This is a legal advice report that contains legal issues and also advices on setting up a company that selling soap. This business investor wants to sell different kinds of soap that produced by different soap manufacturers. It includes baby soap, natural products and soap according to the skins. Customers who are in UK can buy things online by place orders via the website.
1.1 Business Name, Trade mark and Domain Name
1.1.1 Business Name
There are very important points of selecting a name of a business. It should meet all the legal requirements in order to run the business without any trouble. Major aspects that consider when we select a company name
1. Simplicity
2. Customer Attractiveness
3. Availability
Simplicity means that it should not be a very long name that everyone can remember by first look. Even though it is a long name it can be displayed as short forms. For an example: KFC, M&S
If the name it self describe about the product it could be more Customer attractive. Because by name the will come to know what kind of business going on.
Considering all the information that has been mentioned above the name “Ayurvedic Soap” was selected. The name it self says that what the business is and what you are going to sell.
1.1.2 Domain Name
It is very important to have simple domain name to online business that customer can find out and remember without much difficulty. www.ayurvedicsoap.co.uk is suggested as the domain name for two reasons.
• It is same as the business name.
• Since it is the business name easy to remember.
In order to select a domain name without claim on domain name disputes there is a procedure to be followed. First you should check whether www.ayurvedicsoap.co.uk is available in www.whois.net website. Then you should be registered domain name with ISP or a domain name seller.
1.1.2 Trademark
Trademark is a more legally important thing in a business. You should check whether Trademark is available or not in the market because if you use any others Trademarks you may consider as infringement the Trademark. It can be a name, sign or a symbol that is used to distinguish the product from other available products of industry.
Trade mark has forty five different classes according to the products. This soap product belongs to the class 3. If trademark is available for use that file a application for registration as soon as possible. (Details in section 1.3).
1.2. Company Profile
Ayurvedic Soap Company is a private limited company that sells different products of soap. It is more consider about the natural products which people have more demand on it.
Aims: Our current target is only consider about liquid hand soap and bar soap. Especially herbal soap and also soap for the children skin that could be really important in market and ladies have more demand of soap. Our first aim is to be in the soap market and identity the competitiveness and survive in the business, ultimately make a profit. In future I propose you to add some more items other than soap. For an example: shaving cream, deodorant and shampoo. It will be increase your product range and can earn more. It is better to design advertisement targeting women and children. Aim is sell soap each and every where in UK via online.
Objectives: First launch the business on proposed date. It is always recommend that you to have deadlines for every certain goal. Observe the fist month sales and predict how it will be in next six months. Then you should have a good plan to go towards the target. If it needs to be expanded recently, decide what are the items should add and does that essential to open another branch. Since this is an online base business many branches may cost you more other that have a profit. It will be need an additional storage when business is being developed and also more delivery options.
Location: No 130, Twyford Road, Hendon, Middlesex.
Contact Details: 02044857289, 07843334343
1.3 Legal issues
When setting up and running an online business in UK have legal issues to be considered before launch the business. Some discuss as follows.
• Legally most important thing is business registration. Business can be a private limited. The relevant documents should be provided which is the memorandum, articles, form10 and form12. (Crown, 2008). In private limited company liability of its members is limited by constitution. The private company is a very flexible format that can be adapted to fit numerous different requirements. Private company cannot offer its shares to the public. Any private company that wants to issue shares to the public must first become a plc or public limited company. (Companies act 2006, out-law)
• Private limited companies can start with a one person from 1st of October 2008. It has fewer shareholders than a public company, because of that it is difficult in transfer shares among them and there will often be restrictions on the transfer of their shares. Those with a very small number of shareholders, including those that are subsidiaries, might ban all transfers of shares that are not first approved by the board of directors. This allows the board to control who becomes a shareholder and, ultimately, who controls the company. Any way it is better to have limited shareholders from the beginning of your company. The name should end with the word “limited” or “Ltd” for a limited company and also any sensitive words should avoid since there are no special permission for any sensitive words (Outlaw 2008)
• In an online business Domain name is a very important thing. You should register domain name which is not available at the moment. In nominet domain name is registered first come first serve basis. Since you have UK business I recommend nominet because they are reputed internet registry for .uk domain names and also you should be aware of the registration fee because some ISP’s or domain name sellers might be charge you more assume that you do not have any idea about the online business. This registration is only valid for only two years it is highly advised that should be re-new the registration before it expires. Another important thing about the web site is that keep web site ownership to you. Before you sign contract with your web site developer it should be mentioned in the contract.
