In general terms poker sites are almost always regulated by gaming commissions who ensure that everything is above board and fair for customers. The transactions are of course dealt with on secure pages also, to ensure no illegal activities take place.

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Looking at the rules of individual sites in terms of what players are, or are not allowed to do whilst playing onsite, are a slightly different matter. There are general rules which every site enforces universally, such as no collusion between players. You cannot for instance sit down at a Sit n Go tournament with your friends and be speaking to each other away from the poker site and informing each other of your hands. You may ask how something like this could possibly be enforced, and how a poker site would know. Most often there is no site representative available to watch each and every table, so for aspects of collusion, and other rule breaking behaviour too, the players are relied upon somewhat.

Players who know what they are doing, will always notice a player making very strange plays, and if a player happens to making these type of plays regularly, and profitably, they are likely to be reported. They may of course not be breaking any rules, but operators onsite will view transcripts of the hands, and be able to percieve with a good degree of accuracy, if somthing untoward has taken place.

Most rules in online play are just a case of common sense, and of course, etiquette.

No abuse of players is tolerated as you might expect. If you lose, lose with dignity.
If you sit and play poker fairly and as you know how, and are friendly to (or ignoring) the players around you, you will not ever break any rules. That’s all you really need to know, although if you want to make sure of the precise rules they can usually be found on the site with which you are playing.