Hi, I'm Heather Burns

Profession: Profession is a term that can only correctly be applied to certain learned or chartered callings: the law, medicine, the civil service, teaching, accountancy for example. Other callings, such as journalism, are trades. – Telegraph style guide

I ruffled a few feathers (who me?) when I said that there is no such thing as the web profession, and by extension, there is no such thing as the web professional.

I meant it literally.

Web design and development are trades which are open to anyone. There are no formal qualifications required, no fixed curriculum, and no accreditation processes. These low barriers to entry mean that the web industry remains loose, flexible, and unorganised.

That lack of organisation is also our industry’s greatest flaw. At a time of potentially catastrophic regulatory change, our industry is completely absent from the political processes which govern our trade. Nor are we speaking up as an industry to defend colleagues at risk of deportation after decades of legal residence.

There is another consequence of our stubborn refusal to organise as a profession.

For some, the web industry’s lack of professional organisation is an opportunity ripe for exploitation.

As I have noted in the past, anyone can buy a domain, set up a web site, use mildly controlling language, and claim – through that web presence alone – to possess some kind of authority over the web industry. At best, these web sites are harmless moneyspinners. At worst, these web sites can stray on the wrong side of the law.

We now have evidence of a faux industry body that hasn’t just strayed on the wrong side of the law, but has barreled through it with a juggernaut.

IWDRO: fake industry body, fake claims, fake clients

Today Darren at the Smallbizgeek blog has published the results of an investigation he has conducted for several months into a for-profit business soliciting web designers and developers into membership of a lead generation scheme. There is strong evidence that many of the “leads” are in fact what jobseekers know as ‘fishing vacancies’: fake opportunities posted to the site to get people registered. As you will see, the dozens of members he spoke with – some of whom were all but harassed into joining the scheme – have gained nothing from their membership dues other than the cynicism borne of a lesson learnt.

Where this got interesting from the legal perspective is that the business running the scheme has been openly claiming to be the official industry regulator of the web design and development professions within the UK.

This was not said as a slip of the tongue in a sales pitch. This was their core marketing strategy.

But don’t take it from me. Take it from Patrician In A Suit.

This video was on YouTube. They pulled it on 18 November after Darren’s blog post went live. I knew they were going to pull it, so I downloaded and saved it in advance. Here it is.

(Technically, downloading a YouTube video is not legal, if the pot would like to accuse me of making tea with my black kettle.)

(That’s the very model of industry diversity saying “Welcome to the Internet Web Site and Development Regulatory Office. The IWDRO is THE regulatory office governing internet based commerce and associated industry services.” [As we say in Glasgow, are you f**k.] “The IWDRO work with companies and consumers in a regulatory capacity to provide accreditation for those companies who meet standards within the industry and are committed to working toward a code of conduct that ensures good and ethical practices.” [No you don’t.] )

Who is this guy? He’s not connected to the company. I know this because, bizarrely, I happened to spot him in an advert for Haribo. It’s an actor.

Outside the lead generation scheme, this for-profit business does not carry out any of the activities you would associate with a regulator, such as accreditation and recertification. (What sort of accreditation could they possibly do? Validate your code?)

Their organisational values page, which claims “we operate in a transparent and consistent manner with professionalism as a priority” and “we make certain that all internal and external communications are accountable, consistent, timely and transparent”, is playground guff, not a statement of legally binding regulatory obligations.

They do have a membership Code of Conduct which, considering their own behavior, reads as a bit of a piss-take.

Another difference between this outfit and a legitimate regulator is that the business does not act as an advocate, as legitimate industry bodies do, within the legislative and political spheres. Unlike these groups, they are not travelling around the UK soliciting members’ input on digital and Brexit to feed up to Parliament and the Department for Exiting the EU. In a year of political upheaval for the digital industries, their social media accounts remain entirely self-promotional.

Screen cap from the IWDRO web site as of 9 AM on 17 November (after this article was published) showing their claim to be “the Regulatory Office governing internet based commerce, both in the UK and world-wide.”

Screen cap from the IWDRO web site as of 9 AM on 17 November (after this post was published) showing their claim to be “the only Regulatory Office governing suppliers of internet based commerce.”

What is remarkable is that this faux industry body has been exposed before. This post is the second search engine result for them. If that post is to be believed, this business is being run by an individual or individuals using multiple false identities. Yet rather than taking the hint, as is clear from the comments there and in Darren’s research, they have actually escalated. So much for operating in a transparent manner with professionalism as a priority.

