The Internet drives America's businesses and consumers. Though it is a valuable asset to business owners, it is also teeming with law-related issues. Certain websites have consumers enter their email and telephone information to gain access to the site. A privacy document usually appears to allow the consumer the opportunity to opt in or out of having that personal information shared. Though this is a practice to protect the consumer, not all websites actually keep that private information to themselves, thus violating the consumer's privacy rights. A popular topic for commercial law could focus on Internet privacy issues and the consumer.
Social media and mass media networks, such as MySpace, Facebook and Twitter, are popular marketing avenues for businesses. Consumers can "like" or favor a particular brand, company or individual using these sites. In turn, their profiles and personal information are accessible to everyone else who joins the same site. A thesis could focus on a business's rights to use that information for marketing or the risks it takes by using information that is not explicitly signed over to it.
When a business creates a new product or service that is one of a kind, it can get a patent or copyright to that item. Intellectual property is what a company relies on to stay ahead of its competitors and have a fighting edge in the marketplace. A thesis could focus on the importance of copyright or patent protection for the business and economy. A thesis could also focus on the prosecutions or violations concerning patents and copyrights over the past decade and how the Internet has played a vital role in that situation.
A student could write a thesis on music sharing, or combine it with a focus on copyright infringement more generally. With the growing number of torrent sites and file-sharing programs offering both illegal and legal downloading of music files, a student could write about whether this is a technological advancement or a violation of copyrights.