• The trademark infringement has a higher potential when it comes to an online system. Do not choose a trademark which is available in the market. For an example if two counties have tow companies that run as local, having the same trademark won’t be a conflict. The main thing is in online business it does not have geographical barriers. Because of that it may course problems for you. So the trademark should not be conflicted with other trademark. (Startupavenues, 2004). You should file an application for registration and it is mode by filling the relevant forms at the patent office and paying the appropriate fee. The application should have name and address of the applicant, statement of the goods relation to which it is sought to register the trademark, a representation of trademark as we represent above and statement that the trademark is being used by the applicant. Once you submit the application there is a three months of period for oppose for your application if there is no arguments or if overcome from those it will be in process. However it will take one to two years to register application in UK.
Some important provisions were commenced on 1 October 2008 as follows.
• The general duties of directors in respect of conflicts of interest.
• At least can have one natural person as a director.
• Minimum age of 16 for directors.
Section 03: Security and Privacy
When you are doing online business it is very important to consider about the security and privacy. Because the Internet is a public system where any one can easily access, monitor or track, save data from anywhere of the world, it is really important that in an online business you should be identity the possible security threats. This section discuss about the security and privacy and consequences, measures to take for better transaction and security of data and legal implications for security breach. First of all we consider about security threats.
3.2 Privacy
Privacy is a fundamental right in any human. In UK privacy has a good interest about privacy. Customer personal data is something a business always deals. For a given time millions of private data are transmitting over internet. This section discusses and advice on the importance of Privacy and data protection related with legal requirements which accord to data protection. (Data Protection, Out Laws)
3.2.1 Privacy Data
Personal data such as name, telephone numbers, and email address, political and religious views, physical and metal conditions are called sensitive data. You should register under Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) before collecting personal information of others. Should be mentioned what data you collect and how you save the data. Today personal data is been used for various good or bad reasons by companies. One of the pre conditions in running an online business is for an individual to be confident and trustworthy about the online website. So the business has the responsibility and also is legally bound to protect each and every customer’s data. In the UK the Data Protection Act 1998 complies with privacy and data protection issues. Privacy of data is not always about keep the information as secrete. It is about trust and the law provide the individual the control, awareness and the right to insist about the correctness and use of data (Dempsey, 2004). According to the Data Protection Act section 1(1) the law applies when ever a “Data controller” process data which is in most cases personal data (Crown, 1998)
• The data should be processed fairly and lawfully.
• Should process for limited purposes.
• Data should be adequate and relevant.
• Should be accurate and up to date.
• Data should not keep for longer than necessary it should be destroy.
• Processed according to the rights of the individual.
• Should keep secure from unauthorised access.
• Should not transferred to the counties outside EEA unless with adequate level of data protection.(Todd,P 2005)
3.2.2 – Privacy Policy
It is very crucial to have a clear and understanding “Privacy Policy” to an online organisation. Notification is a legal requirement if you processes personal data, information must notify the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) else it should be a criminal offence.
• What type of personal data collected – It should be essential to collect only required information for the business any unnecessary information that you keep may cause you problems. For an example: if you do not want to know sex it is better to leave rather collecting regardless information and wasting your storage.
• How the information is use – The collected information is used for specific purpose such as place an online order of a customer. Then you should know the name of the customer credit card information and also address.
• Who the information will share with – There may be a situation that company have to share your secret information. For an example when deliver goods, (assume that we are going to use third party for delivery) then we must give your name and address details in order to deliver goods. But it should be mentioned to the customer, without knowing, can not share information.
• Whether the information will be exported outside the EU – This section in not an interesting for this business since we are targeting UK itself.
• What choices are available to website visitors regarding how collected information is used – what Security measures that use to protect data and all the security procedures used should be displayed. This should include technical such as use of firewalls, cookies and also non technical such as how data is protected from third parties with proper contracts or training.
• What safeguards are put in place to protect information from loss, misuse or alteration – It is very important to keep the customer financial and confidential information safeguard from outside users. For example hackers, spam, viruses, Trojan, spyware and so on. Otherwise they may alternate the information or misuse information such as credit card information. It is better to destroy credit card information as soon as transaction is finished.
• How website visitors can update or correct inaccuracies in their information – It is really important that there may be case that customer may change the living place so he or she should change the information. Therefore web site should have an option to chance the registered customers’ details by login with authorized username and password.
3.3 Security Threats
Why we consider security threats? Being a small business it has high probability to attack the system assuming that system does not protected or small business does not have the capability of gain expertise knowledge about the security. With the explosion of the network connection it is possible to access any computer which connects to the internet as any telephone in the world can access another. Because of that it is very important to have authenticate system for each and every computer in the world. The National Cyber Security Alliance together with their partners has identified the most likely security threats a business may have to endure from millions of threats (Teixeira, 2007).
