| . | While discussing the ethics of Web communication, we often need to sort out the dilemma of Whether running a Web site tantamounts to "Advertising"?. This would not have been relevant but for the fact that "Advertising" in the "Non Cyber Space" context has a mening of its own which has also been enshrined in many legal and quasi legal documents. There are 'Advertising Guidelines" which determine Who can advertise? How he can advertise? What he can say or not say in an advertsiement? etc. Advertsiements are "paid for" and there may be provisions in the taxation laws on how to treat "Advertisement expenses" for taxation purpose. (In India, there was an attempt some time back to disallow advertisement expenses for tax purpose). Thus there are ethical and financial consequences in classifying a certain object or content as "Advertising". Many professional bodies including BAR Councils donot allow their members to "Advertsie" their services. Security regulators donot allow stock brokers from "Advertising". The question " Do Websites tantamount to Advertsing?" is therefore extremely important for buisiness. The answer may determine what can be said and not said in Cyber space and whether some professionals can or cannot use the technological development of Internet which has created a whole new simension to the living of human beings. Before we proceed further, it is necessary that many "Professioanl bodies"
and "Regulators" have already classified "Websites" as Advertising in their
"Guidelines" which are quasi legal documents in effect. The Indian
Insurance Regulation (IRDA Guidelines) is one such.
However we need to accept that the present day "Regulators" are including websites in "Advertising" because they donot understand "Cyber Space" as intimately as they should. They are only looking at one aspect of the Cyber space activity and jumping to conclusions. Of course when it comes to "Expanding the area of Control" all "Regulators" including " Professional Bodies" try to err on the safer side and go with the feeling "Let's have More teeth. We will not however bite except when it is absolutely required". This is the classic syndrome of benevelent dictatorship out of which all harsh dictators are born. It is enough to look at some of the key aspects of typical "Advertsing regulations" to see why this kind of regualtion is impractical. Again taking the example of the IRDA guidelines in India, it is necessary for an organisation to keep a "Specimen of every advertisement disseminated". Now look at a website, displaying a "Dynamic html page", carrying a "Real time ticker" where each visitor in every session is presented with different messages. Is there a possibility of this record being kept for teh regulator to approve or disapprove? The IRDA guideline also extends to e-mails. This means that every e-mail is potentially capable of being interpreted as "Advertsement". The compliance officer has to therefore keep a copy or atleast go through every e-mail sent out by the Insurance Company. If you are running Q&A section in your web site, every answer on an Insurance polciy and its beneficial feature can be construed as an "Advertisement". It is therefore ridiculous to consider a Web site as "Advertising" material without defining different components of a web site differently. Just as a "News paper" has an "Editorial", "News report" and an "Advertisement", a web site can also have all elements. After all, there are "Banner Ads" which are clearly identifiable as nearest to " Advertisements". But "Story Headlines" or "Detailed story content" or "News tickers" or "Q&A sections can never be equated to "Advertising" even if some sites cleverly use them for carrying advertising messages. Any attempt to do so would infringe on the "Freedom of Cyber speech". We need to be broadminded to accept this situation in the same way all lovers of "Democracy" accept the "Weaknesses of a Democratic system" over a "Benevelent Dictatorship". The lead to this transformation in thinking has to come from autonomopus professional bodies such as "Bar Council", "Chartered Accountants Association" etc who should categorically declare that they would exercise no control over the " Cyber Space Transactions". If the Cyber practitioners of the profession come together to form a guideline of their own, it would be through a separate body of "Cyber Bar Council" or "Association of Cyber Chartered Accountants". Once the professional bodies adopt this stance, the regulatory bodies
will also have to create separate bodies for regulating Cyber transactions.
Such bodies should be purely created in Cyber space and should be by the
Netizens, for the Netizens and of the Netizens. |
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