Overview
Quiz:
Chapter 20 Quiz--Consumer Law: Paraschos Stavrinos (ccsnh.edu)
Chapter 21 Quiz-Workplace Privacy and Information Security: Paraschos Stavrinos (ccsnh.edu)
Assignment:
Please answer the following questions:
- Does New Hampshire have a Consumer Protection statute?
- If so, what is the citation for the statute?
- What agency generally enforces the Consumer Law?
- Please locate the web site for the agency that enforces the law and protects the rights of consumer. Cite the web site. You will use the web site to assist in answering some of the following questions:
Using the web site you found in question #1, answer the following
- Does NH have a “Lemon” Law?
- If so, what is the citation for the statute?
- Does Lemon law cover used vehicles?
- Does the web site offer forms for the public?
- If so, list three forms available on the website for the public to use.
- Do gift certificates expire under NH law?
- What are the requirements that determine the status of a gift certificate?
- Does the website offer any assistance regarding Identity Theft?
- If so, what steps are you supposed to take when you suspect you are a victim of identity theft?
- Is there information on the website about credit reporting?
- If so, does it tell how often a person can get a free copy of their credit report?
- Does the Federal Government have an agency to help protect consumers and to enforce the federal consumer protection laws, particularly in financial areas?
- If so, what is the agency called?
- Go to the agency’s web site and then list 3 or 4 areas that the agency regulates or protects in.
Please read the attached excerpt of an article from the MacTech journal of Apple technology. After reading it answer the following questions and discuss the responses of other students as they are posted. Make sure you utilize the law from that we are learning from the textbook in your analysis. Think about the contract law aspects of the case. Go back and review the chapters in the textbook about contracts, breach of contract, and remedies for a breach of contract.
What would happen in this case?
What argument would each side make? Pick a side and make that argument, then later during the discussion, argue the other side.
What remedies might each side receive if they win the case?
If you are involved in a case like this as a developer, what could you do to allow you to put a time bomb in a program? How would the company stop the bomb?
What type of language could accomplish this?
Bottom line--who is right and who is wrong?
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| Volume Number: | 9 | |
| Issue Number: | 10 | |
| Column Tag: | Legal Eagles |
Time Bombs, Stop Devices and Other Stuff
What are the legalities of such code?
By Paul Goodman, Esq., P.A.S., New York, New York
Case in point. Bob Bytes, a custom business software developer accepts a project from Wonder Widget, a local widget brokerage, for the development of an integrated accounting package. Since both parties were in a hurry to get started, neither took the time to memorialize their agreement in writing, but there was an oral agreement that Bob would be paid $3,500 per month for the development which was projected by Bob to take four months. Unfortunately, due to circumstance unforeseen by either Bob or Wonder Widget, the project dragged on for three additional months and then for three more without a definitive end in sight. After ten months, Wonder Widget started to object to the increased development time and costs and started to blame Bob for the problems. Bob, on the other hand, blamed Wonder Widget for constantly changing the program specifications.
After Wonder Widget delayed in paying several of Bob’s weekly invoices, Bob became nervous and thought of an idea to help assure payment of his fee should their relationship fall apart. Bob planted into the software a few conditional statements which locked up the software at a predetermined date. Since Bob had never supplied any source code to Wonder Widget, and Wonder Widget had never requested it, Bob had Wonder Widget just where he wanted them. If they wanted to use the software and access to their data, they would have to pay Bob just what he wanted and thought he deserved. Without the source code, Wonder Widget had little that they could do but to pay Bob.
Let’s look at another possible ending to the story. Instead of paying Bob, Wonder Widget decides to make a stand. They hire a lawyer who brings a law suit against Bob charging breach of contract and intentional interference by Bob with Wonder Widget’s property, that is, its data which was now inaccessible. They also ask for punitive damages. To make matters worse, Wonder Widget’s lawyer brings a motion for an injunction requiring that Bob immediately remove the software stop he has placed into the software until the court can make a final determination on the law suit.