• Computer viruses – It a threat that could be harmful to your system by accessing your financial and confidential and it will do some damage to your data such as erase all data or turn off the server while the system is being run and also it may damage hardware system as well. It can be attacked in various ways that you might miss lead by the viruses. It could be an E-mail, online request or small software such as windows media player plug-in. You should be aware of these viruses in order to maintain your system properly.
• Hacking – This could be very harmful to your business because hacking means some kind of unauthorized access. It will not damage your system but it is possible to read your private data such as credit card details of customers, password, business sells, and company profit and so on. Usually hackers can access any data that you stored in the system. Hackers may gain the remote access capability of the system. If it will happen they can access computer from anywhere that they have internet.
• Denial of Service Attacks – This is usually happen in the large companies that frequently communicate via internet. But still when the online business is running it will access plenty of customers in future. What denial of service attack does, it can cost the target person or company a great deal of time and money. Typically, the loss of service is the inability of a particular network service, such as e-mail, to be available or the temporary loss of all network connectivity and services. A denial of service attack can also destroy programming and files in affected computer systems even though it does not cause any theft of information or other security losses.
• Networking – In networking there are many loose points that open the gate to the hackers. It is highly recommend that the system should be properly networked by the expertise by using all possible network security options. It may cost you for the networking using required networking equipments but it saves business’s and customers’ financial and confidential data from hackers. If the business does not consider this security factors it may cause you some serious issues.
• Physical damages – This is a another major considerable fact. Because if the system only runs on the server and only few computers are used you may at a risk of data my physical damage such as fire. In this case system should have a back up system to prevent lost of important information that contain only the system but no paper work. Back up storage should not be the same place of your business place. These two places should be well separate by distance. This may cause you extra money as well. But it can consider as investment on behalf of security.
• Unauthorized Access – It is happened because of less security of your system or network. As it was mentioned above all computers should have authondicate access. Otherwise it may cause unauthorized access. It will discribe furthermore in section 3.2.2
• Employees – This is another aspect to be considered when concerning security threats. An employee or a disgruntled employee in the business has the most knowledge and possibly the access on sensitive and confidential data. Either the party has the capability to sabotage the company by selling or by destroying company data forever. They might make it a never recoverable loss to the business. Despite on the fact it should be very careful when deal with the employees.
3.4 – Security measures
One of the first things any company will need to do is to review what personal information they control, whether they actually process the information, or whether this is carried out by someone acting on their behalf.
• How valuable, sensitive or confidential is the information?
• What damage or distress could be caused to individuals if there was a security breach?
• What effect would a security breach have on your organisation? In cost? To your reputation? To the trust of your customers or clients?
This will help you assess what security measures you need to have in place.
(Information Commissioner’s Office)
3.4.1 Successful business transactions
The online business transactions are doing virtually. In order to authorized the transaction it is required to have various kind of private details such as name, address information, credit card details and some times bank account details as well. Hence the website should be secure and safe which make the customer trust and rely on the web site. You should be able to make sure customers this is a good secure web site to do online transactions since they have doubt about fake web sites. Implement a secure transaction environment in you website following methods have to be used.
• It is safe to maintain a table of content of registered customers. Then web site can form a log in page before a customer performs a transaction. A password of a registered user should be private to that person.
• In online transactions there are many secure ways. But cryptography is one of the safest and famous methods use for online transactions. The technology is used encryption to make the customer data into an unreadable form for a hacker who trying to read data in between data transmission. Once it reaches the destination it will be decrypted to the original data. This mechanism uses a secrete key or a code to encrypt the information and use the same key to decrypt at the other end (Tanenbaum, 2003).
• Even though transaction is happened securely it should be make sure that the payee and payer is genuine. In this case digital certificates are used for authentication. It can be used private and public key encryption called as symmetric key encryption. If it is used both keys, called as asymmetric key encryption. For an instance the message encrypts with the private key of the customer, can decrypt only using his public key. Once it reaches the receiver end the message can be decrypted using the pubic key which was provided with the digital certificate earlier. This is issued by a certificate authority. This method will compare and make sure the signatures are same and content of the data was not modified during the transmission (George, 2008).
3.4.2 Prevent unauthorised access
Unauthorised access is a major issue of an online business. It is highly recommended to be used latest methods and technologies to prevent unauthorised access. .
• The company’s computer system should be first facilitating with a firewall. The firewall can be either a separate software or it can be incorporated with a security software or OS. Linux is the widely used Operating System for the high standard of security. Servers should be installed with latest antivirus software and spyware programs. Most importantly the operating systems should update with the latest service packs and updates.
