Sweepstakes have arrived on the Internet. In 1998, there were at least 500 online sweepstakes and it’s growing rapidly. It can be an effective way for a company to bring traffic to a Web site, but it’s not without its legal pitfalls. It’s a treacherous area.

Sweepstakes make sense as a way to collect the Holy Grail of marketing�personal information. With a sweepstakes as the incentive, people will often voluntarily give information that might be otherwise difficult to collect.