EU law requirements to provide information to website visitors

This is the first of a planned series of articles considering the EU’s limited harmonisation of the laws regulating the activities of businesses using the Internet. This first article considers five key EU directives, all of which require website operators to provide a variety of information to website visitors. We consider the circumstances in which the various requirements apply and the information that must be provided, to simplify the process of navigating through rules which, although similar in nature, arise from disparate sources. We consider data privacy and “ePrivacy” rules; consumer protection rules arising in the field of e-commerce; and rules protecting potential creditors dealing over the Internet with limited liability companies.