Hi Dad

Really cool looking star-wars inspired graffiti thang. I do like a bit of street art :-)

Featured on Flickr under the title “Hi Dad” [via: ViralMedia] probably done by Banksy

FYI for '07 - Stuff That Must Be On Your Site

Companies in the UK must include certain regulatory information on their websites and in their email footers before 1 January 2007 or they will breach the Companies Act and risk a fine.

Every company should list its company registration number, place of registration, and registered office address on its website as a result of an update to the legislation of 1985. The information, which must be in legible characters, should also appear on order forms and in emails. Such information is already required on "business letters" but the duty is being extended to websites, order forms and electronic documents.

The change is being made by a Statutory Instrument that is expected to be passed on Thursday to implement a European law, the First Company Law Amendment Directive, into UK law. According to a Department of Trade and Industry spokesperson, the law will take effect on 1 January, one day later than the Directive requires.

The information is likely to appear in the footer of every email sent from a company, to avoid having to decide whether each email amounts to a "business letter" or not. Many companies do this already because the term "business letters" was thought likely to include emails even without this new clarification.

For websites, contrary to the fears of some, the specified information does not need to appear on every page. Again, many websites will already list the required information, perhaps on their "About us" or "Legal info" pages.

The Ecommerce Regulations, passed in 2002, require that certain information is listed on a website, including, "where the service provider is registered in a trade or similar register available to the public, details of the register in which the service provider is entered and his registration number, or equivalent means of identification in that register".

That has been understood as including the company registration number and place of registration. The Ecommerce Regulations also required a note of "the geographic address at which the service provider is established" – which many have taken to mean the registered office address.

However, the wording in the Ecommerce Regulations is ambiguous compared to the new provisions. Further, many organisations' sites currently omit the information, perhaps making the mistake of thinking that the Ecommerce Regulations do not apply to websites that do not sell online (in fact they apply to almost all websites).

Information that must be on your website

The following is the minimum information that must be on any company's website (from OUT-LAW's guide, The UK's Ecommerce 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.

• If a company, the company's registration number should be given and, under the Companies Act, the place of registation should be stated (e.g. "XYZ Enterprises Limited is a company registered in England and Wales with company number 1234567")
• If the business is a member of a trade or professional association, membership details, including any registration number, should be provided.
• If the business has a VAT number, it should be stated – even if the website is not being used for e-commerce transactions.
• Prices on the website must be clear and unambiguous. Also, state whether prices are inclusive of tax and delivery costs.

Finally, do not forget the Distance Selling Regulations which contain other information requirements for online businesses that sell to consumers (B2C, as opposed to B2B, sales). For details of these requirements, see our guide, The Distance Selling Regulations - An Overview.

For help with email notices, such as disclaimers, see OUT-LAW's guide on Email notices.

Copyright © 2006, OUT-LAW.com

OUT-LAW.COM is part of international law firm Pinsent Masons.

New Derbyshire Local Site

Just finished working on an new version on UKPlus, my current baby.

It's now got nice new local Derbyshire pages and loads of other regions rolling out soon. Thumbs up to John (big gun) J and The Badger for all their hard work. Birmingham, Liverpool etc. are up and running today. Go click.

People who use the site regularly have already begun moaning that we're giving them the option to have usable, manageable, accessible, hyper-local search/content delivered from a regional perspective and not just the 2D search we used to barf up.

My life is a carnival of thrills.

Commentary Flap

When a local rag, the Surrey Comet, posted an article on pigeon culling on it's website they probably never thought it was draw this much attention - this is story commentary at it's finest :-)

R2-4gb

This is nice. Mimoco (home of the ultra-trendy mimbots) has a pre-order yule special on. Star Wars mini USB falsh drives, up to 4gb, at none too many pennies. Very cool.

I do like my portable data storage and, if the wife is reading this, I'll have an R2 please ;-) Who am I kidding. Anyway she's investing in virtual SL real estate for me for Jesus's birthday. She's so damn cool.

Yellow Card for Motorists

Check this project from fellow cyclist Pete Miller. Nice one geezer :-)

"This magnet was tossed onto your car by a cyclist who felt that you might have been driving in a way that could have endangered their life.

They chose to toss this magnetic note because it can neither damage your automobile, nor affix itself to rubber or glass and will therefore not affect your driving. It serves to warn you.

With thoughtful contemplation and reverence for humanity, we can adjust our behaviour to allow for all people to live life.

This is a yellow card, let’s please not let things get to Red."

Very cool idea. Very good. Very worthy :-)