Current marketing wisdom is to publish a newsletter. It will encourage traffic to your website, it will keep customers in touch with you and keep you in their minds as a good call for assistance when the need arises.

We recommend a few legal niceties to include in your newsletter to keep the publication on the right side of commercial law, make you look more professional and protect your intellectual property.

• State the name of the publisher, even if it is an in-house production.
• Date the publication, it may include advice or opinions that can go out of date.
• State your full company name, registration number, country of registration and registered office address.
• If you distribute your newsletter by email, include an easy link for recipients to unsubscribe.
• Include a copyright notice and explain which of your taglines and images you consider to be your trademarks. Note however that it is an offence to claim that they are registered trade marks unless they are!
• If your services include providing advice, include a disclaimer to point out that the articles in the newsletter should not be construed as specific advice as individual circumstances may vary.

To subscribe to our monthly Data Protection and ecommerce newsletter follow this link.

A landmark website accessibility case in the US involving Target.com rumbles along. For anyone not aware of this case, Target has a website that is not accessible to blind users.

The NFB (the US National Federation for the Blind) and a blind internet user brought a case against Target. The court has so far ruled that:

• the website is inaccessible to blind users and
• a class action may be brought.

Target now argues that it has made improvements to its website to improve accessibility and requested the court to declare the continuing legal case "moot" ie of no import. The judge refused to make such a ruling because, she pointed out, accessibility aspects of the website have been improved but there are still problems and, as new pages are added daily, the problems persist.

This case could have ramifications for UK based businesses as websites are accessible worldwide. Compliance with the Disability Discrimination Act 1995 requirements in the UK should be sufficient, but how many businesses are absolutely sure that their website meets UK standards?

Mandy Webster

Data Protection Consulting