What is Internet Liability Insurance?
- Intellectual property infringement, such as copyright, trademark, slogan, or advertising material through the Internet.
- Violation of privacy, such as failure to protect confidential or private information from the unauthorized access of others over the Internet.
- Failure to prevent an inadvertent computer virus transmission to authorized website users through the Internet.
- Defamation of customers, competitors or other organizations over the Internet.
Why You Need it
Commercial crime insurance is important for many small businesses, but it is especially important for those businesses that deal in cash, checks, online payment systems and credit cards. Limits are typically specified and distinguished for on and off-premises losses. Protection may cover property, merchandise, cash or securities.
Businesses who disseminate information over the web generally face the same liability exposure as a publisher does, although many don’t realize the full extent of their exposure. In the areas of domain name infringement and user privacy, new laws continue to create potential liability. Further, with the rise of security data breaches (Epsilon being the latest example), protection of confidential information loss has become compromised, resulting in additional exposure. What’s more, traditional liability insurance doesn’t address cyberspace exposures and the risk involved in conducting business over the Internet.
Examples of Internet Liability
When conducting business over the Internet, the potential for liability exposure can be something as simple of using meta tags which are trademarked by another company to making unfavorable comments about your competitors on your website. Or you may have inadvertently used an image on your website that is copyrighted. Either way, Internet liability insurance will cover these potential risks.
Media Liability Insurance
Media liability insurance, also referred to communications liability insurance, protects you against allegations arising out of your communication of information. Any small business that distributes and communicates information to the public via the Internet (via a website, email or other Internet interface) faces the same risks and exposures that a traditional publisher does. Media liability claims differ from traditional claims involving privacy violation, copyright infringement, or libel because these allegations profess that a financial or economic loss occurred as a result of the error or omission in the published material.
Because insurers and attorneys have seen a dramatic rise in the number (and severity) of media liability claims, it’s important for business owners to considering adding media liability insurance to their business insurance portfolio.
