The tragic death of thirteen year old Megan Meier has caught the attention of millions of parents, educators, medical experts, and child advocates worldwide. She had committed suicide the day  right after Josh, a boy she met and became friends with on the common social networking website MySpace, abruptly ended the relationship and began sending her nasty messages online. The incident was brought to international attention soon after it was discovered that the identity of Josh was apparently the creation of a family, primarily the mother, who lived in Megan’s neighborhood who wanted to know what the girl was saying about their daughter online. The two girls had previously been friends but had a falling out recently.  

This case has brought to light a growing threat to a lot of children and adolescents—the phenomenon of on the internet bullying. On the web bullying, also referred to as electronic bullying or cyber-bullying, can be defined as the repetitive and willful harassment through the use of the Net, mobile phones or other forms of interactive and/or digital communication, typically with the intent to humiliate, torment and threaten an individual in order to assert the perpetrator’s power over the victim. It is speculated that about one in ten kids have experienced some form of bullying, but others insist that the numbers of victims are higher.  

I read a quite disturbing write-up in the Herald Sun newspaper yesterday. It had to do with a salesman who claims to have been a victim of cyber bullying. Harassment in the workplace can take several forms but this case is interesting since it was carried out by his boss via e-mail. It is all too simple to fall into that trap as managers. We may well be doing it even with out realizing it but it’s critical to believe twice before sending any emails of a disciplinary nature to your staff.

When I read this I was in fact quite horrified as this sort of factor has enormous implications in Australian Workplace laws and I’m certain it has the same implications in a lot of other countries laws now as well.

Along with the expansion of the Internet, lots of new and pressing issues have been raised. 1 of them could be the boost of data losses caused by information losses. Most of these crimes are not the result of malicious programs, but the unfortunate misfortune to be invaded by a hacker.

There are lots of crimes that are performed over the Web and most of them are in the data theft category. Due to the fact there are no virtual police officers that can resolve these problems, personal computer users have turned to the next pest thing protection software program. Crimes performed over the World wide web are not punishable by any law, so as lengthy as you don’t kill any person, you’re safe.