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The article is from 2002. I wonder what the percentage of modern startups don't try to meet these guidelines (particularly the ones involving showing physical addresses and details of real humans behind the site)

It'd be interesting to see whether any more recent a/b testing gave any indications on whether they still make any difference...

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I’m always confused as to why so many websites from the US don’t provide some sort of physical address, a name, a telephone number, even only a email address. Maybe I’m spoilt because it’s actually against the law in Germany to not provide name, address, telephone number and email address on your website (you can either put it on every page or put a link to the page with this information on every page) but to me it just seems impolite, unprofessional, even scammy if you don’t.

I agree. I generally won't give money to a company that I can't contact. It's just asking for trouble.

Well depends

If it is just a blog, then they might prefer the privacy.

I’ve seen my fair share of websites from businesses without so much as a hint as to who is behind it. It’s not as though I expect every blog to provide the address of the author.

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