There can be no other conclusion. Whatever this company’s true motivations are, they are using the term “regulator” to frighten aspiring digital workers into handing over their money.

It is as crass and shameful as that.

Who are these people?

So just who is behind the “UK’s only official regulator”? Is there anything in their personal or professional backgrounds which qualify them for a position of such weighty responsibility? What skills and values to they bring to the table? What inspired them to claim a position of authority over thee and me?

To answer these questions – due diligence, if you will – let’s take a look at IWDRO’s publicly available company records. What you’ll find will, as with everything connected to this shady operation, raise more questions than answers.

According to IWDRO’s Companies House filings, IWDRO is a private company limited by shares. There are 100 shares. 10 are held by Director One, and 90 shares are held by Director Two.

The company is registered under Standard Industrial Classification Code 84130, “regulation of and contribution to more efficient operation of businesses”, which certainly appears to be a corner of this woefully outdated taxonomy system which is ripe for abuse.

Looking again at the Companies House filings, we learn the company is a three man band: one Director (one), one Commercial Lawyer (two), and one Solicitor (three).

Director One: Simon/Chris/Chris/Chris

Olly has covered the identity of Director One in detail, including the suspicious crossover in ownership with a web design agency. (A cynic might suggest that the “lead generation” scheme’s main beneficiary is in fact the web design business he owns.) A comment on that post from someone approached by IWDRO, who then did some digging, says they discovered four different LinkedIn profiles using the same photo. These names have cropped up before in discussions about this organisation.

So right off the bat we have questions and problems that go way beyond professional qualifications for leadership. We don’t even know if we are dealing with one individual, two, three, four, or one individual and three sock puppets.

It gets worse.

Meet our other two “regulators”.

Director Two: International Man of Mystery

Our second IWDRO director is Barry. We know he’s 61, a Commercial Lawyer, British, and living in Malaysia. We also know he is the Majority Shareholder, a topic he’s rather prickly about.

That is all we know about him. And this is the damndest thing.

Do a search for him yourself. There is no footprint for him outside IWDRO. Nothing. No LinkedIn profile, no CV, no page on any law firm’s web site, no potted history of any background he might have in tech and web, no conference talks, no Github page (you see my point)…nothing.

This man does not exist outside IWDRO.

This is important. We need to know what these men think they have which qualifies them to have started a for-profit business claiming regulatory authority over your work and mine.

What we have so far is two directors who don’t just lack any moral or professional qualifications for leadership in a changing industry – we’re struggling to establish whether they exist at all or whether they are sock puppets or fake identities.

All we know of dear Barry is that in April of this year he sent this letter to Olly, who wrote the first blog post exposing IWDRO’s lead generation scam. It’s a legally bunk Cease and Desist order not worth the PDF it was printed on. (As it is, it was printed on Excello Law letterhead.) In the letter Barry repeats the claim – as a commercial lawyer, on a law firm’s letterhead – that “IWDRO is a reputable business, providing services to its members, which it regulates” (emphasis mine). It’s rather telling that Olly’s reply back to the legally invalid cease & desist letter generated no response.

Barry signed the letter “Director and Majority Shareholder”. That’s how he sees himself – not as a regulator, not as a leader, not as the shepherd of a scattered flock. Majority shareholder.

We would love to ask Barry to offer a statement to the contrary, but we have no way of contacting him. His contact information is given as c/o Excello Law. And again, he does not exist – not an email address, not a contact page on a law firm’s site, nothing – outside IWDRO’s company filings.

The Companies House filing lists him as “Commercial Lawyer”, however, he is not a registered solicitor in England or Wales, where IWDRO is registered, nor Malaysia, where he lives.

Whoever Barry is, or rather, if he even exists, there’s only one thing we can say for sure. This company exists solely to make it rain for him, and he would have gotten away with it if it wasn’t for you meddling kids.

Director Three, Tom: Solicitor/company secretary/narcissist

Everyone, meet Tom. Tom, meet an industry which would like to have a word or two with you.

Tom appears in this advertorial promoting the IWDRO which appeared on page 12, issue 239 of Web Designer Magazine. This was published sometime in 2015. Click to view full size.

Tom Sutcliffe is a partner at Excello Law. For what it’s worth, his background is sport, not tech. There are, believe it or not, quite a few tech-savvy solicitors – meaning lawyers who code, program, hack, develop, and encrypt – which more than qualifies them to advise on the everyday business issues facing designers and developers. He is not one of them.

