Happy New Year Regulations

Or how to spend the last hours of 2006 updating websites…

Yes, it is that time again already. The time to reflect back on the past year, and then — if you’re in any of the Member States of the European Economic Area — to frantically update websites in order to comply with the latest set of EU regulations that come into effect on 1 January 2007, or risk breaching the Companies Act, receiving a huge fine, going directly to jail, not passing ‘Go!’, that sort of thing.

The following information must be present on any business website: name, geographic address, and email address. In addition, if the business is a company, the following is also required: registered office address, registration number and place of registration, membership of all trade or professional associations, VAT number, and so on.

For more details, have a look at Out-Law’s excellent guide to the UK’s E-commerce Regulations — and don’t think that the law only applies to sites that sell things online, the EU’s definition of ‘E-commerce’ applies to virtually every commercial website.

Happy New Year…