[thelist] hiding email addresses

[Lee Kowalkowski]

On 22/09/2008, Barry Woolgar <barry at burnthebook.co.uk> wrote:
> In an ideal world I'd agree, however in the UK at least, commercial websites
> can't get away with that. There was a change in the law (effective 1st Jan
> 2007) with the E-commerce Regulations _requiring_ certain information to be
> clearly available. To quote from out-law.com[1]:
>
> [1] http://www.out-law.com/page-7594

Has anyone actually seen the legal print?  I asked on here last year
(http://markmail.org/message/zqddl3ltu4v7oe5i) but got no reply.

Well, I did find this: http://www.opsi.gov.uk/si/si2002/20022013.htm,
it's all there in section 6.  It's been European law since 2002, but
was only effective in the UK since 2007, as you said.  But it only
applies to companies that can be construed as "information society
services".

The definition of which (http://www.legaltext.ee/text/en/X80043.htm),
states "Information society services must be entirely transmitted,
conveyed and received by electronic means of communication.", so that
does seem to rule out a good deal of traditional companies, and seems
quite a sensible law to have.

Conversely, it would seem unreasonable to force a "traditional
business" to have an email channel for business, just because they
have a brochure site to attract customers.

I'm still looking for a legal text that says all companies must do it.

-- 
Lee