As i said earlier.
That particular law only covers LIMITED COMAPNIES. Not individuals.
So not applicable here ...
Andy Smith wrote:
Hi Phil,
On Sat, Apr 12, 2008 at 03:29:07PM +0100, Phil Thompson wrote:
The following is the minimum information that must be on any company's
website (from OUT-LAW's guide, The UK's E-commerce Regulations).
* The name, geographic address and email address of the service
provider. The name of the organisation with which the customer is
contracting must be given. This might differ from the trading name. Any
such difference should be explained -- e.g. "XYZ.com is the trading name
of XYZ Enterprises Limited."
It is not sufficient to include a 'contact us' form without also
providing an email address and geographic address somewhere easily
accessible on the site. A PO Box is unlikely to suffice as a geographic
address; but a registered office address would. If the business is a
company, the registered office address must be included. "
I highly doubt that this has ever been tested in court and I also
doubt that "electronic mail" is defined anywhere in UK law. Note
that the actual directive does not mention the part about a
web-based contact form alone being unacceptable. All the relavent
part says is:
(c) the details of the service provider, including his
electronic mail address, which make it possible to contact
him rapidly and communicate with him in a direct and
effective manner;
While I agree that proper contact methods are required, mandating
the method in which they must be provided (email) is in my opinion a
step backward; it is not clear that SMTP email as we know it will
survive much longer, due to its design flaws making it so
susceptabile to abuse (spam). Also, emails can be ignored just as
easily as the submitted contents of a "contact us" form, so
practically speaking providing a real email address isn't
necessarily any better.
I am not a lawyer but I would think it incredibly unlikely that a
company which refused to put real email addresses on its web site
and instead insisted that people contact them via phone or web-based
contact form would get into trouble. They could easily argue that a
web contact form is "electronic mail". How often have you heard on
the tv or radio, "email us through our web site"? It grates, it's
annoying, it's a hassle.. but mandating SMTP in law I doubt was the
intention.
Cheers,
Andy
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