• Make sure the company wireless network is protected. Since most wireless networks including wireless access points have a default password which can lead unauthorised access those have to be changed. The network should also have an encryption method (BBC).
• The easiest way that hackers have found is spam mail. Staff should be well trained about those unnecessary spam viruses because via the mail you might give away all confidential information to others. If a staff member receives a mail looks just like from the company itself or by another company (i.e. banks, ISP, etc) asking for any sensitive data or asking run an exe file or even just open a presentation (pps file) he/she should have the knowledge take appropriate necessary action.
• The company employee should know about the data protection policies in the company. They should have own password that only known by them self. When a one staff member leaves should disable his account and also should be reset all the passwords that he knows of the system. (Mukhopadhyay, Mishra, 2007).
3.5 Legal Implication
The law also implies for security breaches. According to the Computer Misuse Act 1990 under sections 1(1) person can be offended (wikipedia).
A person is guilty of an offence if:
a) He causes a computer to perform any function with intent to secure access to any program or data held in a computer;
b) The access he intends to secure is unauthorized; and
c) He knows at the time when he causes the computer to perform the function that this is the case.
Person guilty of an offence under this section shall be liable on summary conviction to imprisonment for a term not exceeding six months or to a fine not exceeding level 5, on the standard scale or both.(wikipedia).
Section 04: Online Selling
Online selling is the where that actual business is going on with the customers and earns money. In UK there are legal requirements to be considered in order to provide a standard service to the customers and also protect the business. When your website display items for sale it is an “Invitation to Treat”. The customer can make an “Offer” to you by sending a request to buy the product. Your system should be generated two mails that your request granted and also when goods are released.
4.1 UK laws and legal requirements
There are legal implications entitled for an online transaction governs by the following UK laws.
• Sales of Goods Act 1979
• Consumer Protection Act 1987
• Data protection Acts 1984 and 1998
• Electronic Commerce (EC directive) Regulations 2002
• Consumer Protection (Distance Selling) Regulations 2000
According to the Electronic Commerce Regulations act if a business sets up a website to promote its goods or services, require the business to provide customers with certain information. For example, the website should state the name of the business, the geographical address and the e-mail address. If the website mentions the price of goods, it should also state whether the price includes tax and delivery costs. A business will therefore be in breach of the Regulations if the information is difficult to find or if the website is not easily navigable. As a transactional websites must contain additional information since they place orders via online as mentioned above. For an example the technical steps that the customer must follow to place an order. This is normally fulfilled by using a shopping cart or shopping basket system and also let customer know by sending an E-mail about the order. (EC Regulations 2002)
If the customer is a consumer who buying goods for personal use and the customer orders goods on-line, further requirements are forced on the supplier by the Distance Selling Regulations. Even though this law not applicable to all kind of business, it is applicable for this business.
In Distance Selling Regulations as the contract will be concluded over the internet, the information must be contained on the website as there is no opportunity for the supplier to provide the information in any other way before the order is placed. The customer must be informed of the name and address of the supplier, a description of the goods, arrangements for payment, delivery and performance, the price of the goods (no hidden prices will accepted in may be criminal offence) any additional charges for ordering goods on-line and delivery costs. The customer must also be informed of the right to cancel the contract. All the necessary information should be known by the customer. (Distance selling Regulations 2000)
Under Data Protection Act customer has rights to know what information gain by them and how business handle the information. Which means it gives individual rights over their personal information. As Discussed in the section 3.2.1 should be aware what information to be collected how we handle that information. It should be held securely and should be up to date. You should train staff in their duties and responsibilities under the Data Protection Act, and putting them into practice.
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4.2 Other requirements
In the advertisement also have legal requirements. Advertisement should be legal, decent, honest and truthful. Your advertisement should be competitive and more attractive to the customer. By looking at your advertisement customer should understand what is the product and what is the different of this product from the same other products. You should aware of not misleading the customers. It will be a criminal offence (Misleading Advertisements Regulation 1988). Advertisement should not be effect to the economic behaviour and it should not be harm to the competitors even though you trying to be especial among them and do not promise anything that you never going to do and also do not create false impressions.
It is advised to be very care full when doing competitive advertising because it may be an unfair competition. You can not do trademark infringement. It means your trademark should not be identical or similar with some others trademark. Company name has the same rule it should be a unique name. There are different rates of advertising for example flat rete, cost per thousand impressions, cost per click and etc. Tobacco advertising is prohibited in all media. But our website does not have such products. In offers made to customers, statements like “Subject to Availability” should be displayed.
