Liability and Accountability

Liability and Accountability

Michelle Casey

Legal and Ethical Environment of Business

Unit 2 Individual Project

1. E-Bay’s customers become registered members to the web-site. When these customers join they agree to eBay’s terms and conditions which they have to accept when they register. These registered members use the search options either keyword or category that is provided by eBay. Bidders Edge on the other hand used a program that automatically searched through eBay’s web-site and then posted the information on their site. E-Bay quickly caught on to what BE was doing and informed them that it was prohibited. BE then used proxy servers which are hard to trace to continue the automatic searches. What BE was doing mattered to eBay because if BE continued to do these searches it could cause damage to the web-site. The damage could vary from simply slowing down eBay’s site or it could completely malfunction.

2. According to our text, traditional trespass to personal property is known as trespass to chattels. The definition for this term is vague. However, generally trespass to chattels means knowingly and purposely or do reckless actions that violates the rights of a person from using and enjoying their personal property.

3. The two definitions even though the text definition lacks clarity both definitions essentially mean the same thing. A computer is considered personal property. Any actions done that could possibly slow down the computers performance in any way violates the owner’s right to use that computer properly and to it’s full potential.