INTERNET LEGAL RESEARCH WEEKLY
December 9, 2001
Tom
Mighell
Welcome to Issue #50 of the Internet Legal Research Weekly, a newsletter that delivers relevant and timely legal research information, and other fun stuff, to your inbox every Sunday. If you like what you read, please forward this newsletter to anyone you think might be interested, and encourage him or her to do the same! To subscribe, all you have to do is send an e-mail to ilrw-subscribe@topica.com. It’s free!
Also, thanks for being a part of the 50th issue of this newsletter. I have to say, I’ve enjoyed every minute of it, but it sure feels like a lot more than 50 issues….
And away we go…..
News Update
File Federal Documents Electronically
As long as both sides agree, parties in federal cases will now be able to file and serve documents by e-mail or fax.New U.S. Code Online
The U.S. Code is published every six years, and the first 7 titles of the 2000 code have been made available online.Stop! Wait, it’s Google
Many search engines won’t search for “stop words” – common words like adverbs, conjunctions, and prepositions – to force a search engine to look for you a stop word, you have to put a + in front of that word. Now Google will automatically include stop words in quoted phrases.Harder to Find California Vital Statistics Records
Governor Gray Davis suspended the sale of birth and death records on the Internet, citing identity theft concerns.
The State of the Internet, 2001
Those of you who have subscribed to the newsletter for a while will remember my article on the State of The Internet 2000. The UCLA Center for Communication Policy began a really cool project last year: interviewing about 2,000 people in the United States to discover how (or if) the Internet has an effect on their lives. The Project hopes to compare the evolving responses of Internet users and non-users over the years. The 2001 report is out, and since it’s the second year the report shows how (or if) attitudes have changed from last year. The only really significant, but not surprising, change is that more people than ever before are going online, and more people intend to go online in the near future.
The study found that 72.3 percent of Americans are online this year, up from 66.9 percent last year. More students (64.3%) and workers (51.2%) are using the Internet at school and work, respectively. Time spent online is also up, from 9.4 hours per week in 2000 to 9.8 hours per week this year. The top five Internet activities (in order of popularity) are:
1. E-mail and instant messaging
2. Web surfing or browsing
3. Buying Online
4. Finding entertainment information
5. Reading newsInterestingly, only e-mail showed an increase in interest from last year; all the other categories show a lessened interest. More than 80 percent of the users agree or strongly agree that e-mail allows them to keep in contact with people they normally wouldn’t talk to as often – up from 64.7 percent last year. The study found that experienced users spent most of their time online sending e-mail, doing professional work, looking for news, or trading stock. New users, by comparison, spend a greater amount of time visiting chat rooms, playing games, and browsing online. Again, not surprising.
The primary reason most people go online is to get information quickly; however, the more experienced the user, the more time spent online. In fact those with five or more years of Internet experience spend an average of 13.2 hours per week online. I think I’m probably at the high end of that average. The importance of the Internet as an important source of information is growing – this year, 60 percent find the Internet to be a very important or extremely important source of
information, up from 53.6 percent in 2000. About the same percentage trust the information they find on the Internet. Fifty-eight percent believe most or all of the information on the Internet is reliable and accurate, compared with 54.8 percent in 2000.One thing I have found interesting in talking to people about the Internet is their often over-inflated estimate of their ability to use the Internet. The Internet Report backs my experience; 81.9 percent of experienced users rate their experience level as either good or excellent. Of all users, 65.5 percent would rate their internet abilities as good or excellent, way up from 44.6 percent in 2000.
On the other end of the spectrum is the non-user. This year, lack of access is still the number one reason people are not going online – 25.5 percent say they have no computer. A close second at 21.4 percent, however, is “lack of interest.” The encouraging part of this statistic is that 33 percent cited lack of interest last year.
It’s logical that people who use the Internet are the types of people who also use many different types of media. In fact, the only media used more by Internet non-users is television. Internet users have also begun to utilize different types of online media previously available only offline. These include reading books, newspapers, magazines, listening to the radio or watching television, and talking on the telephone.
One of the most important findings of this year’s Project is that attitudes toward online privacy haven’t changed. Although more people are making online purchases, they are also more concerned about the security of those transactions. Last year, 61.7 percent were very or extremely concerned about the privacy of their personal information when or if they buy online; this year, that number has increased to 71.3 percent. An even greater number, 79.7 percent, are very or extremely concerned about credit card security. What I found especially surprising is that of very experienced users, 89.1 percent expressed some level of concern about credit card information when buying online.
