Minimum Legal Website Requirements

The frontier that is the world wide web does have some legal directives aimed at businesses that you need to stick to to avoid liability. We’ve written an easy to digest list of these directives so that you can be sure that your website meets the minimum legal information required.

We include all of these when we design websites at Parallax, but please take the time to have a read through, as this list contains everything that is required by law on your website. It helps you understand why we ask for all the information that we do, to stop you facing problems that may arise from non-compliance.

This list contains all the information which must be ‘easily, directly and permanently’ accessible on your website. All websites should contain:

• The name of the service provider – This may differ from the trading name and any such difference should be explained, for example, ‘XYZ.com is the trading name of XYZ Enterprises Limited.’

• The email address of the service provider – It is not sufficient to include a ‘contact us’ form, you must also provide an email address.

• At least one geographic address of the service provider – A registered office address must be included for a company. A PO Box is not acceptable.

• If a company, the company’s registration number should be displayed.

• If your business is a member of a trade or professional association, for example, the Solicitors Regulation Authority, membership details, including any registration number, should be provided.

• If your business has a VAT number, it should be stated, even if the website is not being used for e-commerce transactions.

• A Privacy Policy or a data protection notice is required if you process visitors data, informing the visitor what will be done with that information and that it is compliant with the Data protection Act.

• The EU Cookie Directive requires users to give consent for leaving cookies on a visitors machine, unless the cookie is essential to the functionality of the site.

• Prices on your website must be clear and unambiguous. This effectively means that any prices stated on your website must detail whether they are inclusive of tax and delivery costs, etc.

• If you run an e-commerce site, you must have a page detailing the terms and conditions, delivery and returns policy.

• If you take credit or debit card details, you must be PCI Compliant if you’re storing customer’s card details on your servers – there’s some nice ways around this however.

• If you send out email, there must be an opt out instruction on all email to conform to EU Anti Spam laws.

We’re always keeping up with any changes that may happen around legal issues and the web, which means that you can be sure that we’ve got you covered when you choose Parallax for your digital marketing strategy and web development.