing with client personnel who have insufficient understanding of the workings of the website.
  2. attempting to rectify problems which turn out not to be due to inherent problems in the website;
  3. failure by the client adequately to consult documentation which you supplied;
  4. providing the services outside your working hours;
  5. website data restoration and / or re-establishment necissitated by reasons beyond your control.

eBay escapes pirates liability

Online auction giant eBay has been trumpeting a recent victory in the courts which means it is not liable for offering pirated videos for sale on its site.

Please note the Law may have changed since the publication of article.

Film-maker Robert Hendrickson sued eBay after it refused to stop selling copies of a documentary he made in 1972 about notorious serial-killer Charles Manson. eBay argued that it does not vouch for or give warranties about the items being sold on-line and for this reason was unlike a real-world auctioneer which verifies the source of goods and gives provenances. eBay also argued that copyright infringement actually occurred offline, not on its site.

The judge in this case agreed and said that eBay did not have the requisite ability to control the activity of buying and selling on its site which is required to permit prosecution under the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act. The judge likened sale of the pirate copies from the site to sale of goods from a market stall or flea market. Jay Monahan, of eBay said “The court clearly says a company like eBay is not required to proactively monitor its site looking for infringing content.”

In this case, Hendrickson had notified eBay that pirate copies of a film he owned copyright in were being sold from its website. This notification might have led to eBay taking down the items for sale, but asked Hendrickson refused to complete a “rights owners form” on the basis that his rights were obvious. The outcome might have been different if Hendrickson had complied with this request and eBay’s notify and take-down procedure had been followed through. In England, the outcome might also have been different, as under the Copyright Designs and Patents Act it is an offence to distribute infringing copies of copyright material and eBay’s activities may have been caught by this.

What does this decision actually mean for copyright owners and consumers? For rights owners, it appears giant e-tailers like eBay can avoid liability for selling pirated goods by simply refusing to monitor sales on their sites. Will they use the same arguments for pornographic material or racially offensive material? Presumably they could. By arguing that they do not know what is being sold and bought, such e-tailers avoid the obligation of verifying source, quality and in this case ownership. These e-tailers would surely argue that it is impractical for e-tailers to monitor all goods sold via their sites and the cost of insurance against being sued would have to be passed onto consumers.

From a consumer’s perspective, if the e-tailer has no verification obligations, then it cannot be expected to give any warranties or guarantees to the consumer. The consumer will not know when buying whether the goods are of acceptable quality, whether they will work satisfactorily and whether they will be able to get their money back. If the e-tailer is not prepared to give any such guarantees, swap and auction sites will not flourish as price savings don’t appear so attractive when the goods don’t work and apparently can’t be returned (although under English law consumers will probably be able to seek redress under the Sale of Goods Act.

The cynic might ask whether the outcome would have been different if this had been a sale of pirated music and EMI were suing?

© This article is copyright Simon Halberstam LLP 2008 and should not be construed as legal advice or opinion in any specific facts or circumstances. the contents are intended for generic information purposes only. You are urged to contact a suitably qualified lawyer for specific advice.

Email retention policies

Please note the Law may have changed since the publication of article.

Solicitor, Simon Halberstam assists clients to draw up policies and provides a few pointers in this overview.

DOs!

This is a very complex subject covering various categories of information and various divisions of a company. Different retention rules will apply depending on the area in question.

A company must create a clear matrix which clearly identifies the various categories of emails and data and sets out a precise retention policy for each category.

Relevant categories might include personnel, premises, contracts and product safety.

A data retention officer (often the same person as the Data Protection Officer) will usually “own” this function and will be tasked with ensuring company-wide compliance with the policy.

The policy must set email retention periods for each category of data. Each retention period should be set with relevant legal issues and limitation periods in mind.

Whist policies vary greatly, certain types of provision are fairly standard. These include:

  • Retain originals of all emails likely to have evidential value in current or future legal proceedings;
  • Ensure that the policy takes account of Data Protection Act issues, particularly Principle 5 which states “Personal data processed for any purpose or purposes shall not be kept for longer than is necessary for that purpose or those purposes.”

Things You Should Not Do!

