With it becoming increasingly difficult to protect your reputation online, our legal experts have created 10 top tips for ensuring you have the best website in the world – legally speaking.
#1 – Register your trade mark
Whether it is your company name, domain name or the name of your business (they might all be the same), we strongly recommend that you register your key brand or brands. A trade mark registration is a powerful tool which creates a monopoly and greatly increases your options in the event that somebody else misuses your brand or sets up using a similar or identical brand.
#2 – Take responsibility for the content on your site
Make sure that the ownership of all the content on your site can be traced. Do you have permission to use it? Make sure you control user generated content as well, because you will be liable for this.
#3 – Comply with the Advertising Standards Authority’s codes
Ensure that all statements on your website are honest and, where capable of being proven, you have the evidence to hand. Statements which are capable of being proven include statements such as “we are the best”. Ensure also that all social media posts you’ve asked or encouraged third parties to make are clearly marked so that users can tell that they are a form of advertising.
#4 – Make your terms engaging
People do not want to read reams of small font legalese – under recent legislation, those terms are much less likely to be enforceable too. Make your terms bold and upfront. Ensure they reflect the ethos of your business. Consider also using your terms as a selling tool: you can highlight the types of services or products which are not covered and offer them as a bolt-on. Finally, do not hide your terms and conditions – if people aren’t aware of them, they won’t be enforceable.
#5 – Cancellations
Many online reputational issues arise from the way businesses deal with cancellations. Remember that you have a duty to mitigate your loss. Be wary also of penalty clauses (e.g. non-refundable deposits). Remember that you can only retain the profit element of cancelled services.
#6 – If you sell goods or services online, comply with the Consumer Rights Act 2015
Make sure you are clear about prices, who the seller is, timescales of delivery etc. Also, remember that consumers can return many goods for no reason and be entitled to a refund – failure to have compliant terms can result in a 54 week statutory return period!
#7 – Conduct a cookie audit
If you are using cookies, make sure you provide people with a mechanism to opt into receiving cookies before they are installed and ensure you provide details of all cookies in your privacy policy. The legislation on the use of cookies is now well established and whether or not you are complying is immediately obvious to web users (including the Information Commissioners Office, who enforce the law).
#8 – Your web designer probably owns the copyright in your website
Check your agreements with any third party that created your website for you. Unless those agreements expressly, in writing, assign copyright in the website to you (including computer code, text, images and other media) then the third party that created those materials will continue to own them and you are only using them with their permission. If this is the case, you should attempt to get a formal assignment in place as soon as possible. Otherwise, if the developer ceases trading or withdraws their permission, you could find your website switched off overnight.
#9 – Use website terms and conditions of use on your site
These create a contract between you and visitors to your website. Although it might initially seem an odd idea – to legally contract with thousands of people – terms and conditions of use control what visitors can and cannot do whilst at your site. They can be a fantastic tool in helping you gain control of who links to your site, how you link to other people’s site and creating remedies in the event that people post malicious comments or take content from your site.
#10 – Keep an EyeOnline™
We offer a unique real-time monitoring service that continuously trawls the internet (including social media) for positive and negative mentions of your brand. We call it EyeOnline – a powerful algorithmic search that learns from what it sees, the results become more tailored to your preferences over time and capable of retrospectively analysing data trends to provide you with indicative patterns of online behaviour of advocates and detractors alike.