|
"The legal world is beginning to catch up with technological developments," Shaun O'Shea, head of Beauchamps' IT and e-commerce unit said. "In the last few months a lot of new legislation has been introduced. That's why a lot of companies will need legal advice about their e-commerce."
Growonline.ie will provide information about domain name registration, cybersquatting, hosting agreements, intellectual property issues and on-line contracts.
Many e-businesses are unaware of the possible legal problems they could encounter, O'Shea claimed. "A lot of people have been guilty of not being careful. Many new companies were in a hurry and only considered the legal problems when the problems occurred."
A recent survey in the UK claimed that many on-line business ventures are leaving themselves open to risks because they fail to consider legal issues involved with trading on-line. The survey, which was carried out by Landwell and PricewaterhouseCoopers found that 40 percent of respondents supplying to the UK market failed to limit their own liability. In the case of international suppliers, 25 percent did not even know what steps should have been taken to limit liability.
One fifth of the e-commerce ventures surveyed had taken no advice on the enforceability of their on-line contracts and more than a third failed to consider the liabilities arising from linking with other Web sites and allowing users to post comments on their sites.
The Growonline.ie Web site is a marketing tool for Beauchamps that serves to highlight the importance of legal advice and underlines Beauchamps' know-how. "But it's not just an advertisement, because the information is also useful on its own," O'Shea told ElectricNews.Net.
He added, "Disputes are increasingly making headlines and businesses need to pay attention to the rapidly changing regulatory and legal environment. In recent months alone there have been a number of significant pieces of legislation which impact on how businesses are expected to trade online, yet awareness is still low. To assist businesses Beauchamps' IT and e-commerce unit has decided to launch Growonline.ie."
The Growonline.ie Web site will be promoted during the E-Ireland exhibition in the RDS in Dublin from September 28 until September 30.
For more information visit http://www.growonline.ie
|