Do not be inconsistent in policing/enforcing the policy. This can lead to allegations of discriminatory treatment in the context of unfair dismissal claims and also enable insurers to allege negligence, possibly vitiating you insurance cover.

Do not infringe the law! There is a tangled web of potentially relevant laws, including the Human Rights Act, the Data Protection Act and the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act. Lawyers can help to clarify the interaction of these different statutes and reflect this in the policy document. Principle 5 of the Data Protection Act 1998 deserves particular attention.

For example, if CVs are received by way of email in relation to applications for a job vacancy, delete emails from unsuccessful candidates soon after the vacancy has been filled. It may be worth retaining them for a short period just in case any unsuccessful candidate alleges discriminatory treatment in the selection process.

When in doubt, do not destroy the original! If in doubt, err on the side of caution and retain original emails. The likelihood of getting into trouble for excessively long retention is usually outweighed by the prospect of destroying potentially key evidence.

© This article is copyright Simon Halberstam 2008 and should not be construed as legal advice or opinion in any specific facts or circumstances. the contents are intended for generic information purposes only. You are urged to contact a suitably qualified lawyer for specific advice.

Email disclaimers and the law

Email Law

Please note the Law may have changed since the publication of article.

Q: What does the law stand in terms of responsibility for contents of email? If it goes out under a company name is it the company’s responsibility?

A: The doctrine of vicarious liability applies equally to emails as it does to other forms of correspondence. Namely, if the recipient reasonably believes the email to be sent by someone representing the company, he/she is entitled to take the contents of that email as representing the views/standpoint of the company. If the recipient has good reason to believe that the sender is not acting on behalf of the company, but in fact acting on “a frolic of his/her own” then this may make such reliance unreasonable.

Q: Is a disclaimer enough to offset this?

A: The question of the effect of disclaimers is vexed. The first question is whether the disclaimer, being unilateral i.e. the recipient does nothing to signify acceptance of the disclaimer is legally effective. Leaving this fundamental issue to one side, it is fair to say that the chances of such efficacy are almost certainly enhanced if any one or more of the following factors comes into play:

  • the disclaimer appears at the top rather than the bottom of the email. In this way, the email comes to the attention of the recipient before he/she has read the contents of the email so that in the same way as a fax front sheet disclaimer, the recipient can make an informed decision whether to proceed to read the contents.
  • if the recipient has had previous correspondence with the sender of the email, the recipient may be taken to have digested the contents of previous email disclaimers and it would be reasonable to conclude that he/she received the email with full notice of the standard disclaimer and could have refused to continue the correspondence exchange should he/she have been unwilling to accept the terms of such disclaimer.
  • the actual contents of the disclaimer are important. It must cover the various areas of potential liability in such a manner as to satisfy the relevant guidelines which have arisen from recent caselaw and, also, statute, such as the Unfair Contract Terms Act.

Q: How can a company minimise the damage done to it by employees who have sent embarrassing/offensive emails? What procedure should they follow?

A: It is advisable to provide employees with a separate email system for private use so as to minimise the risks of such a personal email being taken to represent the views of the company. In that scenario, ironically, it may well be preferable to have no corporate email disclaimer as that would suggest that the email emanates from the company. The types of legal problems that can be caused by an email are numerous and it is not possible to prescribe a single course of action to try to ensure damage limitation. Defamation, Misrepresentation, Breach of Confidentiality, Virus contamination of recipient’s network are just a few examples of the potential consequences of an email which can give rise to legal recourse. Certainly, the best course is, where possible, to try to undo the damage that has been done. Usually, a quick call to a lawyer well versed in the relevant area of law is the best starting point.

Q: What else can a company do to cover itself legally? Are there any clauses that can be written into employment Ts&Cs?

A: Every company should have a detailed “Email and Internet Use Policy” in place. Not only should it be issued to each member of staff but also must be signed and returned by them. The policy should set out the sanctions for various types of breach of the policy and/or should be legally tied into the relevant sections contract of employment or contract for services which governs the member of staff.

The standard policy that my firm has produced for clients covers a wide range of areas, including rights of the employer to monitor use of email and the internet (consent is generally necessary under recent legislation), Illegal Activities, Defamation, Copyright, Avoiding Virus Risk, Download of Internet material and entering into web-based contracts.
Q:What are the implications for companies who send contacts to clients or employee offers (jobs, shares, car, etc) via email. Is it as legally binding as a letter?

