UK Financial Services - legality issues

C

ctabuk

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Hi, my first time here, I tried to make a new post, but the click through on New Post did not work, what am I doing wrong please?

OK I have been listed on DMOZ for two years now under the search term 'Right to Buy' - with the exception of www.triaglems.co.uk who are under construction both www.council-right-to-buy-mortgages.co.uk and www.box-tree.co.uk are and have been for ages giving out wrong, or basically illegal information. How do DMOZ editors learn about the legality of UK Financial Services? The UK Mortgage Industry is now run by the Financial Services Authority and unless you comply with the rules and regulations you are in breach of the law. So what are your thoughts?
 
nea

nea

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I don't know why starting a new thread didn't work for you - I split this post off into its own thread.

A UK-based editor may be able to give you a better response for the specific case; in general, the ODP guidelines state that for a web site to be stopped on grounds of legality, the content must be illegal under the laws of the relevant country. Hence, to take an example, a site describing how to use an illegal drug could be legal in itself, as long as it doesn't describe how to get hold of the drug.

Many editors are - understandably - very unhappy about listing web sites that give out wrong or misleading information, but as long as the sites are not illegal there is nothing to prohibit them from being listed. I can't say anything about the legality issues of this particular situation, though.
 
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hutcheson

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I think in the UK it is illegal to give out false company information on a website: is this the gist of the complaint?
 
andysands

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If they are breaking FSA rules - that's for the FSA not us, we just list sites - we can't expect editors to know the nuances of financial law.

See:

http://www.fsa.gov.uk/consumer/pdfs/complaint.pdf

For information on determining whether a complaint is in the FSA's remit.

I am pretty sure we won't remove a site unless you can provide evidence that it is breaking the law.

A direct link to the relevant piece of legislation on an authoritative UK government site, together with a link to the page on the offending website that is contravening the legislation might allow us to take such an action - but it would have to be clear that it was breaking the law.

Generally legal issues are escalated to ODP staff to look into. Editors aren't expected to have to deal with them.

See guidelines here:

http://dmoz.org/guidelines/include.html#illegal
 
C

ctabuk

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Fsa

Firstly thank you NEA for setting up this thread. To Hutcheson - yes - basically that is it, to andysands, you have hit the nail on the head, how can editors be expected to spot rogue sites. We have been debating this on WebProWorld in the feature 'Gone From Google', over there I'm ctabuk, it is in the main SE topics. If you would care to take a look it might show what all forums are going to eventually tackle within the UK Financial Services Market. I would love to know your thoughts. Regards David
 
G

Guernsey

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From the grave :)

Hi ctabuk

I used to edit UK/BE/FS and was responsible for it for about 2 years or so. The difficulty I had, like you, was that there were clearly sites that broke a myriad of FSA guidelines.

Just to back up what the guys have said. "We list sites" and are certainly not the Internet Police, as much at it may irk those that edit in specific areas and have knowledge of compliance issues.

As andysands pointed out as volunteer editors if someone is certain that a website is breaking the law it is incumbent upon them to evident that information and pass it on to what was staff@dmoz.org . If you have the time and patience for that then go for it. Even then, it's not necessarily the case that the site would be removed.

Things may have changed since the last time I was editing

Good luck
 
C

ctabuk

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Hi, I've e- mailed it over, thanks, Christmas in Guernsey - lucky you

Regards


David
 
C

ctabuk

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Financial Services Act

Dear Dmoz Editors, how often do you check your approved sites?
The reason I ask is that under the search term 'Right to Buy' www.council-right-to-buy-mortgages.co.uk has top billing, but is basically illegal as it shows no reference to the Financial Services Act and therefore should be removed forthwith, the second listing Trianglems is 'Under Construction' and has been for months, the only legal site is mine CTAB - I trust you will deal with this, thank you
 
nea

nea

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Just for reference: council-right-to-buy-mortgages.co.uk is listed in http://dmoz.org/Regional/Europe/United_Kingdom/Business_and_Economy/Property/Information/ and www.trianglems.co.uk was listed in http://dmoz.org/Regional/Europe/Uni...shire/Business_and_Economy/Financial_Services ; I unreviewed it as it is indeed under construction. Thanks. (To be listed "under the search term such-and such" has no meaning for us; we need to know the category. The order of listing within the categories is with few exceptions alphabetical, and we don't rank sites)
 
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motsa

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The reason I ask is that under the search term 'Right to Buy' www.council-right-to-buy-mortgages.co.uk has top billing, but is basically illegal as it shows no reference to the Financial Services Act and therefore should be removed forthwith
Click to expand...
As noted earlier in this thread, we are not the Internet police and do not remove sites for not complying with a particular set of industry or government regulations.
 