According to the Web Designer advertorial, Tom is also keen on “supporting professional and ethical business”, so surely he won’t mind this little bit of transparency and due diligence.

You see, Tom Sutcliffe has been the IWDRO’s company secretary since January 2013.

He is also the owner of the IWDRO domain. I have never had a client ask me to use their lawyer for any of their domain contacts. He is the registrar, administrative, and technical contact.

In the advertorial he extols the virtues of the organisation. This was not the first time he did. Until last week, a professionally produced video of him at his previous law firm was available on YouTube and Vimeo. It has now been deleted. In the video he (the company secretary, a commercial lawyer), sitting in front of a shelf of self-nominated vanity awards, did the same sort of promotional spiel in support of the IWDRO despite the howling false claim in the company’s very name. If he was involved with IWDRO before he moved to Excello Law in late 2014, does that suggest that he brought the IWDRO with him?

This advertorial, really, is all about how the IWDRO idea works out really well for them. Now, you could ask why someone with a vested interest in the company is in the advertorial, as opposed to an actual designer or developer, or indeed, a happy IWDRO member. It’s not the only question you should be asking.

In the advertorial, which reeks of someone interviewing themselves with their own questions, there is this exchange:

Q. The IWDRO recently teamed up with Excello Law, business and commercial solicitors. How did you get involved with them?

A. The IWDRO engaged one of Excello’s commercial lawyers to assist with the legal issues arising when the concept was born a couple of years ago. The value added by this relationship went way beyond the provision of legal services and it became apparent that a good commercial lawyer thinks differently, and complements, an organisation with objectives like the IWDRO’s…

*sound clip of a record scratching*

Whoa whoa whoa hold on just a sec.

You do realise he’s talking about himself here?

He is the commercial lawyer who was engaged when the concept was born. He is the good commercial lawyer who thinks differently.

Darren and I put ourselves at legal risk to bring this story to you, but let me tell you this: we’re doing so because of people who have the chutzpah to kiss their own arses in the third person.

Kissing their own arses in the context of promoting a private for-profit company taking the industry I love for a ride.

Kissing their own arses while falsely claiming regulatory authority over an unregulated trade.

Kissing their own arses over their business idea that’s so brilliant it’s five figures in the red.

For what it’s worth, I was a company director once, very briefly, at a local social enterprise. I left after a matter of months when it became clear that the company was not what I had been told it was. All the promises about community development this and social inclusion that were a load of crap: it was one man’s vanity vehicle, a device to grab money and status within the Scottish third sector elite, and we directors were expected to rubber-stamp his narcissism. I smelled shite, called bullshit, and left.

What I didn’t do was facilitate some legal fudges in the business’s name, double down my efforts to expand the false representation, and stick my own face into their print ads.

Call that my code of conduct. But I am not a lawyer…

Back in Excello’s swish office in Liverpool – which is, of course, the IWDRO’s registered address – the advertorial was accompanied by a 50% discount on membership. What a desperate price cut on an allegedly essential service.

The IWDRO is offering 50% membership until June 28th 2015. Go to https://t.co/ZPxIlhyinC and enter the code WDJ50 pic.twitter.com/bIe1kXO4Xa

— WebDesignerMag (@WebDesignerMag) May 20, 2015

So there we have it. IWDRO is three men:

1. Someone who may be using sock puppets;
2. A greedy fake lawyer;
3. Someone who likes looking at awards and pictures of himself.

Ladies and gentlemen, your “official industry regulators.”

What the law says

I would encourage you to read Darren’s post and share it within your networks. From the legal perspective, pay attention to these sections within it:

The web profession has no official regulator.

No one, repeat no one, can claim regulatory authority over an unregulated trade. The web design and development industries are so immature (literally – we were only born in the 1990s) that we have yet to establish an industry body or trade organisation, much less create barriers to entry requiring regulatory approval for those working in the field.

“Regulator” is supposed to mean something.

Regulators have authority vested in them by a profession – and remember, the web industry is not a profession – which they receive in exchange for providing professionals with accreditation and the right to work. A legitimate regulator can remove someone from an industry and ban them from ever working in it again. No one can ban you from working in web development. The worst that this business can do is kick you out of their own club without refunding your membership fee.

Posing as a “regulator” is illegal under UK company law.

