Website Laws and Regulations in United Kingdom

Are you planning to start a new business? Whether you are planning to start an online or an offline business, you need a website.

Starting a new business website under UK’s legislation is sort of difficult because of all the website laws and regulations. But then, that’s for our own good only. You as an owner will gain consumers’ trust if you follow the laws. And gaining consumers’ means more business.

So, in order to start a business website, you need to adhere to website laws and regulations in UK. In this article, I’ll address the legal requirements that must be met for a commercial or a business website in UK.

Website Laws and Regulations in UK

The growing number of eCommerce sites impelled the European Union (EU) to become stricter and protect consumers. EU was concerned over the authenticity of the sites selling products and services. So, the lawmakers in Brussels came up with two main areas where consumers required protection:

• Safety of personal and financial data
• Ability to enforce legal rights while making a purchase

In order to cover these areas, EU came up with two directives. Directive 97/7/EC which protects consumers in case of distance contracts and Directive 2000/31/EC which addresses certain legal aspects of information society services, in particular eCommerce.

Let’s look at points that will help you in making your business site legally compliant:

Company information

UK registered businesses needs to display their company information like business name, registered number, place of registration, registered business address and whether it is a member of a trade association.

Privacy policy

Privacy policy should be displayed, informing what user data is collected and what the company does with the data. It should include whether it adheres with the Data Protection Act 1988. Also, if cookies are used, it should also explain the user what cookies are used and its purpose.

Must Read: Are you breaking Google’s policies?

Cookies

Recent changes in the EU Cookie Law has meant that websites should display a message of use of cookies on their website.

Disclaimer

Disclaimer is a document that informs site visitors to which extend they can they can use the information. It should also state that the website owner does not have any liability that may come by using or downloading information from website.

Terms & Conditions

Terms & conditions are really important for a business site. First it is required for Consumer Protection (Distance Selling) Regulations and Electronic Commerce Regulations (EC Directive). It should also include delivery and return or refund policy if any. Terms and conditions should include the following:

• Details of supplier and address
• Information about the service
• Contract price including taxes
• Delivery charges, if applicable
• Payment and delivery modes
• Cancellation details

Anti Spam Laws

Anti spam laws are applicable if you’re sending emails to your subscribers. Your emails should have an opt-out or unsubscribe option to adhere to this law.

The above website laws and regulations are really important to make your website legally acceptable. If you fail to comply with some or all the laws, you might have to face legal liability. So, it is always better to prevent than cure.

So, how you can prevent these easily. By having all the possible legal documents on your website. This could cost you a lot of money, as you’ll have to hire a lawyer and provide him/her with all the details. This could also take days. One simple solution is to use the WP LegalPages WordPress Plugin.

WP LegalPages is a powerful plugin that allows you to generate customized legal pages. It has 17 ready-to-use legal templates, in which you just have to fill in your details and your documents will be ready to publish. And yes, the templates are already lawyer verified, so you don’t have to worry about it.

Here are the 17 templates included in the plugin:

1. Terms of use
2. Linking policy template
3. External links policy template
4. Terms and conditions template
5. Refund policy template
6. Affiliate disclosure template
7. Privacy Policy template
8. Affiliate agreement template
9. FB privacy policy template
10. Earnings Disclaimer template
11. Antispam template
12. Double dart cookie template
13. Disclaimer template
14. FTC statement template
15. Medical disclaimer template
16. Testimonials disclosure template
17. Amazon affiliate template

To know more about the plugin, please click here.

If you’ve any questions regarding any website laws or regulations in UK or about the plugin, please comment below.