If you want to sue a Web-based business, you'll need to know where to file the lawsuit.

What happens when you have a beef over an item or service purchased online? Your local state court -- where traditional power usually stops at the state line -- simply may not have the power to make a binding ruling over an online seller based in another state hundreds of miles away.

Usually it's no problem to assert jurisdiction in a local court over a defendant who resides or operates a business in your state. That's because state and federal courts always have personal jurisdiction over state residents. But when the defendant's principal residence or place of business is not in the state where the lawsuit is filed (often called the "forum state"), you can haul the defendant into court only there if there is a meaningful connection or contact between the defendant and the state where the suit is filed.

In the world of the Internet, what this amounts to is that if the cyber bad guy you want to sue doesn't live in or operate a business in your state, owns no property there, and there are no other meaningful connections with that state, it means that it's unlikely that a local court will have personal jurisdiction or power over that person. But as we discuss below, there's more than one way to get personal jurisdiction.

The concept of "minimum contacts" can get tricky when it involves the Internet. Courts. Legal scholars are of the opinion that it is unfair to make every website owner subject to personal jurisdiction in every state simply because the site is viewable there. Similarly, sites that merely post information without making sales, called "passive sites," are unlikely to incur personal jurisdiction except in the state where their owner resides or does other business.

However, sites over which credit card sales or other active business is conducted, called "interactive sites," are more likely to satisfy the minimum contacts requirement.