Online "employment"?

I was initially very apprehensive about taking on work as a web writer. Concerns about whether the activity I was to take on was actually legitimate, or if I really was contracting with a real person were issues I considered. After all, I wouldn’t want to exert any effort on something that would turn out to be a scam. Luckily, it wasn’t.

So it was legitimate after all. The next thing that bothered me was, what exactly was my relationship with the person for whom I was “working”? Am I an employee? An independent contractor? To determine my status was important, as, the way I saw it, my status would greatly affect my ability to bargain, or what I'm to bargain, with the other party.

Taking all the necessary factors into consideration, I unilaterally decided that I was an independent contractor, as my workload was based pretty much on my liking, and I worked on my own pace. I could even reject work assigned to me. A similar situation would be how some writers occasionally contribute to magazines or publications without necessarily being employees of the publication where their articles appeared.

But can an employment contract actually be made online, despite the interaction being virtual? Can a person later on demand from the cyber-employer that he has attained the status of a regular employee and thus is entitled to the rights an employee has under the law? After all, work, whether given in person or sent to a person’s e-mail is still work; and services, whether submitted to the person in front of you, or to someone in another continent, are still services rendered. This is a pressing concern as those evading the employer-employee relationship may have just found a new medium to further their unlawful cause.