Monday January 14, 2013 at 12:55pm
The EU is the source or the instigator of many laws and regulations which affect us in the UK, so it’s interesting that they have recently recognised some guidance might also be helpful. The area they have chosen to try and help with is online rights in their ‘Code of EU online rights’. The Code - issued as part of the EU’s Digital Agenda for Europe - is aimed at consumers and summarises the rights which they have in the virtual world. Although the Code is written from th....
(read more...)Wednesday April 4, 2012 at 9:25am
I saw an article recently which made interesting reading. It compared the length of the terms and conditions on a number of well-known websites with works of Shakespeare. PayPal came out top of the survey beating Hamlet with 36,275 words compared to 30,066. That was well ahead of the next contender, Apple iTunes with 19,972 words as against Macbeth with 18,110. That’s quite a bit of reading when all you want to do is to make a quick purchase. OK, I was exaggerating in the title by referrin....
(read more...)Tuesday March 20, 2012 at 9:57am
New research from Boston Consulting Group (BCG) - The $4.2 Trillion Opportunity: The Internet Economy in the G-20 - highlights the importance of web based businesses to the UK economy and contains some surprising details. Their latest study showed that in 2010, the internet economy in the U.K. accounted for the highest percentage of national GDP of all the G20 economies. The internet contributed 8.3% of the UK economy and was worth £121bn in 2010, making it bigger than the heal....
(read more...)Friday February 24, 2012 at 5:43pm
With only about three months to go before the Information Commissioners’ Office (ICO) start enforcing the cookies regulations which came in last year, website owners might be looking to the larger organisations to give a lead on how to comply. But it would not be helpful to follow Google and Internet Explorer at present. Reports in IT industry media this week indicate that the ICO are “making enquiries with Google” about the way they use cookies and whether it complies with Eng....
(read more...)Thursday January 26, 2012 at 11:00am
If your website uses cookies or similar technology you need to comply with the new cookies rules introduced last year by 26th May 2012. This means that you need to tell users what cookies your site uses, explain what those cookies do and, unless certain very narrow exceptions apply (read Can you rely on exceptions to the cookie regs? ), obtain consent for any that are stored on the users’ computer, mobile phone or other web-enabled device. Previous blogs have dealt with the rules and ....
(read more...)Wednesday January 18, 2012 at 10:00am
The new regulations relating to cookies which came into force last year basically requires website owners not only to provide information about cookies they use and a mechanism to opt out, but to obtain consent from users of the site before a cookie is used. The only circumstances where this does not apply are very limited.
The only exception to the requirement to provide information and obtain consent is where the use of the cookie is:
for the sole purpose of carrying out the tran....
(read more...)Thursday January 12, 2012 at 9:00am
In my last blog (Website owners are warned by Information Commissioner) I mentioned that the ICO had issued updated guidance on compliance with the new cookies regulations introduced last year. This new version of the guidance is much more detailed than the original version and, along with the report from the Information Commissioner which I talked about previously, also warns that, if your website uses cookies or similar technology for storing information, you should not simply ignore the regul....
(read more...)Wednesday January 4, 2012 at 10:34am
Whilst most of us were preparing for the Christmas and New Year festivities, the Information Commissioner issued his half term report about the preparations for complying with the cookie regulations which came into force last year. Details of those new regulations were given in my blogs at the time - there are links to them below if you’d like a recap. Basically, if your website uses cookies you now not only need to give details, but you also need consent from visitors to the site for most....
(read more...)Sunday September 25, 2011 at 5:05pm
Working with a lot of IT companies and web developers I’ve realised over recent years how many leave themselves open to potential legal difficulties.
It goes without saying that most modern businesses rely heavily on their IT systems to run their business and on their websites for showcasing their products and services, if not also directly for sales. So, if your business provides IT or website development services, you are responsible for a critical component in your clients’ busi....
(read more...)Wednesday June 15, 2011 at 12:55pm
It has been a shock to many to receive a demand for compensation for unlawful reproduction of images, such as photographs and other artistic and design work. Usually this comes in the form of a written demand from a stock image house such as one of the world’s biggest agencies Getty Images, who actively pursue such claims.
So what is the law? And how do you protect yourself from such demands?
With the explosion of social network sites on the web has come a corresponding explosion in th....
(read more...)Wednesday June 1, 2011 at 4:50pm
I talked in an earlier blog (New rules on the use of cookies) about the new rules affecting website owners which came into force on 26th May 2011. Since writing the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) has provided a little more clarity about how the new rules will be policed. The good news is that organisations and businesses which run websites aimed at UK consumers will be given up to 12 months to get their house in order before enforcement of the new EU cookies law begins. As a brief....
(read more...)Wednesday May 25, 2011 at 4:13pm
Details about new rules on the use of cookies by website operators have recently been published. There’s not much time to get to grips with them as they come into force on 26th May 2011. Initial guidance from the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) issued only last week provides a few pointers on how we can expect the rules to be interpreted. The main effect of the new rules is that if you are a website owner you will need consent from a user of your site to store a cookie on the....
(read more...)Thursday April 21, 2011 at 3:21pm
If you run an e-commerce business and sell goods online new EU rules could have a significant impact. The rules in question would be under a planned EU Consumer Rights Directive which concerns contracts for the sale of goods by businesses to consumers (B2C). The draft Directive is not a new proposal – it was issued in 2008. Since then it has been going through various discussion and consultation processes, but recently it moved a step closer when endorsed by the European Parliament which a....
(read more...)