This company pastes a law firm’s logo into their header and onto every conceivable communication. There is no excuse for not knowing that posing as a regulator is illegal under UK company law, and there can be no other conclusion regarding their motives for promoting themselves as one. Who exactly appointed and approved them as 1) the UK’s 2) only 3) official 4) regulator? Absolutely no one. This goes way beyond pedestrian false advertising.

The use of the phrases “regulator” or “regulatory”

As this organisation’s possibly fake Malaysian lawyer well knows, “regulator” and “regulatory” are protected terms. You cannot just use them in a business’s name. The post provides screen grab evidence suggesting that this business knows they are using these terms unethically as well as illegally.

A Regulator Selling Job Leads?

Can you imagine, for example, the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons getting member GPs to pay them additional fees to bid for private sector contracts? An industry regulator selling job leads would create a situation where professionals could lose accreditation for failing to play the bidding game. Absolutely not.

So… Is There a Legitimate Web Dev Association?
No, and there is no excuse for that either. But that is our own fault, and no one else’s.

What can members do?

Some members will have joined this faux industry body thinking that being approved by an “official regulator” offered some sort of protection for their own business. Please be aware that if you have joined this or any other fake industry body making misleading claims in order to get the proverbial membership badge, you yourself are now engaging in false advertising. You should remove all links to them.

Do be aware, as you will read in Darren’s post, that this business does not remove the logos and listings of expired members from their roster, meaning you will continue to be affiliated with this group despite quitting your membership. In fact, if you want your listing removed, you have to pay to renew your membership.

But what of formal sanctions? That is up to you. Don’t feel ashamed to come forward. Nothing can happen to them unless you take action, so please report them to the authorities detailed at the bottom of Darren’s post.

Part of the ugly and difficult process of growing up as an industry is calling out those who would do it harm. For that reason I would like to personally thank Darren for the months of research he has put into making a real difference in his industry.

Now get reading, and get angry.

Postscript: Excello Law’s response

On 17 November I emailed Excello Law (the letter is in the comments). I wanted to know what they knew, when they knew it, and how it was even possible that a reputable commercial law firm could endorse a two-bit fake regulatory scam.

When Excello Law’s reply appeared in my inbox I was expecting a missive of arse-covering legalese or even a threat against myself. What I got was this.

As a result of that investigation, Excello Law’s logo disappeared from IWDRO’s company’s header.

I wrote back:

Thank you for your prompt attention to this matter.

However, I note that as of 9:08 AM on 21 November, the Excello Law logo still appears on the IWDRO’s “Iapproved” web site: http://iapproved.org/ which invites businesses to submit leads.

Lower down on the page is a testimonial from an alleged IWDRO customer. This has been identified (http://www.smallbizgeek.co.uk/proclaimed-web-industry-regulator-sells-low-quality-business-leads/#comment-285) as a false testimonial, in violation of the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008, and the “customer” has been identified as a stock photo.

In other words, Excello Law’s endorsement appears above yet another double violation of business law (the false testimonial and the illegal use of the word “regulator” in IWDRO’s name, clearly visible in the footer).

In the link above you will also see that IWDRO actively discussed their partnership with Excello Law in the context of false claims about negotiations with four different governments to recognise their “regulatory authority.”

We wish you the best of luck on your investigation today.

In the meantime we remain perplexed as to how the word “Regulatory” in IWDRO’s name did not catch the attention of a commercial law firm which has no excuse for not knowing better.

On 22 November I received a second email from Excello Law:

Obviously we can’t expect Excello to disclose what they discovered in their internal investigation, nor is their any point in asking.

However, it’s clear from those two letters that I hit a nerve.

I simply cannot imagine how it is possible that Excello Law was unaware of IWDRO’s claims and activities until I took the time to alert them. It is an incredible failure of due diligence if they genuinely had no clue.

On the other hand, if they were aware, it is something else entirely.

Postscript: the lies have stopped

As of December, thanks to Darren’s investigation, the IWDRO has redesigned their web site and seemingly repackaged their service operation.

They are now – wait for it – yet another garden variety pay-per-inclusion directory.

Yet another attempt to sell aspiring industry workers the notion of paying for exclusivity and validation.

Yet another sad and self-serving moneyspinner.

You could ask yourself Really? Is this all they’ve got? 

Then again, they never had anything to begin with. Banal Chamber of Commerce-style backslapping is all they are capable of achieving. Not representation, not advocacy, not professional development. You get a certificate on the wall and a pat on the head. Anyone thick enough to pay for that frankly deserves it.

