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Legal issues to consider

 

This is an overview of some of the key legal, commercial, practical and legal issues which arise when setting up and operating a website.

 

Website Design

Who will design your website, and on what terms? Once you have selected your designer, and depending on the complexity of the site and the importance of the website to your business, you may consider a formal contract which sets out your requirements in terms of all visible and functional content, image and marketing concerns, and payment mechanisms.

 

You will need to make sure you own the design of the site and the underlying software that is unique to the site. By law, the designer will own the copyright and other intellectual property rights (IPRs) unless otherwise agreed, so you will need to consider a transfer of those rights to you. You may also need to have a full set of the web pages given to you in electronic form, so you have a fully portable version of the pages in case it is needed. In this way the company will have both ownership of IPRs and physical possession of a copy of the web pages.

 

What if you don't own the rights in the content displayed on or contained in your site? In general, the more complex the design of the site, the more likely it is that third party rights will be involved, for example, trademarks etc, and you will want to ensure that you have appropriate licences for all of these rights to avoid any danger of infringement actions.

 

Hosting

All websites are run or "hosted" on IT system servers that are physically connected to the internet, usually a third party's. The host provides the link for all traffic between the internet and the web server, and you will need to consider a contract between yourself and the host that deals with the scope of the services and liability for website content (under UK law a website host can be held liable for infringing website content.

 

Terms and conditions and compliance with law

You will see on other websites you visit, that terms and conditions relating to use of the site, privacy and terms relating to the purchase of goods and services are included. In many cases, these are required by law.

 

Ideally, visitors should be required to check a box to indicate that they have accepted these before using the site, but this may not always be a realistic option, in which case, you will need to make sure that there is a notice and/or hyperlink to your terms displayed prominently on your site.

 

Website terms and conditions will, among other things, seek to limit your users to viewing and downloading extracts from the site, oblige users not to post any illegal or damaging content on the site for which you could be held liable and also contain disclaimers and other provisions designed to exclude or limit your liability for material on the site, particularly any material that might not be up to date.

 

If you are selling goods and services, you are likely to require specific terms and conditions of sale, and as a "distance seller", your website and terms will need to conform to certain legal requirements.

 

Finally, data protection and privacy laws impose legal obligations on website owners, some of which can be addressed by the inclusion on the site of an appropriate privacy policy.