The Consumer Contracts (Information, Cancellation and Additional Charges) Regulations 2013 apply special rules to B2C distance contracts entered into via a website, as well as certain other contracts (not discussed here).
The Regulations, effective on 13 June 2014, replace the Consumer Protection (Distance Selling) Regulations 2000. See:
Whether you are purchasing legal forms and templates, seeking a medical diagnosis, getting insider information when choosing a school or university, or soliciting the opinions of product aficionados on a prospective purchase, there are many ways to get guidance and advice online - but what are the risks for those providing this guidance and advice?
Website operators facing defamation action over users’ posts can now rely on the new ‘website operator’ defence. To use the defence, the operator must comply with a prescribed process after receiving a notice of complaint about allegedly defamatory material posted online.
The defence follows increasing concerns about defamatory digital content posted by website users – particularly anonymous users. But a critical question is, just how useful and cost effective will the new defence be in practice?
What’s new?
Partnerships are an important part of many website marketing strategies, particularly content-based partnerships. Through such partnerships, a website operator can access the anonymous traffic, registered users and marketing lists of others. Just as important, an operator can gain access to original and relevant content for his or her own audience.
Cloud services reseller agreements seem to be in vogue. Enquiries about agreements for the resale of software-as-a-service systems keep cropping up in my inbox, and I've taken on several instructions in the past few weeks. Software vendors have long relied upon resellers to market and sell traditional software licences. Quite naturally, the reseller model is being extended to cloud services. But the legal issues – and the contract models - can be quite different. There are three different approaches that I have come across, and another one that I haven't seen in the wild, but that should work in the right circumstances.