The important thing is that all notions and claims of being a regulator – either the UK, worldwide, official, only, or otherwise – have been removed from the web site, as have all publicly visible links to Excello Law.

Additionally, IWDRO’s Facebook page has been deleted. Excello Law’s logo, however, remains in the header of IWDRO’s Twitter profile.

But has anything actually changed? Of course not. Their name, IWDRO, remains the same. An abbreviation of Internet Web Site Regulatory Office, a fudge which allows them to claim “we don’t have ‘regulator’ in our name” with a straight face. Their company officers, including the Excello Law solicitor and Barry the international man of mystery, remain in post. The lead generation machine roars on. They remain heavily in debt.

I will be keeping an eye on them and so can you.

In the meantime we still need members who joined the faux regulator based on the company’s false claims to report them to Action Fraud. You should be looking to get your money back. Members taken in by the notion of the partnership with Excello Law should also report the latter to the Legal Ombudsman.

This was not a victory

Getting these sleazy fake regulators to shut their greedy mouths may feel like a quick win.

However, the fact remains that our industry has never been more at risk than it is today.

Designers and developers are in the middle of a perfect storm of poorly drafted digital legislation, opaque political processes, and uninformed external attacks. We can now throw reactionary, racist, and authoritarian political currents on top of that.

More than ever, we need to come together as an industry and face these problems head-on. We need real organisations, real leadership, and real advocacy. We need people who are going to roll their sleeves up, get out from behind their keyboards, and strain every sinew to keep our industry alive.

What we don’t need is to have our time wasted by cowards hiding behind lies, shiny dashboards, and vanity awards.

We’ve got work to do.

There was a bit of chatter yesterday regarding yet another dubious outfit, promoting itself as an “official” web design and development industry body, phoning around looking for membership signups.

This organisation, and the people behind it, have history, and not in a good way. If these people showed up at a networking event, you would think less of the networking group. They’re that kind of outfit.

On a comment thread about this particular organisation, one person approached by them said:

“I am looking to join and agree, the badge seems appealing and will be useful.”

This is a common assumption for web professionals to make. After all, your clients and prospects will be impressed by a little badge in your footer noting an affiliation with an “official” web industry body, right?

Here’s why joining a dubious “web design and development organisation” to get a membership badge is an incredibly stupid idea that will come back to bite you.

Those badges are supposed to mean something. They imply that you have the backing of an organisation that has evaluated you against a set of professionally determined standards and principles. They imply that the organisation is also a fallback for clients of yours who are dissatisfied with your services.

Membership badges are not meant to be cosmetic, self-promotional sales tools that you get simply for handing over a few hundred quid to someone who cold called you pretending to have legal authority over an unorganised global profession.

Under UK trading standards law, promoting yourself as member of a business body which is not actually a business body is a form of false advertising:

It is also a breach of the Regulations generally to provide false or deceptive information that leads consumers to enter into contracts they would not otherwise have entered into – for example, a consumer contracting with a business only because he saw the logo of a trade association and therefore thought he would have additional protection if something went wrong.

In other words, let’s say a client relationship goes south. The client chose you because they thought that badge on your web site meant that you are the member of a professional standards body which they can now complain to regarding your service provision. They look them up and discover – as you should have done – that you’ve paid a back-room outfit run by someone who uses multiple false names to give you a meaningless graphic for your footer.

Now you’re part of the scam too, and your legal woes just got a hell of a lot worse.

That badge ain’t worth it.

Illegal associations, illegal names

One more comment on these organisations: the one discussed yesterday uses a business name which implies not just official status within the web industry, but authoritative powers within the UK government.

They’re so on top of the ball, this lot, that they don’t realise that in itself is doubly illegal.

Organisations promoting themselves as trade bodies for the web industry often use words in their names which UK law refers to as a “sensitive expressions”, meaning you cannot just use them in a business’s name. As with membership badges, those names are supposed to mean something.

if you are going to claim official status over an industry, you need to have the legal documents proving it. Those documents have to have the voice of that industry, not the gormless lawyer you paid to draft them. An organisation claiming to be representative of a group of professionals, or even a part of the UK government, has a lot of explaining to do.

On the subject of gormless lawyers. One of these organisations has posted their business terms and conditions on their web site. These terms refer to their business structure and company registration. They aren’t cut and pasted from a boilerplate: a lawyer has drafted them at the time the company was incorporated.

