international business
Are there legal reasons to maintain addresses for my clients?
<p>If I'm opening a hosting company and would there be any legal reason or requirement to obtain the home or business addresses of my clients?</p>

<p>In general, you are under no obligation to keep address records - at least, I wasn't able to find any laws that impose a general obligation on businesses.</p>

<p>However, there may be laws that impose such requirements on certain types of businesses - for example, financial institutions are required to verify the identity of their customers, and address records are almost certainly part of the process for doing so. </p>

<p>Similarly, if you are professionally insured (for instance, in the legal sector), you may be contractually required to complete an identity check, which maintaining address records may form part of. <strong>Of course, being a hosting company, this might not apply to you</strong>, though if you have insurance, you should probably check the terms, or ask them for information on this matter.</p>

<p>Lastly, although you may have dismissed this as a legal reason to do so, you may wish to maintain address records in order to, if the need arises, verify the identity of a customer who might bring a claim against you, or to dispute the identity of a party attempting to do so - the less information you have, the harder it would be for you to verify that they are, in fact, a customer, and this <em>could</em> result in unwarranted judgements against you.</p>

<p>Of course, because you're trading internationally, it's a bit difficult to ensure that no laws, anywhere, require this of you - some countries have laws with extraterritorial effect.</p>