With regard to privacy in general, 74.5 percent of Internet non-users believe that people who go online put their privacy at risk, which certainly explains why they aren’t going online. Of Internet users, however, 56.5 percent express the same concern. These numbers are down somewhat from 2000, so attitudes toward this issue appear to be changing.
Those are the highlights, but there are a lot more statistics in this year’s report if you’re interested in reading further. The report itself is 94 pages, but it’s mostly graphs and charts, so the reading is pretty quick.
Help Desk
A vocabulary tip for you this week:Partition: a hard drive can be set up as one large block, or it can be broken up into separate smaller sections, called partitions. Each partition is assigned its own volume name, such as C:, D:, or E:, and functions as if it were a separate drive.
After my link to Banxquote last week, I got an e-mail from A., who said, “Bankrate.com is also a good and longstanding source of rates on different financial products.” Thanks for the tip, A.!
Do you have a question about searching the Internet or your computer in general? Drop me an e-mail– I’ll post your question (don’t worry, I won’t use your real name) and try to get an answer for you!
Legally Relevant – Sites on the Internet
German Law Archive
If you ever research international law, you’ve probably been frustrated that all the best foreign law sites are in – well, a foreign language. That’s why the German Law Archive is so nice for Americans who insist that everyone learn English, but not vice versa. You can view a short selection of “Judgments,” or cases, Statutes, articles on German law, the German law archive database, and more. You can also sign up to be notified by e-mail whenever new material is posted on the site.Tobacco Control Resource Center
A service of the Tobacco Products Liability Project, the Resource Center is maintained by Northeastern University in Boston, Massachusetts. The goal of the TPLP is to study, encourage and coordinate 1) products liability suits against the tobacco industry and 2) legislative and regulatory initiatives to control the sale and use of tobacco as a public health strategy. I *really* don’t like the layout of this site – it looks like it was put together by a small child. Most of the site is concerned with the status of current tobacco litigation, and there is actually some interesting and useful information here. There’s also a sister site worth visiting.Medem
Medem is a joint project of many leading medical societies, such as the American Academy of Pediatrics, American Medical Association, and American Psychiatric Association, to name just a few. The goal of these societies was to make Medem the most trusted and comprehensive source of healthcare content on the Internet. There is quite an extensive medical library with a wide range of patient education information on diseases, stages of life, conditions, therapies, and more. Medem also provides physicians with a way to publish their information on the Internet, and there are also links to physician finders for patients or those seeking expert witnesses.Portal on Intellectual Property Rights
Another international site, this time from the Netherlands. This portal is a monument to simplicity. There are few links, but you can get great value from them. The site is building a collection of articles on intellectual property, so authors are encouraged to submit their articles for inclusion on the website. You can search the entire index – many of the articles are available in full text online. There are also links to U.S. related sources, European Union sources, and other
intellectual property journals.Ethics and Lawyering
This is the Internet home of the newsletter Ethics and Lawyering Today, published monthly by William Freivogel and Lucian Pera. Like the site above, this one is simple, too; a link to the current issue, a link to archives of past issues, and a link to subscribe to the newsletter. The articles I found concerned topics such as captive law firms, unsolicited e-mails from clients, and document retention policies. Give it a try – it’s free to subscribe.
Finally, some useful sites for you to browse this holiday season. If you’re going to do your Christmas shopping online, or if you’re just going to investigate your purchases online before buying at the mall, these websites can help you make a decision. First up is Consumer Search, which collects product reviews from around the Internet and publishes them in one place. If you still can’t figure out which digital camera to buy, head over to Epinions, a community of people just dying to tell you what they think of their purchases – it’s actually a terrific place to find honest reviews of various products. Once you’ve decided which product you want, you’ll need to find the best price – there are several sites that can help you with that. One of the oldest is My Simon. PriceGrabber is a relative newcomer, but is receiving rave reviews. PriceScan is another choice. If you want to find which non-Internet store has the best prices, try PriceWorld. Happy shopping!
Well, that’s it for Issue #50– I hope you liked it! If you did, pass this along to anyone you think might be interested, and encourage him or her to subscribe. Also, feel free to drop me an e-mail any time if you have questions, or if you have websites or other topics you want included in a future issue.
Tom Mighell
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