Section 5: Intellectual Property
In a business there are properties such as lands, buildings, vehicles and etc, but there are some intangible properties which are creation of the mind such as name, symbols, and images and so on. Some of these properties make the business unique among others in the business world. As an E-commerce system www.ayurvedicsoap.co.uk has its own intellectual properties. The Business name and Trademark can consider as the main intellectual property of the business and also the quality and uniqueness of the products are some of the main factors. There are some more intellectual properties such as the website and database. This section will discuss about different IP rights and how it extends in products and website.
• Copyright
• Industrial Property
• Trademark
• Company Name and Domain Name
• Website
• Database
5.1 Copyright
Copyright is rights against copying or exploitation of artistic or literacy work. It is very important in a business. Because business has its own intellectual property that is bounded by the law that can not copy by any other outside sources (Copyright, Design and Patent Act 1988). It has limited writes that expires 70 years after author’s life. Make sure that when you sign contract with web site developers and Database designers and system developers it should transfer ownership when you buy the property from them. Otherwise they are the owners of that relevant property and owner has the copyright. (Crown, 2003)
5.2 Industrial Property
Creations, industrial designs and inventions fall into industrial property. The expression “industrial” property may appear not to be entirely logical because it is only as far as inventions are concerned that the main segment of economy that is interested in them is industry. Indeed, in the typical situation, inventions are exploited in industrial plants. But trademarks, service marks, commercial names and commercial designations are of interest not only to industry but also and mainly to commerce. Notwithstanding this lack of logic, the expression “industrial property” has acquired a meaning, which clearly covers not only inventions but also the other objects just mentioned (World Intellectual Property Organization, 2003).
5.2.1 Trademark
The trade mark is a significant intellectual property of the business that carries the whole idea of the business. We should make customers mind very friendly with the product by the trademark. Infringement and dilution are the two general ways of violation a trade mark (George, 2008). Infringement is the use of a reputed business trademark by some other business. Infringement is to make the customer mind confuse with the two products. If the two products are identical then customer may mislead, or the selling product is similar or identical to the original product and create some confusion in the public as well. So it is violation of trademark law (Hedley, 2006). Trademark dilution happens when use a trademark owner's famous trademark in a way that is likely to weaken its capacity to identify the trademark owner's goods or services or to tarnish the wholesomeness of the mark. The trademark owner need not show that you created consumer confusion, and dilution may occur even if your goods or services are completely different from the trademark owner's. All these can heavily damage the lawful business.
It should be very careful when you select a trademark for your company as mentioned above it is heavily bounded by the law. You can not even display other companies’ trademark without acknowledge them. It will be a trademark infringement. If you display any other products trademark it is important to have an agreement or a licence that gives permission to use display.
5.1.2 Company Name and Domain Name
This is again a very essential property of the business. As the trade mark almost same rules apply to the domain name that protected by trademark. When you choose the company name it should be follow the steps that were mentioned in the section 01. Even if you check companies name still you can be infringement by selecting a name. Suppose there was a business which had good reputation and all customers knew about the name and the product but it is not available in the companies name. But still you can not use that name to the company because you considered as infringe of company name.
In domain name selection it is again go through many laws. What we have to consider is that the domain name is available. If it is available you can not re-register it. If it is available you should change your domain name. But when you are changing the domain name it should not be typosquatting. That means it should not be a similar domain name which is available. Example www.bbc.co.uk is available there should not be a domain name such as www.bcc.co.uk. It is infringement. Also you can not damage the any other trade reputation and good will within the UK. For an example can not use coca – cola name or trade mark for the toilet papers.
5.1.3 Web Site
The web site has different issues related with intellectual property since it has been design by out source. As it is mentioned above the ownership of the web site is the most important to consider. Does that mean the website development company owns your web site? You may not get the whole ownership since there can be other software incorporates with the site for different functions to operate in the site where copyrights are to the development company. Even though developer developed the web site it was given by you. Which means that it content is yours it has all your ideas and your business ingredients. Just because you do not have the ability or the professional knowledge about the web site developing it has been given to the professional. It can be considered has out sourcing. As mentioned above it is safe to be always a legal agreement with the respective owners to avoid framing.
5.1.4 Database
Database is a very crucial factor in your online business. As its name one can understand what it contains. It has all the important data in the business and also private data. Creating and maintaining a well analysed database management system is a very hard task. As in web site developing you might want to have third party to develop and maintain proper database system.
Since it has all the important data it should be well protected. Because of that protection of the database is extremely important. The law protects databases with original contents, which means that if by reason the selection and the arrangement of its contents, the database constitutes the authors own intellectual creation (Hedley, 2006). In the legislation of Copyrights and Related Rights Act 2000, Section (2) 1 states, it is only the contents the law covers, but not the DBMS use to operate the database. So tables and other creation in the database are protected. The copyright owner normally is the creator. If an employee of your business creates the database the company can get the ownership under the law. But if the development company creates the database behalf then a proper contractual relationship should be build for the database ownership for you business (Database rights, Outlaw).
