Vistaprint 2012 Annual Report Download - page 31

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or impossible for us to comply. If we fail to comply with these rules and requirements, we may be subject to fines
and higher transaction fees and lose our ability to accept credit and debit card payments from our customers or
facilitate other types of online payments, and our business and operating results could be materially adversely
affected.
We may be subject to product liability claims if people or property are harmed by the products we sell.
Some of the products we sell may expose us to product liability claims relating to personal injury, death, or
property damage, and may require product recalls or other actions. Although we maintain product liability insurance,
we cannot be certain that our coverage will be adequate for liabilities actually incurred or that insurance will
continue to be available to us on reasonable terms, or at all.
If we are unable to acquire or maintain domain names for our websites, then we could lose customers,
which would harm our business and results of operations.
We sell our products and services primarily through our websites. In each country where we sell our
products and services, we seek to obtain and maintain domain names using Vistaprint and our other trademarks
together with the suffix for that country and industry, such as .com, .net, .de and .co.uk. From time to time, we have
difficulty obtaining a domain name in a particular country or region. Domain names are generally regulated by
regional Internet regulatory bodies, and the requirements for obtaining domain names vary from region to region
and are subject to change. If we are unable to use a domain name in a particular country, then we would be forced
to purchase the domain name from an entity that owns or controls it, which we may not be able to do on
commercially acceptable terms or at all; incur significant additional expenses to market our products within that
country, including the development of new brands and the creation of new promotional materials and packaging; or
elect not to sell products in that country. Furthermore, the relationship between regulations governing domain
names and laws protecting trademarks and similar proprietary rights is unclear and subject to change. We might not
be able to prevent third parties from acquiring domain names that infringe or otherwise decrease the value of our
trademarks and other proprietary rights. As a result, we may not be able to acquire or maintain domain names in all
of the countries in which we currently or intend to conduct business, which could significantly and negatively impact
our ability to sell our products and services in that country.
Our results of operations may be negatively affected if we are required to charge sales, value added or
other taxes on Internet sales.
In many jurisdictions where we sell products and services, we do not collect or have imposed upon us
sales, value added or other consumption taxes, which we refer to as indirect taxes. The application of indirect taxes
to e-commerce businesses such as Vistaprint is a complex and evolving issue. Many of the fundamental statutes
and regulations that impose these taxes were established before the growth of the Internet and e-commerce, and in
many cases, it is not clear how existing statutes apply to the Internet or e-commerce. For example, some state
governments in the United States have imposed or are seeking to impose indirect taxes on Internet sales. The
imposition by national, state or local governments, whether within or outside the United States, of various taxes
upon Internet commerce could create administrative burdens for us, discourage customers from purchasing
products from us, decrease our ability to compete with traditional retailers or otherwise negatively impact our results
of operations. Additionally, a successful assertion by one or more governments in jurisdictions where we are not
currently collecting sales or value added taxes that we should be, or should have been, collecting indirect taxes on
the sale of our products could result in substantial tax liabilities for past sales.
If we are unable to retain security authentication certificates, which are supplied by third party providers
over which we exercise little or no control, our business could be harmed.
We are dependent on a limited number of third party providers of website security authentication certificates
that are necessary for conducting secure transactions over the Internet. Despite any contractual protections we may
have, these third party providers can disable or revoke, and in the past have disabled or revoked, our security
certificates without our consent, which would render our websites inaccessible to some of our customers and could
discourage other customers from accessing our sites, unless we are able to procure a replacement certificate from
one of a limited number of alternative third party providers. Any interruption in our customers' ability or willingness to
Form 10-K