Applying Moral Decision-Making to New Media

Miller, R. L. R., Cross, F. B., & Jentz, G. A. (2013). Business law: Alternate edition: text and summarized cases: legal, ethical, global, and e-commerce environment. Mason, Ohio: South-Western Cengage Learning.

Cheeseman, H. R. (2010). The legal environment of business and online commerce: Business ethics, e-commerce, regulatory, and international issues. (6th ed.) Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall.

Mallor, J. P., Barnes, A. J., Bowers, T., & Langvardt, A. W. (2013). Business law: The Ethical, Global, and E-commerce Environment (15th ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill.

Cheeseman, H. Business Law: Legal Environment, Online Commerce, Business Ethics, and International Issues (7th ed). Pearson Learning Solutions. Retrieved from

Daniel Solove, a professor who specializes in internet privacy law, wrote this book to give his personal take on how the internet was transforming the way people connect through social mediums and how that could change in the future. An important thing to note about this book is that it was published in 2007, so some of the social and technological aspects of the book are slightly dated. Regardless of this though, this book provides an inquisitive perspective on the dynamic nature of the internet as a vessel of our society’s changing norms on privacy in the social sphere. Many of our learning points in class relate to topics discussed in this book and help to strengthen the context and significance of the underlying message.

The Legal Environment of Business and Online Commerce: Business Ethics, E Commerce, Regulatory, and International Issues, Fifth Edition, by Henry R. Cheeseman. Published by Prentice Hall.Copyright © 2007 by Pearson Education, Inc. Retrieved May 11, 2008, from

Q1. Describe one key legal issue and one key ethical issue that concern most organizations as they seek to take full advantage of the Internet.

Spinello, R. A. (2011). Regulating Internet Privacy. Cyber Ethics - Morality and Law in Cyberspace. Sudbury, MA: Jones and Bartlett Learning.

The Internet is unquestionably having a profound impact on many aspects of social, culture, economic, and legal systems throughout the world, moreover, enabling significant advances in global communication technologies, that make it more possible to contemplate the development of a more complex global information society. Such a global society offers many benefits to humankind, but incorporating regulation to enable and promote these information societies present challenges. However, such challenges create difficult questions for those making legal decisions: Do real world laws apply to virtual world problems? Can the laws adapt to regulate such activities? Are existing laws outdated and inadequate? Will new laws be required to suite Internet activities and other information technology developments?

In each of the discussions, we were confronted with the ethicality of people or processes. Prior to the advent of wide spread information technology, these situations would have been more easily addressed, categorized, and concealed. This technology has allowed us to share information around the world, but it has also released information beyond our ability to control it. Now our privacy, property, quality of life, work and personal lives are vulnerable because of inadequate laws and unethical entities.

The concern about privacy on the Internet is increasingly becoming an issue of international dispute. ?Citizens are becoming concerned that the most intimate details of their daily lives are being monitored, searched and recorded.? (www.britannica.com) 81% of Net users are concerned about threats to their privacy while online. The greatest threat to privacy comes from the construction of e-commerce alone, and not from state agents. E-commerce is structured on the copy and trade of intimate personal information and therefore, a threat to privacy on the Internet.

In the contemporary society, the use of e-commerce has gained much popularity among many nations globally. This has been enhanced by the use of digital media which, has to a large extent boosted the way such activities are carried out. E-commerce is the transaction by which individuals do the act of buying and selling of products and services through online platforms. This paper, therefore, sheds light on how digital media have influenced the field of e-commerce in the US, France, and German.

The universe of Web and online law is dynamic, growing and progressively imperative. As rising advances push the limits of the current legitimate scene, courts and administrators are compelled to consider the suggestions that emerge from the crossing point of laws and the internet, both in translating current laws and in drafting new laws and legal choices. Email and a virtual vicinity empowers organizations of any size to contend in the worldwide economy.

The workplace is known to have ethical issues, some that many people may not even notice to be an issue. Ethical issues are those that may be faced when the question of “What is right and what is wrong?” comes about. In most cases, people tend to use their grown knowledge, meaning the knowledge that have grown to have from experiences and from the way they were raised, when in actuality a person should like logically and be subjective when it comes to making ethical decisions. When it comes to social media, this can be tricky, because everyone feels entitled to their own opinions, free of speech, and this they are. However, there are boundaries, as with most things in life. These boundaries are set in place to protect the workplaces risk of liability, harassment, bullying, and discrimination policies.

Presently, there have been much development in computer technology; telecommunications, software and information technology areas that have resulted in the dynamic changing of the people’s living standards in an imaginable way. For instance, the ways people communicate is normally restricted because of existing constraints of geography and time. As such, this implies that information is often widely transmitted and received than ever before due to development in technology. Thusly, the business environment has become more flexible to accommodate the electronic contracts in terms of place, space, distance and payments. Generally, e-commerce is often associated with a form of business information, different products and services transmitted through computer networks. Therefore, with the rapid growth of e-commerce, there is a rapid advancement in the use of electronic contracts. However, the deployment of electronic contracts poses many challenges at three levels, which include conceptual, logical and implementation. Overall, this essay will examine the legal aspect of electronic contracts.