That lawyer set up the company and signed the documents without questioning their business name or realising that it is a sensitive expression.

There’s one born every minute. Don’t make it you.

This piece was originally published on 21 December 2015 in A List Apart, with the incredible editorial support of Lisa Maria Martin, and an illustration by Ping Zhu.

“So well written and absolutely ties into http://refreshtheweb.org “Professionalizing the web industry” is exactly the point!” – Molly Holzschlag

“I could see a revolution happening if it keeps going this way. Your alistapart article opened my eyes how bad it’s really getting” – Luke Watts

On 18 March 2016 A List Apart deleted the piece without warning or consultation. I was informed of this in a cold four-sentence email from Jeffrey Zeldman with no explanation at 4 PM on a Friday. I had to beg him for a explanation of why. I was eventually and rather resentfully informed that the decision had been made on the grounds that “an article taking a somewhat contentious stand on a thorny and controversial topic of EU and international law is frankly beyond our ability to support.” He also made several allegations about my professional integrity and my motivations in writing the article with no right of response.

It begs the very obvious question of why A List Apart approached me, commissioned me to write a deliberately provocative article, had me as a guest on Jeffrey’s podcast, spent two months supporting me throughout the rigorous editing process,  and then kept the piece published for three months only to expunge all mention of it with no notice. Why does a publication that successful need to engage in the callous act of building people up to tear them down?

In deleting the article, A List Apart also deleted the vital and healthy debate about it which ensued in the comments section. I’m so sorry to everyone who felt inspired to comment, both positively and negatively, as I deeply valued your feedback and opinions as well as your time. Your thoughts, to me, were the most important part of the work. (Edit: thanks Michael Fienen for finding them on Archive. Much appreciated.)

It’s been said that you know you are making an impact when someone tries to stop you. So here it is, the topic that is apparently too dangerous to discuss: the future of the web profession itself.

It has been a very strange year to be a digital law specialist. In a matter of months we have seen “experts,” courts, and politicians suggest that website administrators should get rid of comments, social sharing, analytics, links, and shopping carts, all as a means of coming into compliance with European legislation. Even pro-European developers are at their wits’ end dealing with the deluge of uninformed advice about how their websites are apparently supposed to work.

The response of web professionals outside the European Union to 2015’s legal developments has been, quite understandably, “Well, I’m not in the EU, so these laws don’t apply to me, right?” To their surprise, legislators have been clear in their expectation that any website in the world accessed by any European citizen must comply with European digital laws. In response, developers worldwide have had to invest countless unpaid hours and resources into understanding their compliance obligations, despite much of the guidance being incorrect, outdated, or even incomplete.

These digital laws, of course, are only as good as the work that has gone into them. That work has clearly left much to be desired. To create better digital laws, legislators need to be able to work with experienced industry professionals who possess both technical expertise and political savvy. If only they could.

Nearly twenty years into our craft’s existence there is, in the literal sense, no such thing as the web profession. We have never professionalized. We lack any form of centralized, cross-platform, and cross-industry organization. There is no Royal College of Web Designers, American Web Developers Association, or Chartered Institute of Programmers. There is no one we pay dues to, no association we belong to, and no union to fight our corner. No common organization protects Ruby coders, content writers, and Drupal developers. We do not have lobbyists, government liaison officers, or rapporteurs. No one is employed to make our voice heard in the policy sphere—and this is a problem.

To date, conversations within the profession about industry organization have revolved around the issues of accreditation and certification. The political aspects of professional organization have never entered the picture. For what groups do exist, a search for “web design and development organizations” reveals pay-per-inclusion directories and outdated sites offering outdated courses. These “organizations” are little more than moneyspinners preying on vulnerable entrants to the profession, and proof that in the absence of a genuine association, anyone can buy a domain calling themselves one.

A true organization aspires to what governments call consultative status: recognition of a professional body as the authentic voice of its industry. Consultative status conveys authority to industry professionals in the eyes of governments. Organized industries working within this model have political offices in their national capitals, are funded by their members, provide expertise born of practical experience, and review draft legislation pertaining to their field. It’s a model that has worked for centuries for older, wiser, and more organized professions.

There is, however, a catch: the consultative model of government legislation does not work when there is no industry body to consult with. That’s why the web profession, through its own decisions, has neither consultative status nor the resources to provide it.

