If my company is not on the Internet... does it not exist?

We live in the digital age, with just one click we have all the information we want (and need). The Internet is a great showcase for our products, services and business ideas . And a quick and easy way to find what we are looking for.

Does that mean that if my company is not on the Internet, it does not exist? Well, for your regular and regular customers, yes, but for potential customers... I highly doubt it .

A good website has to have (if web developers allow me) four essential blocks:

• Programming
• Design
• Content
• Legal aspects

Have you checked your website lately to see if it complies with these four blocks? Throughout our professional career we have come across many, many websites that do not meet these four requirements and, to be honest, most failed in legal aspects . And it is that, from our point of view, it is the most critical (and important) element of these four , since if you do not have a well-programmed, functional website; with a good simple but striking design (although for tastes colors); or with content that is easily accessible and updated from time to time; therefore, you will not incur an economic sanction.

But if it is not regulated correctly with a good legal notice, which includes a description of the owner of the website, conditions of use, company registration... or with a privacy policy that includes the treatment of the data collected, exercise of rights, confidentiality... or a cookie policy with information on the first and second layer, consent, detailed description of the cookies... or (in the case of e-commerce websites) with sales conditions specifying prices, terms of delivery, returns, alternative resolution of consumer disputes... then, we may incur in a violation of the LOPD (Organic Law 15/1999, of December 13, Protection of Personal Data) and/or the LSSICE ( Law 34/2002, of July 11, on Services of the Information Society and Electronic Commerce).

And the lowest penalty is €900.

“Okay, I look on the Internet for a website similar to mine, I copy and paste its policies and I am already complying.”

Well, it's going to be no. Surely you will not have noticed that you have copied and pasted the name of the owner of the other website (we have seen it "hundreds and hundreds" of times); or that you have pasted its list (if it has one) of cookies and that (logically) they are not the same ones that are installed when visiting your website; that their privacy policy is not the same as yours (they collect resumes, you don't); or directly, you have left the XXXX where you had to put your company name or CIF (true story).

Do not risk it, contact professionals who can help you have a good website, since this will be the image that your clients and potential clients see without having to go to your office .

And I recommend that, when you find your web developers , go to the Internet, look for them, take a look at their website and see if they meet the four basic requirements of Programming-Design-Content-Legal Aspects.

Especially the legal aspects...

Idaira Hernandez Peraza

Director of Consultants Peraza & Asociados, SL


Photo source: Google Images tagged for reuse