Legal Regulations of Digital Ethics

EULAs are not the only legal regulations that affect the relationship between an organization and its digital public. Although regulations vary by country and even state, there are three guiding principles that inform laws and policies on digital public relations practices.

1. In general, communication from an organization must reveal the sender or origin of a message. For example, emails sent from a company featuring retail promotions must tell the receiver that they are from the organization. In other words, it should be obvious who sent the email. This helps the user know if the information or links are trustworthy, as well as helps automatic filters organize the message.
2. An organization must provide information on how digital user information is stored, protected and used. This information needs to be publicly available, so users can access or check it if they sense there is a problem. Problematically, there are few policies about how clear this information needs to be. Thus, EULAs that contain this information are often too complicated for readers to understand.
3. An “opt-out” capability should be provided on all digital communication from an organization including promotional emails, native advertisements or pop-up windows. Again, while a vague policy, users should have the ability to no longer receive communication from an organization at any time. For example, any email you receive from an organization should have an “unsubscribe” button or procedure.

Although these are three general guidelines, there is limited research on how widely these are adopted by organizations. In addition, many scholars question the enforcement of these policies since there is seemingly no police or regulatory force responsible for following up with organizations who do not comply. It is then the task of public relations employees to ensure their communication adopts and consistently uses these three legal guidelines.