industries and professions

Timothy Casey, a senior VP for MCI WorldCom, transmits executive-quality knowledge in "ISP Liability Survival Guide" for a panhandler-level price. Despite the fact that he is what we techies would probably call a "suit," his writing is relaxed, anecdotal, and even humorous. But don't let his conversational writing style fool you; he is a MAJOR player in this industry. As a corporate executive and quasi-ambassador, Casey is a kind of Internet lobbyist. He has been immersed in virtually every state, federal, and international regulatory craze, preventing the regulators from turning the Internet as we know it into one great big cluster... (I hope I'm not the only one who still uses that phrase from Clint Eastwood's 'Heartbreak Ridge.') After reading the book, it kind of amazed me that he would disclose as much useful information as he does for the relatively small cost of this book. Other prominent Internet-lawyers-turned-writers charge literally five times as much, and you get less useful stuff and more legal jargon. And even if you enjoy being ripped off, no one has written a book of this type yet! Casey covers every aspect of Internet law that affects ISPs and similarly-situated e-businesses and customers. If anyone has read about the richness vs. reach debate (Evans and Worster, "Blown to Bits"), you will know what I mean when I swear that the info in this book is extremely rich. I love this book, and it still amazes me that in an industry where information is our chief commodity, Casey is giving away so much rich knowledge, practically for peanuts.

Computers and Internet service providers (ISP) are an integral part of nearly every aspect of modern life and business. In ISP Liability Survival Guide, Senior Vice President and Chief Technology Counsel for MCI WorldCom Timothy Casey brings to bear his expertise and experience to provide detailed explanations on the varying laws governing networking and the Internet, and how their technical features impact running a liability-free ISP. He offers critical considerations for adopting effective policies and procedures for effectively structuring an ISP operation. He also gives valuable insight into contracting with users, vendors, as well as sales channels to accommodate the laws and maximize ISP profitability. ISP Liability Survival Guide is critically important, crucial, essential reading for anyone charged with operational responsibilities for providing ISP services in today's technologically driven communications marketplace.

ISP Liability Survival Guide written by Timothy Casey is an excellent guide for ISP's to follow in order to run an effective service and remain within established industry standards of practice and the law. This book will help ISP's to sort through all the existing laws, regulations, policies, and issues and help them to determine which ones apply to them and how applicable ones should be enforced through their services.

This book provides an excellent treatment of handling intellectual property issues. Trademark, copyright, patent, and domain name issues are big today. ISP's will receive a mini-course in dealing with them. What is a trademark? What is a copyright? What is fair use? What constitutes infringement? What are the implications of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA)? What is the ISP's liability? How does an ISP respond to a complaint? It's all covered here. ISP's will appreciate the advice on handling reported incidents of alleged infringement.

ISP's face a number of other serious threats to their services. Some of these are caused by the conduct of their own clients and sometimes through the efforts of outside parties looking for ways of expanding their reach. ISP's must keep up on gambling, pornography, spamming, spoofing, cookies, fraud, defamation, libel, and child privacy issues. This book will educate ISP's about these troublesome issues and provide them with strict guidelines that will keep them operating on the strait and narrow.

ISP's receive advice and instruction on other matters such as planning, establishing, and enforcing policies and terms of service. They will also benefit from the number of actual case studies that reveal how various laws, regulations, policies, and court decisions have clear implications on how they should conduct their own services. This is must reading for any ISP and company who wants to do things right!