A database is infringed if a person extracts or re-utilise any data from a protected database without the owners permission. The remedies are available to the infringer and also for the persons who authorized to action. If your business access data from third parties it is important to have clear agreements and/or licences with them.
Section 6: Professionalism and Ethics
In general life everyone does have some professionalism and ethics. According to the profession doing it has some code of ethics. For a software engineer has code of ethics such as
6.1 – Importance and issues
A business has certain Professional and ethical issues to deal while on the move for success. There are ethical principles which can be guidance alone the way to decision in your online business. They can be put in the following format (Rainbow, 2002).
• Beneficence – The best Solution
• Least Harm – The best out of available options
• Respect – Respect of freedom of individual
• Justice – Fair solutions to all involved.
A professional business always has the ability to think beyond the scope of a normal business, which means that they have a wider view in making decision. They can be beneficial to the business in a better way. The client as the main asset of the business should be protected. As discussed in the early sections in the report security, privacy and comfort should be provided. The employees are important to the business to progress successfully. So the welfare of them is also important (Oz, 1992). Professionalism and ethics is basically about better selections made by professional bodies in the business in relation with the rest of the parties which they deal. There can issues professionally and ethically with the growing demand of consumers and technologies. These can be behavioural standards, the rules for employees, the freedom and their rights. These further can look at ecommerce activities such as data access rights, misuse of data and privacy. The choice of ethical theories such as deontology or utilitarianism should make wisely. Sometimes they can be the best options for all the parties or it can be a choice between two options in which case the least harmful decision has to be made.
6.2 – Advice on surveillance systems on employees
Discussion on installing cameras and use of different software to monitor employees has different views ethically. Different researches have different arguments on the good and bad. According to Botan (1996) there should be more specific laws regarding surveillance systems (citied by Ahamad, 2007). From a business stand point it is a best practice to make sure that the work is done properly and no misuse of data or equipment is happening. But on the other hand it may have a negative impact on the employees. Using the Social Facilitation Framework Zajonc (1965) explains that use of computer monitoring will increase the simple tasks carried out by an individual, but on the other hand decreases performance on complex tasks (citied by Ahamad, 2007). So it is better to avoid employee monitoring as they will not be only dealing with simple task all the time.
If you willing to have the surveillance systems inside the company it is advise that it should be notified to the employees as otherwise it will be breach of law as the employee privacy are monitored without individual’s knowledge. Monitoring emails is strictly prohibited according to the law in some countries in the Europe.
Thursday 16 July 2009
Legal advice report for a business
Inforeneur vs Entrepreneur
1. Means of infopreneur
Infopreneur is a new phase that was inducted by Harold F. Weitzen in 1988 as “a Person who gathers, organizes and disseminates information as a business venture or as value added service”. Business can define as person or an organization provides goods and services for who needs those. In this case each and every person may try to do a business and earn money. In real world can be seen millions of business around the world. We are living in the heart of the information era. What Infopreneur does is he gathers all the information and adds a commercial value to that information.
Before this new phase introduced to market there was a phase “Entrepreneur”. An entrepreneur is person who has strategy in order to achieve a profit. Strategy is seeking opportunities to take rewards for their investment that is pure risk. This strategy is different business to business because there are different infrastructures. Entrepreneur put more effort to organize resources in a helpful or valuable ways and have a superior profit in outcome. It is again very risky task since sometimes it is being made incorrect decisions. In order to manage resources in new ways it is always used research and have a good idea how the products or services are going to be in future which is always a cost to the organization.
Infopreneur introduced a new technology for marketing, in particular who markets their product or service via web sites (that calls as web – based marketing). Already there are some organizations that are doing web based data analysis. Infopreneur use Internet and start business publishing information in the current market. When marketing is being good more and more customers visit the web site and have been searching about the products.
Then one might think “how infopreneur earns money?” After product has been published web site becomes more popular and then makes money from advertisement, affiliate links and also selling E-books. Using this new technology both client and infopreneur can achieve advantages making money easily, can be seen all the information in one site, updating new information.
Considering above mentioned facts that I have decided to carry out a research on how will this new phase effect to the future market. This research will be based on disadvantages that can not be seen up to now by infopreneur or client since this is a new technology, how we can overcome if there are any disadvantages.
