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New law affects all websites and emails

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New law affects all websites and emails

Most businesses have a website to promote their business and provide an online point of contact for potential enquiries and sales. While there are many poor examples due to design issues and poor content, there are many that are now in breach of the law.

The Companies Act of 2007 came into force recently, updating the similarly-named Act of 1985. All businesses should make a point of familiarising themselves with this important piece of leglisation.

But for simplicity,Shaping Business has highlighted some of the key issues with regards to web design and emails. It is now mandatory to have your registered address, registration number and place of registration on your website as well as on order forms and on emails. If you have more than one corporate identity, for example ‘ABC trading as XYZ’ – then you need to make this clear on all of your literature including websites. You need to state your VAT number and an e-mail address – simply having a contact form on your website is no longer acceptable. Fortunately all of this information needs to appear once only rather than on every page of a website as had originally been feared by many.

This effectively brings laws that previously applied only to hard copy company paperwork into the domain of electronic media. The changes are the result of a European directive called the First Company Law Amendment Directive, and if your sites and email aren’t suitably upgraded you are in breach of the law.

There are also a number of considerations relating to the Disability Discrimination Act that people specifying websites will need to consider. Essentially you’re not allowed to lock deaf, partially-sighted or blind people out of your site, however unintentionally. This has been law since 1999 and worryingly a lot of organisations have been in breach of the law ever since. The full text of the statutory instrument that brought it into force is at www.opsi.gov.uk

Probably the biggest area of concern regarding the DDA is that it is entirely lawful for someone with a disability to sue a company whose website is unreadable by them. If you or your web designer are unsure about how you stand on this, the W3C – the authority that effectively governs the web – has put some guidelines at www.w3.org which take you through some of the basics.

For further information, or to explore bringing your website into line with all current legislation please contact us on +44 (0) 845 000 0499