Setting up a website does not only require the use of website designing technicalities
but also requires the knowledge of legal and ethical guidelines that a web developer
should adhere to it before working on the web design and content.

Ethics can be defined as a set of standards that govern the conduct of a community or
profession. Ethics can also be defined by the basic values established to check the
members of a community or profession for responsible actions and practices. As a
matter of fact, in case of violating ethical standards, there may be no punishment.
But common practices like spamming and transmitting viruses electronically will be
written into law. These generally agreed-upon standards governing the community of
Web Developers have developed from years of experience and many of them have been
derived from other similar professions.

Ethical behavior for Web Developers includes practices that do not violate the pre-established
standards. For example, not sending unsolicited e-mails in bulk, or spam and
not buying domain names with the intention of not using them (also called domain
squatting or cyber-squatting).

Other examples include deliberately spreading malicious program codes in the form of
viruses and worms. Passing along lengthy chains of e-mail messages which imply threats
and overcharging the customers for technical services are ways how Web Developers
violate ethical behavior.

To understand the legal issues related to constructing a website, it is very important to
consider the legal guidelines that help a web developer abide by the rules of website
development.

Spam is an unsolicited e-mail that the sender transmits in bulk. The recipients, on the
other hand, did not ask to receive the e-mails. Therefore, these emails can be regarded
as junk. Potentially offensive content is sometimes presented in these junk emails
without any discretion used in determining the recipient. For example, the CAN-SPAM
Act of 2004 became a law in the U.S. to control the assault of non-solicited pornography
and marketing. But because of the lenient approach, there has been a significant rise in
spammers.

To govern the ideas and products of one’s mind, Intellectual property laws were built. It
is highly important to have acquaintances with these major laws built to govern the
intellectual property: copyrights, trademarks, and trade secrets. Once understood these
laws help you to learn the ways you can protect the intellectual property on a website,
as well as keep you from violating acts build to guard property infringement.
Committing Infringement upon property that is intellect and protected is punishable
by law.

The Copyright Act of 1976 came into effect to provide protection for original works of
authorship that are fixed in a tangible form of expression. The law prohibits
unauthorized duplication of literary, photographic, musical, and audiovisual works.
Originality and Expression are the two pillars that build great content. And since the
content can be differentiated on the basis of these pillars, copyright is placed on the
work itself, not the objects or ideas of the developer.
Program code, trademarks, text, images, music, and so forth cannot be copied from any
source on or off the web and used on a website.
Copyright Infringement is the application of or profits from someone else’s work
without considering their consent. However, it does not keep you from quoting or
making a reference to the owner’s work.

For example, many sites like Flickr use an application like Creative Commons Licensing for
safeguarding their content – every user is free to specify the levels of rights they wish to
waive on each of their images, so that some can be used to credit the Author whilst
others are rights reserved and cannot be used without the consent of the Author. This
the system makes it easy for everyone to figure out the permissions for each image and
Search only for the free images – saving an incredible amount of time and effort