How to comply with regulations affecting your website

Despite initiatives such as the government’s Red Tape Challenge , all businesses seem to have increasing amounts of red tape that they have to comply with in order to keep on the right side of the law. Solicitors certainly aren’t immune – in fact we are affected by a whole new set of regulations that came into force only recently. One of the details was that we now all have to make it clear that we are not only ‘regulated by the Solicitors Regulatory Authority’ as before, but ‘authorised and regulated’. A small change you might think, but one that means changes to websites (you can see the new statement on our website pages), emails, letterheads and other printed materials – I wonder how much waste paper that has caused, but that’s another matter.

Most businesses these days have a website or are thinking of setting one up and our recent experience with new regulations made me think about all the other regulations affecting websites. The internet is certainly not the law-free, anarchic zone that some once thought – in fact it is now highly regulated. Some rules are specific to the internet and e-commerce environment, whilst others apply to selling generally, particularly distance selling and sales to consumers. I talked about this in my recent blog - How many ‘illegal’ websites are there out there?

In light of all this, I thought it might be helpful to have a guide through all the red tape, so we have produced a checklist summarising the key details that you should include on your website for it to be compliant. If you would like a copy of the Website Owners: Legal Requirements Checklist, please email me and I’ll send a copy through.

Sue Mann
Commercial Solicitor 
0845 003 5639