ODCE issues new rules for electronic communications

The Office of the Director of Corporate Enforcement (ODCE) has issued new regulations that apply to limited liability companies that operate websites or engage in electronic communications. The new requirements, which take effect from 1 April, oblige all limited liability companies to display certain information on their sites and in emails, including the name of the company, the company's legal form, place of registration, registration number and address of registered office. "Companies will need to ensure that by 1 April their websites disclose all the necessary information," said Director Paul Appleby. "In addition, companies may need to look at the information contained in their emails and other electronic forms of communication to ensure it also complies with these new requirements." For more details visit the ODCE website. Look out for coverage of what the new regulations will mean for SMEs in the next issue of eBusiness Live.

Irish firms score poorly in search results

Irish companies are failing to take advantage of search engine optimisation and are doomed to languish low down the page in search results rankings. A new survey, conducted on behalf of digital media services firm Captivate Digital, found more than half of leading Irish firms don't appear in the top five results in search engines based on a simple keyword search in their category. The study indicates that despite spending heavily, many Irish organisations are failing to achieve their aim of coming top in search results. "The results show that many leading Irish companies face considerable challenges in raising the profile of their products and services on search engines," said John Dunne, director of Captivate Digital. "Our survey shows that the importance of having a strong search strategy is critical, otherwise it's a case of 'out of sight, out of mind'." For more on this story see ENN.ie.

European firms fear data loss

Twenty-two percent of companies in Europe believe they will have to deal with a "major data loss" of some sort every year for the next five years. That's according to a survey of 500 IT managers by security firm Symantec, which shows that fears of security breaches are running twice as high among IT professionals in the EMEA region than those in the US. Breaking it down, 66 percent of respondents said they expect a major regulatory incident at least once every five years, with 58 percent concerned about a major data loss caused by either a data centre outage, corruption of data or breach of security systems over the same five-year period. In general, the IT professionals who participated in the study rated themselves as more effective in deploying technology than implementing process controls in managing IT security risk. For more on this story read The Register.

UK firms fail to protect online business

A third of medium-sized firms in the UK do not have a disaster recovery plan in place for their website, according to research commissioned by managed services firm NetBenefit. Of the 67 percent of companies that do have plans in place to guard against threats such as viruses or unpredicted spikes in traffic, only 38 percent test their plans more than once a year. The research also highlights that a large number of mid-sized companies are underestimating the effect downtime can have on their business: 64 percent anticipated no damage or only 'slight' damage to their business if their website were to go down for a whole day. The fact that nearly three-quarters of mid-sized UK firms now conduct business through their website compounds the seriousness of the figures, NetBenefit said. "While many companies go to great lengths to protect their physical assets with burglar alarms and other security devices, they do little or nothing to protect their vital, online business," said Jonathan Robinson, chief operating officer at NetBenefit. For more on this story read Sourcewire.com.

Making more of your site with online partners

Cybercrime: are you prepared for an attack?

Interview: Owen O'Connor

Make your office greener

21 March, Royal Hospital Kilmainham, Dublin
This event promises to bring together search marketing professionals, business owners who have successfully implemented search, ad agencies and all parties interested in using search marketing. Attendees will be shown how to create, implement, monitor and track search marketing campaigns, how to improve existing campaigns and how to design websites that are naturally search engine friendly. The event is aimed at marketing professionals, business owners, web designers and developers, online journalists, content writers and media buyers.

Snap is a search engine with a difference. In a departure from the text-based search results delivered by the big search engines, Snap offers a visual display of results as well as the usual text display. By splitting the screen in two, a preview of each webpage can be presented alongside a list of suggested results. Snap calls this "fast browsing" and claims that it makes searching much quicker and more productive by eliminating a lot of the guesswork that is involved when searching the internet.