A Yorkshire web agency is warning that new government regulations mean that thousands of UK businesses are breaking the law every time they send an email, and could place extra burdens on the email network.
Harrogate, UK (PRWeb) January 28, 2007 -- A North Yorkshire website agency is warning that new government regulations could mean thousands of UK businesses are breaking the law every time they send an email. They also believe that the rules will create extra bandwidth costs for businesses with high volumes of email traffic.Since amendments to the Companies Act came into force on the 1st January, all emails must contain the same information found on a company letterhead.
The amendments state that all electronic communications must contain contact information including a full address, company registration number and VAT number where applicable.
The vast majority of companies are unaware of this. Every time they send an email, they are effectively breaking the law and could be subject to fines if the law is enforced.
Because most emails are very short this could also see the size of the average message increase considerable. This will increase the cost of using email and possibly place new strains on the system that delivers email - already struggling to deal with the volume of spam emails, which is estimated to comprise 50% of all traffic.
Rob Burns, managing director of www.9xb.com - a North Yorkshire web agency - said:
"When you think about the implications it's a bit mad and potentially very impractical. If the same rules apply to business text messages, most of which are limited to 160 characters, then its hard to see how this could work. One word emails expressing a simple thanks will become several lines long and the knock on effect in terms of bandwith could be immense when taking total traffic into account. Most people would say that finding ways to stop spam would be far more important but the government is spending time on trivial issues like this."
He went on:
"We would strongly recommend that businesses using email seek expert legal advise to find out what they need to do, or consult with their email provider or technical support to see if they can help."
Press Contact: Rob Burns
Company Name: 9xb
Email: email protected from spam bots
Phone: +4401423798484
Website: http://www.9xb.com
Press Release Source: EMediaWire