Internet law guide to help get manufacturing SMEs online

SMEs have good reason to be fearful. Internet law across Europe represents a patchwork of varying standards. Even where European directives exist, the national regulations implementing the directive vary from country to country, explains Margaretha Mazura, initiator of the EU-funded Lektor project. “Fear of legal problems is one of the main reasons why SMEs are slow to launch Internet-based services, from e-commerce to online marketing,” she says. “It is vital for SMEs to know what regulations apply to which country, to respect them, and then to adjust their cash flow to reflect their obligations.” Enter the Lexelerator, Lektor’s free online Web 2.0 information source for legal information around the Internet. “Web 2.0 refers to the sharing, collaboration and interactivity typical in many of the most successful online services that have launched in recent years,” says Mazura. The EU project created the platform using an open source content management system called Drupal, because, she says, it allows levels of access for different users. Regular surfers, from consumers to SMEs, can read all of the information. However, registered users have more input. They can apply tags, contribute to forums and add comments to the blogs. “We check contributors manually, using our panel of experts around Europe, to establish that the contributor has a sufficient level of expertise to write an article on internet law,” stresses Mazura. She says that Lektor is keen to promote the service, which has already been presented at the eJustice conference. It will next be presented at a conference of the World Intellectual Property Organisation in Geneva, later this year.