Pictured above: Norman Robertson Smith, partner, MGF Solicitors

Website owners need to ensure everything they post on the internet can be relied upon otherwise they could find themselves caught in a tangled web of claim and counter-claim.

And, according to Norman Robertson Smith, a civil litigation partner at Midlands law firm MFG Solicitors, it may well prove very costly.

A general disclaimer might get you off the hook but it's better to keep the information accurate and up to date.

The confusion follows a dispute over a swimming pool, which landed a website in deep water.

Mr Robertson Smith said: "If you own a website which gives information to someone who visits it but the information turns out to be faulty, you may be liable for the consequences.

"The law has long been that if a person makes a statement or promise which turns out to be wrong or faulty in some way and someone else has relied on it, then the wronged party can bring a claim for negligence so long as it was reasonable for the individual to rely on the statement or promise in the first place.

"If the two of them entered a contract with each other on the strength of it, then the wronged party may be able to claim compensation for misrepresentation or to get out of the contract altogether.

"So why should the situation be any different in the case of a website which gives faulty information?"

It is not, according to the Court of Appeal in a recent case involving someone who wanted to have a swimming pool built in his garden.

Not knowing anything about swimming pools, he looked on the internet to find an approved contractor to fit his pool. He spotted the trade association for swimming pool contractors, pinpointed on their website a local contractor and arranged for him to do the installation.

"But the contractor was not up to the job, failed to complete the work and then went out of business," said Mr Robertson Smith.

"So the customer sued the trade association, saying their website had led him to believe that the contractor was sound and competent and above all that if the contractor did not do a proper job, the association would find another member who would put it right at no extra cost.

"The court decided that it was perfectly reasonable for a customer to have relied on what the website told him. After all, what was the purpose of having an information page on a website if the public could not rely on it?"

Nevertheless, the judges decided that the complaint could not be upheld. They decided that the website had to be looked at as a whole and merely checking out the home page and using the information there was not enough. The householder might have been expected to explore further, should have looked deeper, and, if he had, discovered that the contractor was not guaranteed by the trade association after all.

However, one of the judges disagreed.

She decided people would expect to rely on the association's information page, and so it had to be accurate.

Having said that, the customer could and should have made more inquiries of his own and so the amount of compensation he might achieve would have to be greatly reduced because of this contributory negligence.

"So the result is that if you own a website and the public have access to it and it contains wrong information, you may be liable for the consequences," said Mr Robertson Smith.

"But a general disclaimer or added advice that information ought to be checked out separately may be enough to get the website owner off the hook."