E-Commerce Law & Policy

Volume: 1 Issue: 8
(August 1999)

News

New Domain Name registration in August reached a new peak in the UK with 37,500 registering with Nominet, the UK Domain Name Registrar. / read more

Leading industry players have joined forces to demand that the European Commission reconsiders its stance on a proposal that they believe threatens the development of e-commerce in Europe. / read more

The United States is optimistic about drawing the EU-US talks on data protection to a successful conclusion. / read more

Features

Global trading up against national jurisdictions lies at the heart of the regulatory and legal difficulties facing e-commerce. / read more

A UK businessman, Graham Waddon, was given an 18 month suspended sentence, earlier this month for publishing obscene material over the web even though the server on which the website was hosted was located in the US. / read more

The e-commerce revolution is having an increasing impact on the financial markets. One of the latest developments is the new electronic network for share dealing called E-Crossnet. / read more

Egg, the online financial services arm of the Prudential, has launched a credit card with a fraud protection guarantee to encourage online transactions using its new credit card. / read more

A new nonprofit organisation called Global Trust Authority (GTA) has been created to act as an oversight and certification agency for electronic commerce at an international level. / read more

Encryption policy for any nation is a touchy subject. The reason is that although encrypted data can make life more secure for law abiding citizens and companies it can also be used for more nefarious purposes. / read more

French Prime Minister Lionel Jospin has announced plans for legislation on encryption and confidentiality, consumer protection, copyright and data protection. The proposed laws will be presented to Parliament early next year. / read more

The International Conference on Electronic Commerce and Intellectual Property was hosted by the World Intellectual Property Organisation (“WIPO”) over three days in Geneva from 14-16 September. / read more

Electronic payments through either closed or open networks are not new. Electronic Funds Transfer (EFT) credit card transactions have been supported globally by the banking infrastructure for many years. Smaller micro-payments or nano-payments such as e-cash or e-money are a more recent phenomenon, the global take up of which has been minimal but which is anticipated to grow in the next few years as on-line shopping via PC and Set-Top Box increases. Whether macro or micro payments, the two much debated areas in relation to e-commerce are regulation and security. / read more

The alarm clock has sounded. The UK Prime Minister’s long heralded ‘wake-up call for business’ on e-commerce has at last been delivered. Amid much fanfare, Tony Blair personally presented the Government report entitled ‘e-commerce@its.best.uk’ on 13 September. Widespread leaking in the days leading up to formal publication ensured that the Prime Minister’s speech and the report itself attracted an impressive number of column inches. But now that the noise and press coverage have died down, will the report, and the 60 recommendations contained in it, be quietly forgotten by business and politicians alike or will the wave of change so desired by Government at last truly start to build? This article explains the background to the report and the key proposals contained in it and considers whether the Government is taking the correct approach in preparing Britain for the electronic world. In particular this article examines the report’s proposals on the legal and regulatory issues affecting e-commerce / read more

Council Directive 96/9/EC on the legal protection of databases was introduced with the object of harmonising the laws of the member states of the EEA relating to protection of creativity in databases by copyright and to create a new “sui generis” right in databases. The Directive has been implemented by The Copyright and Rights in Databases Regulations 1997 (SI 1997/3032) (“the Database Regulations”), which came into force on 1 January 1998. / read more

Considerable amounts of time and money are spent every year by companies held to ransom by cybersquatters, who register a company’s trade name or mark as a domain name registration in order to sell it later to that company at a large profit. Existing mechanisms for resolving conflicts between trademark owners and domain name holders are often viewed as expensive, cumbersome and ineffective especially where multiple suits are filed in one or more national courts. This is further complicated by the fact that registration authorities are frequently joined in domain name disputes because of their role in the technical management of the domain name. / read more

A Manhattan Supreme Court ruling in New York State could have major implications for web gambling sites in particular and web traders in general. The Court ruling has raised questions about the steps that need to be taken to prevent residents from particular States which have restrictive legislation from being able to take part in the sites activities. / read more

A US Federal Court has overturned a Federal Communications Commission (FCC) ruling requiring telephone companies to obtain customers permission before using their personal information for marketing purposes. / read more

Amazon.Com has agreed not to include details of the buying decisions of individuals or companies, who choose to opt out of a new feature that shows group buying patterns. / read more

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About E-Commerce Law & Policy:

The monthly law journal giving authoratitive insights into all aspects of e-commerce law and regulations affecting online business, including domain names, Intellectual property, copyrights, online advertising, behavourial advertising, cloud computing, net neutrality, privacy, cybercrime, social media, trademarks, online sales, licensing and software / read more