2. What went before Infopreneur?
It is something that involves risk factor very much called it as entrepreneur. In order to success a product or service there are three main production factors, those are land, capital and labour. Land means not only the land but all the belongings, natural resources of that particular land. As an example if there is native plants or minerals mined it is belongs to the land. Capital is not only the money but also human creation as product wealth. Labour is all human accomplishments that produce product success both physically and mentally. Labour also creates value to the product as land and the capital. These three factors work together and create product that needs in human life.
What is the fourth factor? It is entrepreneurship that is more creative and organize above three factors according to the market and human needs and it is facilitated other three factors to be more productive. Creative thinking would be the success of the business.
Entrepreneur is the person or persons who are make strategies for an organization or a company to make use of new things. This person’s creativity finds ways for the ideas to the market place and be benefited to the society. He is taking a huge risk behalf of the company. It can be success or fail. For an example Oliver Winchester was a successful shirt maker, but he bought the patents for the Henry lever-action repeating rifle. His faith in this invention, along with his efforts in marketing it, made it the most widely known rifle of its day and earned it the nickname of "The Gun That Won the West." This is all about creativity. He thought that it was more productive to make a rifle than shirts even thought he was a successful shirt maker. He had thought in a different way concerning the future market that worked for Oliver Winchester. There are different business situations for different entrepreneurs.
3. Advantages and Disadvantages of Entrepreneur
Entrepreneurs always reward with who come up with new ideas that is encourage making a better production and can be popularize the product with new ideas to have more profit. This is a good way to build a society which is creative and productive for the reason that people like to have reward by their creativity rather being punished if they not create. It is always a hard task continue competitive ideas in open market because anyone can come up with new ideas. Entrepreneur should keep eyes open customer interests and motivate and organize for everyone’s benefit.
In this method it is used lack of technology and identified some of the disadvantages. It is always convenience to have monthly payment but entrepreneurs do not have that luxury but they do not have an especial schedule to work with because they are the business owners. They decide what will be happen next in the business. Since they are the decision makers they have more responsibility about the future of the business which is quite difficult. Because decision making directly effect to the mistakes or improvements.
Most important thing is that it is not matched with the current technology. Some of them warring how to come over from geographical barriers and so on. Infopreneur came up to solve entrepreneurs’ inconvenience. Considering weaknesses of the previous system, infopreneur has come on top of that. He is a unique expert of something. It is been known that special thing, other people do not know. Those called as entrepreneurial spirit.
4. Current Usage of Infopreneur
In day today market everywhere technology can be seen. Every business involves and interacts with the new technologies. Therefore there should be a person who has a huge knowledge about the businesses, the technology and also how the technology uses for the particular business in useful manner. Infopreneur is a good person for this task because he has good knowledge about the business and also marketing. They are selling information which created their own and also selling information of other sources after modify the original information. Some times it is free to read anyone. Books, videos, special reports, booklets, audit forms are widely used to deliver information. In that case they earn money by advertisements which regards to those information. Since there are plenty of information sellers it is hard to survive in the market. Then they are selling and sharing information free of charge. It is the success behind the infopreneur. Different people have different definitions for Infopreneur.
It is obvious that people are searching for high quality products, and also they trying to get information different topics. The easiest gateway to access information is Internet. Every day more and more websites are being born, and people from all over the world are searching for that special item, or trying to find information that will help them in their daily living.
“What is the difference between an Entrepreneur and an Infopreneur on the Internet? The Entrepreneur sells products and services to people on the net. The Infopreneur shares his or her passion and knowledge through simple and real quality pages. ” (landscape-solutions-for-you.com, 2008)
According to this definition which was commented by the current Infopreneur in the market, it is trying to be special using the quality of the pages. It says that the current technology should be used by the infopreneur otherwise it can not be out of the ordinary from others.
“An infopreneur is an entrepreneur who earns a living from information services and knowledge intensive services.” (Anastasios politics, 2004)
According to this definition infopreneur is a person that selling information services and knowledge intensive services and again he is giving creative ideas to the business improvement. Infopreneur identified new kind of business transportations due to new technologies.
Considering both the technologies it can bee seen that the technology usage of the internet highly effect to the infopreneur.
4.1. Benefits of infopreneuring
It can be starts in low cost. It is not like selling wares in a supermarket. It does not want separate large store, plenty of staff or huge capital. Hence it deals with the Internet.
When doing an online business it is automatically catch the global market. Internet it does not have any geographical barriers. Anyone can access the Internet from any where. And also the infopreneur can operate from anywhere he can manage.
5. Technology Effects
In order to survive in the market should use most recent technologies that available in current industry. As an example www.corda.com that has data visualization software. It is a company that analyse data using online data visualization software and it displays the data variations in industry. Profit has been made selling the services at request of an organization.
