Webmasters need expertise--technical, graphical and legal

It's not enough to be able to buy a domain, design a style sheet and know how to transfer your files to the internet.  As my friend Alan Norton, a writer for techrepublic reminds us, webmasters need to stay abreast of legal developments that affect their sites. 

His article Do Webmasters need to add lawyer and legal counsel to their job description? points out that a morass of legal issues lurks to bedevil innocent internet publishers, especially online retailers. 

Asked and answered, your honor.  The question Alan addresses in the article above is one that people are still grappling with, for example on LinkedIn, where someone recently asked "Does an ecommerce retailer have to file taxes in each state it sold a product in?"


Unfortunately, as John Selden wrote in the 17th century,

Ignorance of the law excuses no man: Not that all men know the law, but because 'tis an excuse every man will plead, and no man can tell how to refute him.

That means the short answer to Alan's question is, yes, webmasters do need to add legal counsel to their job descriptions, at least if they want to avoid legal hassles down the road and sleep easily at night.

All these heavy responsibilities on the webmasters' heads are one more reason why they should engage copywriters--lots of them.  After all, even webmasters can't be experts at everything.