Registering a Website in Compliance with Legal Requirements

If you wish to own a website, whether or not you use it to advertise your business, product or other offering, the site must comply with the requirements of several legal acts.

The website should publish Terms of Use. They constitute a contract between you, as the administrator, and every user of the website’s services, and remain in effect until use of the service is discontinued.

When drafting the website’s Terms of Use, you should define some of the key terms to avoid divergent interpretations by the parties in the event of a dispute. Examples include “user” and “improper or unlawful conduct”.

If the site has a “Forum” section for discussions, the Terms of Use should expressly state that, as administrator, you are not liable for opinions expressed by users or for words they use if those words are obscene, discriminatory or similar.

Another important point is that materials published on your website are protected by the Copyright and Related Rights Act. These include literary works, poems, photographs, videos and other materials. The rights belong to the people who created them, unless they have transferred those rights to a third party. The economic rights in copyright mean that the author may use the work they created an unlimited number of times and may also authorise others to use it—for example, to reproduce or distribute it to multiple people or to present it publicly. Unauthorised use of copyright-protected materials published on your website is unlawful and may give rise to civil and criminal liability for the person responsible.

You should know that personal-data processing must comply with the Personal Data Protection Act. Disclosing information such as names, a personal identification number (EGN), a date of birth or a permanent address that was provided through a registration form is impermissible under the law and constitutes an infringement that may also result in liability. Personal information may be disclosed where the user has entered it personally in fields designated as public in the registration form and on the page. The information you obtain may be provided for statistical processing so that advertisers can be informed about the website’s visitor numbers.

Of course, many other clauses should be included in the website’s Terms of Use. To ensure that they are properly drafted and comply with the law, you should seek legal assistance from a lawyer qualified in this area.