A: There are 4 basic components of a contract, namely offer, acceptance, consideration (i.e. each party deriving a benefit) and intention to create legal relations. There is no problem in entering into a contract via email and the basic rules of contract creation are the same as in the off-line world. Employees with access to the internet and, all the more so, those with control over the company website, need to be made aware of the basics of contract law to ensure that they do not unwittingly bind the company to contracts which it does not want to enter into. The notorious problems of “Argos” and the under-priced TV’s are worth remembering in this context.

Q: What about internal mail – do bosses have to watch their language and any discriminatory feelings they might have?

A: Yes, there have already been quite a few cases about harassment/discrimination of various types, including sexual and racial that arise from ill-advised use of the internal email system. A recent case on this point involved a black secretary who sued her solicitor employers because one of them sent an email to another, from which it was inferrable that the fact that the secretary was black might have played a role in her dismissal.

© This article is copyright Simon Halberstam  2008 and should not be construed as legal advice or opinion in any specific facts or circumstances. the contents are intended for generic information purposes only. You are urged to contact a suitably qualified lawyer for specific advice.

Useless Disclaimers

Since Steve Jobs did not descend from the heavens to give the keynote at the Macworld conference last week, and the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas failed to reveal anything interesting (with the exception of a neat application called Songsmith from Microsoft), we can turn our attention to things that really matter. Like email.

View full Observer and Guardian.co.uk article referring to Simon Halberstam on Useless Disclaimers (January 2009)

Simon Halberstam interviewed on CNN about YouTube and the Finnish Massacre

See Simon Halberstam interview on CNN talking about YouTube and the Finnish Massacre

Minimising exposure to Contractual Damages

Please note the Law may have changed since the publication of article.

The frequency of litigation against software houses has increased substantially in the last few years. We thought that in this newsletter it might be helpful to analyse some of the key cases in this area and to offer some outline advice about how to minimise your contracual exposure. As you would expect me to say, rather than rely on the general conclusions set out in this edition, you need to talk to me or another IT specialist solicitor about your precise circumstances in order to make appropriate changes to your contractual documentation.

Making your Terms and Conditions (“T&C”) enforceable

It is vital that your (“T&C”) are brought to the attention of your potential customer before it has committed itself to use your services. In the traditional offline world, this usually means sending out the T&C with your quote and getting them signed by the potential customer before you agree to start work. If you contract online, then the same principle applies and the potential customer should be obliged to scroll through and “click accept” your terms and conditions before you agree to provide your products or services. If you don’t follow this advice, you may not be able to rely on your T&C as the legal basis of your contractual relationship.

Effective Limitation of your potential Liability

This is a complex area. However, there are some basic guidelines that should help you to minimise the risk of liability and the extent of damages in the event that you are in breach of contract and your customer suffers losses:-

  • make sure that the clauses which purport to limit or exclude your liability are reasonable – a blanket rejection of all liability is unlikely to be upheld
  • don’t put all of your eggs into one basket – there should be a raft of different clauses addressing different areas of potential liability so that if a court rejects some, you may still be able to rely on others
  • expressly accept liability that you cannot legally exclude e.g. for death and personal injury caused by your negligence
  • include a clause which caps your liability and choose a logical basis for that cap such as a tie-in to your professional indemnity insurance cover

Key Decisions where the IT Provider suffered because of its T&C

  • £9,000,000 damages awarded for breach of contract
  • Pegler Ltd v Wang (UK) Ltd – the Court held that Wang’s exclusion clauses were not capable of excluding liability for the loss claimed
  • £800,000 damages awarded for breach of contract
  • St. Albans and City District Council v International Computers Ltd – the Court held that the £100,000 contractual liability cap was unreasonable
  • £2,200,000 damages awarded for breach of contract
  • South West Water v International Computers Ltd Damages awarded Court did not uphold £100,000 contractual liability cap

Free Review of Your Terms and Conditions

Without charge, we will review your existing contracts and report back to you on your level of exposure and what can be done to reduce it. For further information, please  contact Simon Halberstam

Difference between an IPR indemnity and an IPR warranty

Please note the Law may have changed since the publication of article.

