Creation, design, development and installation of a website on the Internet consist of a series of technical and technological activities in the field of information technology. The questions that are most often asked when designing a website include issues related to the specific purpose of the website is, type of the design it contains, content which will be published, as well as what functionalities the website users will have. The purpose of the website can be various, it can be a blog, then it can be intended for selling products and providing services, communicating with other users, exchanging various contents, etc.
IT experts play a key role in the development and creation of website content. However, when creating and placing a website on the Internet, the requirements of compliance with legal regulations must not be ignored. There are certain documents that a website must consider in order to comply with legal regulations and to avoid that the entity managing the website is involved in violation of the rights of website users and third parties. This primarily refers to the General Terms of Use and the Privacy Policy, but depending on the content of the website, these can also be documents that regulate the alternative dispute resolution mechanism, the Policy for Returning Goods and Funds (if it is an online store), Policy and Notice on Cookies, which are relevant from the point of view of personal data protection, Intellectual Property Rights Management Policy, etc. The obligations that the website owner has can be classified into those related to information technology law, personal data protection, intellectual property protection (primarily copyright and trademark), consumer protection, and regulatory requirements if certain business activities are carried out through the website. It is equally necessary to provide users of the website with certain information about the entity that manages the website (the so-called Impressum). There are, furthermore, certain other obligations that entities that manage the website must fulfil, with the fact that they primarily depend on nature and content of the website itself.
The issue of compliance of the website with legal regulations is especially relevant if the entity that manages the website sells goods or provides services to persons from the European Union, in which case the regulations of the European Union regarding the compliance of the website are also applied, especially from the aspect of personal data protection.
Sanctions for non-compliance with the obligation to comply with the relevant laws depend on whether the violation of the obligation qualifies as a civil delict, a misdemeanour or a criminal offense, and are usually financial in nature and are reflected in the obligation to compensate for damages and fines. The amount of the fine can sometimes be very high, so, for example, a fine of up to 100,000.00 BAM can be imposed for the violation of obligations from the Law on the Protection of Personal Data. Regarding the issue of sanctions, it is important to emphasize that if the owner of the website also conducts business activities towards the citizens of the European Union, the sanctions may be significantly higher, and in addition, high costs of administrative and judicial proceedings before the Union authorities may arise. For all the above reasons, it is very important that the owner of the website familiarizes with all the rights and obligations in the digital environment, and that the same aligns its actions with the regulations in order to avoid negative consequences and potential sanctions from the competent authorities.
Author: Igor Letica
E-mail: [email protected]
