Since about 1990, the internet, traveled by "browsers" like Netscape and Edge and Chrome and Firefox and many others, have been a way to advertise and conduct other kinds of business, to visit sites or cyberspace places. Many smaller businesses hire someone to create a website, where a phone number or business hours are posted. Sometimes, I read about Amazon disturbing the commercial world with its extensive web site where I can order a garden rake or headache medicine or just about anything. I am in my 80's and we had Montgomery Wards and Sears, with their very large paper catalogs and ability to supply items ordered by mail or phone.
I see that Montgomery Wards and Sears are still in business. I think smaller businesses can forget that they have web sites and make changes in their product lines, business hours or other things without remembering that website. Some businesses seem to depend on a Facebook page but that may not be a resource that people think of checking. Even if an owner or employee does think of the need to change the language on some internet business page, he may lack access to the page or knowledge of how to change it.
We are still in the infancy of communicating by internet. My wife has constructed various pages and sites for others, including me. Both of us often run into obstacles or out-of-date information on business pages. One bother I am aware of is the handling of privacy. My main health services provider no doubt has both actual legal matters as well as matters of politeness and good manners to consider. Still, getting an email, probably automatically sent to my public email that says I have a new message in my special private account, finding my logon and password, going into my special privacy-enabled account and reading a message that says ``Thanks for being our patient/client/customer" is a pain.