The gathering storm

On a policy level, the fierce individuality characterizing the web profession has meant that we have chosen not to have a voice. That lack of organization has left us unable to address a range of existing problems that have recently combined to create a “perfect storm” in digital law. That storm now threatens to engulf the web profession.

Ivory towers

Some digital laws do indeed make the web a better place, and there are even politicians who can code to a competent level. Unfortunately, they are few and far between. Too many of the laws impacting our craft are what internet law professor James Grimmelmann dubbed “unhelpful interventions”:

“Unhelpful interventions,” as we are all painfully aware, are regulations drawn up on paper by politicians who not only never touch a computer, but are openly proud of that fact. These politicians then rely on the opinions of academics who have credentials, but no technical experience. (Indeed, a professor retorting Grimmelmann’s work expressed bewilderment that he actually used the technology he was writing about. Academics, after all, are supposed to live in an ivory tower.) When policies about code are drawn up inside a theoretical vacuum, what results are counterproductive digital laws—like VATMOSS, the EU Cookie Law, and, after Paris, the renewed legislative assault on encryption—grounded in a defiant rejection of how people actually use the web.

Of course, no one is saying that the makers of the web should be exempt from compliance with digital laws, helpful or otherwise. Indeed, greater legal understanding is desperately needed within our industry. The problem is that these obligations are not only global, but carry frightening levels of legal liability. In a single day, a developer may have to code in compliance with European privacy law, Japanese VAT, and Spain’s “Google Tax.” Good luck explaining that to your professional indemnity insurance provider. Add those obligations to the fact that some digital laws directly conflict with each other—at times, within a single web page—and what results is having to make a personal judgment on which laws to break and which laws to comply with. When digital professionals are put in that position, as you inevitably will be, there is no industry body to call on for support.

Endless committees

An added complication in digital law is the glacial process of internet regulation. Laws governing code can take six, eight, or even ten years to travel from proposal to implementation. Web development works a bit faster than that.

Accessibility laws are a classic example. In the United States, the Section 508 refresh—the update of the law regulating accessibility standards in Federal government websites—has been in progress since 2006. The refreshed standard may be published in 2016 for implementation in 2018. Until then, developers working for the federal government are required to retrofit their work to a pre-WCAG desktop standard from 1998. In the EU, a comparable law mandating accessibility in public sector websites has been languishing in committees since 2012. The only progress made since 2014 has been a four-page committee report (PDF) and yet another draft (PDF).

Government legislation must be thorough, deliberate, and measured. Indeed, legislation regarding the internet that is pushed through quickly—like attempts at mass digital surveillance—is rarely good news. However, digital laws are ultimately documents. It should not take longer to create and ship a document than it takes to create and ship the Olympics. Yet it does.

When an industry working at light speed meets a political process working at committee speed, what results is a surreal state of play where professionals are required to comply with digital regulations that are already outdated by the time they become law. Web professionals are also obliged to wait years for promised reforms, and ensuing changes to their workflows, that never materialize. Without an organisation to act through, liaising with governments becomes a matter of individual effort, which inevitably results in frustration, burnout, and contempt. In the absence of support, the absurd pace of the political process repels the very people who need to be the most involved.

Now it’s personal

Perhaps the most disturbing damage caused by our lack of professional organization has been the slandering of web professionals for offering informed challenges to uninformed laws. Unaffiliated individuals, after all, are easy targets.

For example, ecommerce developers who were not informed about the poorly communicated VATMOSS reforms have been labelled “unprofessional”; a web-savvy EU politician trying to modernize copyright law was accused of being an agent provocateur in an American conspiracy bankrolled by Facebook and Wikipedia; and I have been called a “useful idiot” and “anti-privacy” for speaking up about the problems with the EU Cookie Law, and was monitored on a Twitter list called “underhand people” by a compliance software vendor (curious behavior for a privacy advocate).

Personal attacks on web professionals are even being deployed as a political tactic. Campaigners on VATMOSS have written extensive briefings on the ensuing web development issues involving shopping carts, geolocation data, and IP spoofing. Rather than address those concerns, bureaucrats adhere to talking points insisting that the outcry amounts to a few British moaners complaining about the lack of a VAT threshold. Informed professionals who actually understand the technologies at hand are being openly disparaged by uninformed policymakers, and no one has their back.