Alucard

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As this is a public forum, anyone can be referred to the contents, and you are welcome to do the referring.

If the site is doing something illegal, then it is the site owners who should be contacted. The ODP tries to catalogue the Internet and, has been said before, neither polices it, nor judges sites according to possible local legal requirements.

If the site were to be brought down for legal reasons, then we would have no further reason to list it.

Hope this clarifies.

Cheers
 
C

ctabuk

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I can see your point, and yes I have referred it to the FSA. The point that I have been trying to make is this. DMOZ does a great job in assisting aspiring webmasters to get their sites listed in the big G - but Editors being asked to look at and appraise sites that come within the UK Financial Services Act need a reference point and that point of call is at enquiries@fsa.gov.uk
All they need do is ask if the site content is legal. Now is that asking too much?
By the way trianglems is still listed.
 
jimnoble

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Now is that asking too much?
Click to expand...
Yes, it really is.

Most industries have various laws and guidelines. This is a truly international organsation and there's absolutely no way you could expect an editor living in Japan working on a directory hosted in the US to take heed of UK ones.

It's up to industry regulators to regulate industry. We just list websites which we judge to the best of our abilities to contain unique and useful content. If a website goes away, we delist it.

I trust that you are having a similar discussion with BT to persuade them to remove the company from the phone book. If not, why not?
 
andysands

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DMOZ does a great job in assisting aspiring webmasters to get their sites listed in the big G - but Editors being asked to look at and appraise sites that come within the UK Financial Services Act need a reference point and that point of call is at enquiries@fsa.gov.uk
All they need do is ask if the site content is legal. Now is that asking too much?
Click to expand...

Yes it is too much. :) We are not the FSA. The FSA's job is to police the compliance of UK financial businesses with their regulations. Their staff are paid to do that and trained to do that. Our editors donate their time for free and do not have time (and probably do not have the inclination) to analyse sites for whether they comply with this or that code of practice.

If the FSA want to close down a site because it contravenes their regulations, then presumably they can do so via the UK legal system.

If a site is shut down, its content will not be accessible by anyone, regardless of who links to it.

At some point thereafter our automated robots will remove the site listing from the public copy of the directory automatically as soon as the links go 403/404.

Hosting a link to a site is not the same as hosting the content of that site. It is the content that contravenes the FSA rules, and therefore the content host who should be (and presumably will be) held responsible for removing the content upon being contacted by the FSA.

http://www.trianglems.co.uk/ has been removed for being under construction as of today.

Kind Regards,

Andy
 
nea

nea

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By the way trianglems is still listed.
Click to expand...
Check the "last updated" date of the category - you may be looking at a cached version of the page. It frequently takes a few days for all the public servers to update.
 
H

hutcheson

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Yeah, that's asking too much. We aren't the internet police.

The UK FSA folk are welcome to visit our categories periodically, and make whatever checks they think appropriate. When they take the sites down, we'll take the listing down.

Think of us as information gatherers, not as enforcers. And feel free to use our information any way you please.

Fair enough?
 
O

oneeye

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If an editor knows beyond doubt that a site is breaking the law they probably wouldn't approve it (though they may not reject it either, it depends). Many such sites will often breach other DMOZ guidelines in any case. Outside the UK, real estate licensing is often an issue (the UK being notably unregulated in this industry) - in some places details of the license must be displayed on the site, that is the law. But if I can verify that the site belongs to a bone fide agent by other means then I don't worry about the license information. But it makes me check, and sometimes it turns out that the "agent" and the site are a scam, and in that case I don't list. If it is a scam then they don't really have property to sell and therefore there is no quality content on the site, just a bunch of pictures of no relevance. Credibility is important - is it credible that a site hosted in Tonga registered to a Canadian is selling property in Chile using a hotmail.co.uk account and an Australian cellphone.
 
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