In this case there should be many more data visualization software that has been doing the same task but the corda data visualization company in competitive with others because of the technologies they used. For an example it is used AJAX technology that is relatively new in market.
AJAX stands for Asynchronous Java and XML. It is been heavily used in modern web page development. If want to be especial in industry one can use the latest technologies such as AJAX. It is collection of technologies that web development technique for creating web applications it is targeting to increase usability, speed and interactive of web pages.
Figure 5.1
Figure 5.1 describes how the AJAX technology works in web application mode. It is clearly indicated that Ajax engine passes data asynchronously (without waiting for response to the HTTP request) to the user interface. Because of this process user does not wait so long in front of browser it gives quick feet backs that makes user happy. AJAX makes it possible for most of the processing work for web page interaction to take place between the server and the browser, not requiring the user to wait for the entire page to re-load each time a request is processed. Hence it is sent only the necessary data to the server there is only limited processing on the server side. It is again increase the efficiency. It is good technology to use in online information selling.
Infopreneur is always updated with the new technologies. They are also using a technology that tracks country IP address and then sells information according to the country. It is again a latest technology has been used. Using this technology it is easy to track the country and sells information according to the country.
For an example if there is a site that want to collect friends from different countries. Assume that the have given it to infopreneur. It is easy to find friends inside the country rather that outside, tracking country IP can use an advertisement that shows own counties people when they log in to there facebook account or email account.
Even though infopreneur makes money when you stay at your house it is very competitive in the market. Because of frequently changing technology it is always should be updated and also others will catch up your technology very quickly.
5.1 Use of Technology
Depending on the way technology is used out come is differing. Good infopreneur carryout continuous learning process to maintain the quality of the software. For example corda maintain its reputation with the other data visualisation products in the online market, because it is updated by latest technologies. Developing a web site is easy but it should be with the current standard and competitive with others.
There are plenty of technologies have being used to develop websites and pages. As mentioned above it can be apply latest technologies that people can see the different. AJAX is one of the best technologies since it create fast response from the server. Internet surfers clearly identify the different surfing a normal website and AJAX embedded website. Web service .Net 3.5, PHP 5, and the web 2.0 are the other latest technologies of developing a attractive websites and pages that may helpful to infopreneur in the future.
6. Future of the Infopreneur
Millions of websites been published in a year so that means billions of information flowing in the internet. Information has some value on it. But in future that value will be declined, because of the competition of the infopreneur it is trying to sell information at least cost. In order to sell information online should have a website that embedded latest technology. It makes customer really interesting since they can search exactly the information they want by least cost.
It will be sell information on the mobile phones using GPRS technology as well as the Internet. It is possible to locate the mobile using mobile signal phone and it will transmit the information according to the location. Such as weather reports, not according to the whole country but according to where you are now. For example London weather different from new castle weather, so if mobile located in London, London weather is displayed in the screen.
In future it will be possible to track network IP and distribute information among the network. I will be more efficient than tracking country code. For an example if I want to sell information regarding university students, then I can track the network IP’s of universities and put an advertisement that I want. Then those who log in to the university website can see the advertisement. Infopreneur should be creative and should be use the latest technical aspects in order to be a success infopreneur.
In the future there will be no print papers only e-papers and no televisions because infopreneur makes life easy. It is decreasing and decreasing the value of the information so then there will be a time that all papers print online as e- papers and the television will be internet television. Since Internet does not have any space problem (one copy can read millions of people) there will be a news paper with thousands of articles submits by the thousands of journalist. Smart infopreneur use these development of the world and the internet and sell information creatively by using technologies.
References
CORDA Technologies Inc (2008) last accessed 10 November 2008 at: www.corda.com
Charney, A and G Libecap. (2000). Impact of Entrepreneurship Education. Insights: A Kauffman Research Series. Kauffman Center for Entrepreneurial Leadership.
Stephanie chandler, (2006) From Entrepreneur to Infopreneur: Make Money with books, E-Books and Information Products,
Vadim Kotelnikov, inventor and founder, ten 3 business e- choch, Business skills. Last accessed 01 December 2008 at: http://www.1000advices.com/guru/infopreneur_byvk.htm
St. pertersburg Times online last accessed 26 November 2008 http://www.sptimes.com/News/032901/NIE/Who_is_an_entrepreneu.shtml
Jeff Glaze, (2007) The Alphabet of the Entrepreneur last accessed 20 November 2008 at: http://www.atlantaevent.com/articles-entrepreneurs.htm
How To Become An Infopreneur last accessed 14 November 2008 at
http://www.niche-build-it.com/infopreneur.html