This distinction is not well understood. I will highlight some of the key differences:

  • Unlike the case with an IPR warranty, the party that is indemnified is not under the same obligation to prove that it has suffered loss. From a legal perspective this can be very significant as it can be difficult not only to be able to prove the loss that was suffered, but also that the loss was caused by a particular event;
  • the value of an indemnity is also in the avoidance of difficulties with remoteness of damage when recovering loss i.e. proving that there is a sufficiently close causal connection between the IPR infringement and the loss that it has suffered;
  • contractual indemnity provisions can allow for the indemnified party to recover losses relating to an IPR infringement even where its own negligence has contributed to the loss
  • in the case of indemnities, it is normal for the indemnifier to be given the exclusive right to conduct the defence of the proceedings in which the allegation of IPR infringement is made. The reason for this is that the indemnifier may think that the claim is bogus or can be defended whereas the indemnified party may simply wish to get itself out of the firing line by settling with the claimant.

Why are suppliers becoming more reluctant to give IPR indemnities and IPR warranties?

There are probably three main reasons.

The first is the impact that open source software has had on the software industry. Nowadays quite a number of products incorporate open source. Suppliers are therefore a lot less certain that they own all IPR in such products and therefore less confident about providing IPR warranties and indemnities to customers.

Second is the reality that the amount of IPR infringement litigation taking place is increasing dramatically and that correspondingly the risk of liability arising under the IPR warranty or IPR indemnity is also increasing.

Third, is the increasing number of software related patents that are being issued in the US with the result that much of the current IPR litigation is based on allegations of infringements of patent as opposed to copyright. A supplier can have much greater confidence that its software does not infringe someone else’s copyright (as this would have involved copying or adapting someone else’s software). Patents are a different kettle of fish. Patent infringement can occur without any “culpable” behaviour on the part of the infringer. Therefore, knowledge of the patent or an intention to infringe the patent is normally irrelevant. All the patent holder has to establish is that the product or service of the infringer falls within the claims of his patent. With so many software related patents being granted it is becoming increasingly more difficult for technology companies to establish that a proposed product or service does not come within any of the claims of any existing or pending patents.

What are the trends?

Current trends indicate that suppliers are either refusing to give IPR indemnities or warranties or are significantly qualifying or reducing their scope. Increasingly they are restricting them to their core product and specifically excluding any components that have been developed by third parties. Many are refusing to give any IPR indemnity or IPR warranty in respect of any software that they have been specifically commissioned by the customer to develop. In the past it was customary that the IPR indemnity would not be subject to the limitation and liability cap in the contract. There is growing evidence that suppliers are now insisting where they give an IPR indemnity that it is subject to a liability cap. However, the indemnifying party would need to make sure with its insurers that the policy does cover IPR infringement claims.

© This article is copyright Simon Halberstam LLP 2009 and should not be construed as legal advice or opinion in any specific facts or circumstances. the contents are intended for generic information purposes only. You are urged to contact a suitably qualified lawyer for specific advice.

Internet Brand Protection

Please note the Law may have changed since the publication of article.

In an ever more competitive and cynical world, it is vital that you protect and maximise the benefit of the investment that you have made in your brand. If you don’t, others will certainly take advantage through predatory advertisements, paying for Google Adwords or similar services to use your brand names to draw potential customers to their websites rather than yours.

We advise many companies on how best to protect their brands in the internet space. There are various issues involved on which we can advise. We can do this by way of providing a report on existing or potential threats to your internet presence or dealing with particular problems that arise.

The main categories are as follows:-

  1. Preventative Domain Name Registrations

    2. We look into any gaps in your domain name registrations which should be filled to pre-empt such names being registered by an unscrupulous competitor or other third party looking to trade off your goodwill or hold you to ransom.

  2. Abusive Domain Name Registrations

    3. We research registrations of domain names by third parties that appear to trade off your goodwill by using your registered trademarks or other trading names/product names and advise as to what action should be taken in respect of each of these.

  3. Search Engine Sponsored Associations

    4. We can trawl Google and other main search engines to see which companies/competitors appear to be paying the search engine companies for “Adwords” or similar services so as to appear in the results/rankings that appear when someone searches for one of your trademarks (registered or unregistered) and advise as to what action can be taken.

