As an online business, operating your online presence within the regulations and law is of utmost importance; for multiple reasons beyond avoiding the wrath of the law… are you taking the necessary steps to protect your company website? Beyond your website looking good there are several considerations which must be addressed for your website to ‘stand up in court’.
The Disability Discrimination Act
First and foremost, how accessible is your website? The Disability Discrimination Act makes it unlawful for a service provider to discriminate against a disabled person by refusing to provide any service which it provides to members of the public; online, this means that businesses must ensure that they make ‘reasonable adjustments’ to their website to ensure that users of all abilities can access it. The Sydney Olympic committee was successfully sued for $1 million in 2000 by a blind man for its failing to provide an adequately accessible website. Although an Australian case it, along with similar cases in the American courts, demonstrates that web accessibility is not an issue to be ignored.
The Web Accessibility Initiative outlines the essential components of web accessibility; providing guidance and best practice standards for creating an accessible website.
Copyright
Along with the website architecture your content and text requires careful consideration. Copyright theft is a common occurrence that can easy happen by mistake, and is a crime which can result in costly legal proceedings. When populating your website always be certain to never copy or incorporate any text, images, videos or music from another website without obtaining the permission of the owner. To do so would amount to a breach of copyright and make your business liable for damages.
Further issues can arise when commissioning third parties to produce copyright work on behalf of your company, for example photography or video; unless specifically requested you will not own the copyrights in that work therefore limiting what you can do with it.
If material on the website is copyright then to inform visitors and to prevent such material being copied notice should be clearly posted on the company website informing users of their rights.
Companies Trading Disclosures Regulations 2008
The Companies Trading Disclosures Regulation 2008 defines that every registered company must display on their website the following;
- the part of the United Kingdom in which the company is registered;
- the company’s registered number;
- the address of the company’s registered office;
The E-Commerce Directive
The E-Commerce Directive was implemented in the UK in 2002 with the aim of harmonising the rules relating to online trading and advertising throughout Europe. It applies to companies providing online services for remuneration, and extends to services, which are not remunerated by those who receive them, such as those offering on-line information or commercial communications, or those providing search, access and retrieval of data (BIS).
The Directive follows a ‘Country of Origin’ rule which broadly means that a company need only comply with the laws of the country within which they are established. So, in the occurrence of a legal action jurisdiction will lie with the country the company is established not the customers country. However, if a business advertises or transacts with consumers out with the EEA the Country of Origin rule no longer applies and jurisdiction could potentially lie with the customer’s country.
Company’s looking to only transact within specific countries should display warnings that your website is only directed at users within said countries, and companies transacting and advertising to countries out with Europe should be aware of the potential risks they face.
The E-Commerce Directive further defines that any company or person providing a society service must “in a form and manner that is easily, directly and permanently accessible” provide customers with the following information;
- The name of the service provider
- Geographic address of the service provider
- Email address and contact details of the service provider
- Details of any registration in a public trade register or of any authorisation scheme
- Details of membership of any professional body for certain regulated professions; and
- The VAT registration number
Terms and Conditions
If contracting online then the E-Commerce Directive states that the company terms and conditions must be made available in a way which allows a user “to store and reproduce” them. Within the terms and conditions should be the aforementioned copyright notice, disclaimers, a privacy statement and a disclaimer of liability for any information contained in another party’s website accessed via a link on your site.
Moderation of user generated content
If your website has any area where users can post information or content then moderation will be required. It is the responsibility of the webmaster to ensure that your website does not contain any libellous or damaging material; therefore it is important to consider the impact the content you and your users post has on others. Several cases have arisen from websites displaying malicious content or where owners have not correctly moderated the content, the most recent being the Google bosses being convicted of privacy violations. And in another instance a blogger in America a defamation lawsuit brought against blog Skanks of New York for the defamatory and libellous statements made about model Liskula Cohen.
So…
The points listed here, really are the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the legalities, regulations and codes of practice a company should consider and adhere to when operating online. Digital law is a constantly evolving arena and one which every e-business should monitor but the basic business principles and ethics remain the same as offline so if you can establish and maintain them, then your half way there!
Tags: accessibility, legal, web design
