Creating your French business website
Even on the internet, regulation can differ from country to country. As such, if you’re a foreigner wanting to create a website for your French company, here are the things you need to look out for.
Choosing a domain name
Of course, you can’t choose a domain name that is already taken by another website. That much is obvious.
However, you should make sure that you register your domain name to the right institutions: in France, you always at least need to register it to the AFNIC, and if it is a commercial website, then you also need to register it to the CNIL and CCI.
Regulation and obligations
To create a website, there are also a few obligations you need to keep in mind:
- Even you’re not the one who created the website, as the legal representative of your company, you’re fully responsible for all of its legal obligations
- You must always make sure that all of the sound effects, music, text or images used on your website are free of copyrights. Otherwise, you could get sued.
- If your website is collecting data, you need to report it to the CNIL, and make sure you follow the rules laid out by the GDPR and Loi Informatique et Liberté (Informatics and Freedom Law)
- Commercial websites also need to follow the rules for commercial websites
- You must also make sure that your website has a “legal notices” section, which mentions the owner of the website