  4. Search Engine Rankings Based on Metatags or Similar

    5. We can trawl the search engines for websites which are listed in the search engine rankings/results that appear when someone searches for one of your trading names or brand names. We can then look at the websites in question to determine whether they have used any underhand methods to achieve such rankings ” and advise as to what action can be taken.

  5. Competitors’ Websites

    6. We can also review the websites of your specific competitors to see if they are doing anything underhand which prejudices you and, if so, advise as to what action should be taken.

If you want to discuss any of these or related issues, please contact Simon Halberstam

Links to relevant information:

  • Article “Domain Name Disputes – 7 Key Issues”

Software Terms and Conditions

Do you click on the button marked Next when the licence agreement for your new software pops up?

Do you read the text in the agreement before clicking? Be honest.

We often just click to agree to the terms without reading first, too. But did you know that clicking through this is a legally binding contract?

Minimising exposure to Project cancellations

This article was first published in Event Magazine in November 2008

The western world is facing financial armageddon, but you can protect yourself against cancellations. Insurance is vital, but the area on which I want to focus is contractual.

Try to ensure contracts with suppliers are ‘back to back’ with the ones you have with customers. If your supplier lets you down and has a contractual escape hatch, you have a similar provision with your customsers to protect yourself against potential liability. This can also work the other way round, so if your customer cancels an event, you are protected vis-a-vis your supplier.

If cancellation is addressed in the contract, the mechanics for computation should be set out: any notice of cancellation will only be valid if made in writing and sent by recorded delivery; there is a sliding scale of cancellation fees based on a percentage of the project price and tied into the length of the gap between the date of the notice and the agreed start date (the shorter the gap, the greater the percentage should be); and thirdly, the right to a cancellation fee and to be recompensed for costs.

Without such clauses, you could be chasing shadows as the parties argue what is reasonable.

Further Information

Hopefully, this article will have helped you to determine your legal position. However, if you have a specific problem, please contact us.

© This article is copyright Simon Halberstam LLP 2008 and should not be construed as legal advice or opinion in any specific facts or circumstances. the contents are intended for generic information purposes only. You are urged to contact a suitably qualified lawyer for specific advice.

Open Facebook is good PR, but will users benefit

Facebook announced plans for a Statement of Rights and Responsibilities that users will be able to discuss and vote on in the interest of their own privacy. As a result Facebook will become more “open and transparent”, the company claims.

The move has clearly been prompted by the strong criticism of recent changes to the social networking site’s terms and conditions, which appeared to give the site the power to hold onto and sell personal information even from closed accounts.

Read the full New Scientist article (March 2009) referring to Simon Halberstam discussing Facebook – “Open Facebook is good PR but will users benefit”.

Whats the best application of WiFi networks

My favourite Wi-Fi gizmo is my Blackberry, which seldom leaves my side. Perhaps I’m too addicted to work, as my colleagues and clients often get emails from me in the wee small hours. It can be very tempting to take a quick peek at what’s in the inbox in the middle of Newsnight, and I generally succumb.

Illegal filesharing

The idea of making device manufacturers pay a license fee for any illegal filesharing their products enable is not going to stop illegal filesharing at all. If anything it indicates a grudging acceptance of the state of affairs that currently exists.

Technological advances

Casting my mind back 25 years, when the nation eagerly tuned into Tomorrow’s World to give us the latest on hover-cars and domestic robots, it is obvious that we did not have a clue about the technological advances that lay around the corner.

But rather than think about sensible forecasts, here’s something more off the wall.

Virtual worlds – good or bad?

A century and a half ago, Victorian social commentators were seriously concerned that the reading of novels was a worthless pursuit that would result in young ladies escaping into daydreams and fantasy.  These days, we’re desperate to get our kids to pick up a book at all.  Virtual worlds have no more or less merit than any other form of art in which narratives are relayed or created.

Biggest web usability issue

Probably the most annoying thing about modern websites are forms that keep rejecting the information you have put in, even though you have checked it three times and there’s nothing wrong with it. Sites with fancy flash animations that you have to sit through before you can actually see the contents are extremely tedious, though I’m not so condemning of sites that enable you to skip the introduction, which I invariably do.

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