Legal cases in the US demonstrate just how important it is for businesses, whether they are under the Bermuda Standard for Electronic Transactions, or reside elsewhere, to follow the privacy standards stated or implied on their Web sites.

The cases show that sharing customer information with other business partners could lead directly to corporate liability and lawsuits, not to mention distrust from the customers you have so carefully cultivated.

For example Amazon.com's subsidiary Alexa had to pay up to $1.9 million to customers whose personal data had been collected without their consent and then shared with Amazon, according to a report by Risk Management Society Publishing, Inc.

Eli Lilly faced a more serious problem when the Federal Trade Commission brought charges against the company after an employee unintentionally disclosed the personal medical information of various customers to each other. Eli Lilly came to an agreement to employ proper safeguards to protect customers' personal information.

Meanwhile Toys 'R Us could end up paying out a lot of money after a class-action suit was launched against the company for violating its own privacy policy by giving marketers access to customer data without their consent.

How do you minimise the risk of such problems? This must be of concern to any Bermuda business going on the Internet and targeting US customers. The Risk Management Society advises that privacy practices should include an assessment of current data protection practices, an analysis and incorporation of relevant privacy and security laws, employee training and periodic monitoring.

'After the privacy practices have been developed and agreed upon, the risk manager should help the business write a privacy policy that accurately reflects those practices,' the organisation stated. 'Once the privacy policy is published, it absolutely must be adhered to.'

OK gamers, this one is for you. The hottest game on the market right now is provided free by the United States Army, which wanted a novel way of attracting people who want to visit far away countries, kill people, and oh, yes, defend their country.

America's army aims to provide that much excitement without the danger of getting your head blown off. Since the game was released at the end of January, the US army has had to add more servers to handle the demand. People love this game. I tried to download the game last week for a test before writing this, but the servers were still overloaded and slow. I hope you have more luck as the army has added new servers to handle the demand.

The game, which is played offline, goes through a series of training exercises, allowing players to upgrade to more sophisticated missions by registering online.

This week the army plans to release the first update by adding in a US Army Sniper School module. The single player update includes two training missions, where you can qualify on two types of rifles. Once the training missions are completed the player can then go online to select those rifles for use in combat missions. Only those who earned an expert qualification in basic training qualify for Sniper School training.

In August the army will release an upgrade allowing players to qualify to be an airborne ranger. Airborne school includes two single player training modules. Once you've registered successful completion online, you will be able to graduate to Ranger School.

I like this kind of game, although, lately I've barely had the time even to get a chess game going on my computer to occasionally let my mind take a break from work. At least this game is giving the army techies something else to do other than keeping hackers off their systems. I wonder if the Bermuda Regiment can adapt the game for a Bermuda audience and terrain.

You can download, or try to download, the game at www.goarmy.com.

PC Mag has a rave review of the new Sony CD Mavica MVC-CD400. The four-megapixel camera is "easy to use, takes excellent photos, and boasts infinite storage" according to the magazine, which acts as sort of a Consumer Reports journal for computer users. I am hanging on until I can afford a much higher megapixel camera, but the Mavica's storage capability is attractive.

With my current digital camera I am constantly switching cards and rechargeable batteries. The Mavica uses a 156MB 3-inch mini CD for storage, which can be popped into a regular CD drive for downloading your pictures to any computer.

While you are at the PC Mag site (www.pcmag.com) check out their annual service and reliability reader survey. The guide is invaluable when choosing your next digital camera, notebook, printer or other computer-related gadget.

Dell came out tops in the survey for desktop computers, and Hewlett-Packard for printers. You can download PDFs of the survey for various categories to use for your next shopping trip. Happy hunting !

Tech Tattle deals with technology. Contact Ahmed at editoroffshoreon.com.