Unsafe harbors

The final element in this perfect storm is differing cultural expectations about the role of digital laws. The United States, says the stereotype, sees Europe’s digital laws as anti-business, anti-free speech, and pro-regulation. The EU, in turn, sees the United States’ digital laws as anti-privacy, reckless, and dictated by corporate interests.

While neither stereotype was ever really accurate, the Safe Harbor verdict in October formalized that difference of opinion into law. The ruling (PDF) by the European Court of Justice, which examined the Safe Harbor agreement by the United States to respect European data protection standards, found that the 15-year-old document—in light of the Snowden revelations—was no longer worth the paper it was printed on.

The two systems have reached a stalemate. Europe is demanding that the US tech industry respect European traditions of data protection and privacy, while exasperated US companies reply that they are powerless to change the source of the problem—mass surveillance—and that they, too, are victims of it. While the two sides bicker, the makers of the web have been left to fathom the implications for our work in a world where the most fundamental agreement in digital law has been torn up.

The web we have always known is now at risk of becoming the “splinternet,” a web divided along political and ideological lines. International walls are being built across a web that was meant to be borderless. Some of the walls are actually physical. Sadly, there are those who would gladly build them. That was the case with a French politician who claimed that American services like Facebook and Soundcloud were harming European creators and wanted to restrict their activities in Europe by law. Digital professionals in Europe were briefly at risk of losing their US-based tools out of politicians’ bitterness and jealousy.

Meanwhile, in America, the US Department of Commerce, which administers the Safe Harbor agreement, has responded to the verdict declaring it invalid by…completely ignoring it. On their website, they proudly announce that they are continuing to administer the program as usual. I can’t decide whether their determination to continue running an invalidated program is tragic or comic. Whatever it is, their stance is the digital law equivalent of sticking your fingers in your ears and singing “LA LA LA CAN’T HEAR YOU!”

Spite is never a healthy basis for policy, but at the moment, digital laws are in the hands of some rather dysfunctional individuals who are determined to take their balls and go home. No one is standing in their way.

We are the problem

This, then, is the perfect storm over our heads. The foundations on which we have built the web are being torn apart; the international matrix of compliance obligations grows more complex by the month; those who speak up are being attacked; and our everyday tools have become political footballs.

What can we do about it? In order to weather the storm, we must move past our tribal mentality and literally professionalize. We must redefine our craft as a profession, and that means acting like one: having organizations, industry bodies, and political representation.

Our craft is lateral: we educate each other through informal channels, communities, and social media. Governments, however, are vertical: they distribute information downward through authority organizations. This mismatch in communication means unnecessary hassle on both sides: for web professionals, it means learning about digital laws and compliance obligations by chance on social media. For implementing bureaucracies, it means being bombarded with complaints from individuals who, as far as they are concerned, had their chance to contribute to the process in a formal consultation held years ago. That passive-aggressive cycle is every bit as dysfunctional as the laws themselves.

We cannot expect governments to deviate from the consultative model that works for every other industry in the world to accommodate our personality quirks. Whether we like it or not, we have to start playing their game by their rules. The fact is that governments do ask and they do consult. We have simply chosen not to show up for the talks.

Unifying as a professional industry gets results. Earlier this year, a frightening UK draft internet surveillance bill was temporarily defeated thanks to the intervention of digital rights groups and tech-savvy politicians. One of the grounds that led to its defeat was the fact that the relevant industry body—in this case, the Internet Service Providers’ Association—had not been consulted on the draft law. In the scariest of political circumstances, the answer really was as simple as that. Where an industry body with professional standing exists, and that body has not been consulted on a law, the law is not legitimate. But where no industry body with professional standing exists to offer informed challenges to a law, it’s not the law that lacks in legitimacy.

Divided we fall

In the 1990s, researcher Alan Ryan wrote that “the internet is good at reassuring people that they are not alone, and not much good at creating a political community out of the fragmented people that we have become.” He might have been talking about us today. We have invented everything but a political community. We have no excuse for that.

Our lack of a voice in digital law is no one’s fault but our own. We refuse to look past our personal differences, we do not show up for the political process regulating our own work, we squander our energies firefighting unhelpful interventions, and we disparage the legislators who made them—and they disparage us right back. If it seems as though politicians don’t take the web profession seriously, it’s because we have given them absolutely no reason to believe otherwise.

This year the most crucial elements of the web were placed under legislative threat. Those threats are already returning, and to fight them, we need to change tactics—and fast. That perfect storm is over us, right here, right now. Until we unify, organize, and act, we are standing in it by choice.