2 9 September 2000

News:

E-Commerce Law & Policy is organising an evening seminar in London on 21 November with Dawn Osborne from Willoughby and partners who will be speaking on protecting your domain name and trademarks online, while Clive Gringras from Olswang will look at how to make sure that personal data acquired on the web becomes an asset, not a liability. The evening is sponsored by DomainAudit.

For more information email lindsey.greig@e-comlaw.com or tel +44 (0)20 8374 4242.

The UK Government’s target to make 100% of public services available online by 2005 will not be achieved unless there is a dramatic shift in approach is the message of a Cabinet Office report released this month. The report calls for the introduction of private enterprise into the provision of public online services and incentivising senior civil servants to hit e-government targets.

US market research firm Harris Interactive has claimed victory in its battle to reopen access to its 6.6 million online registered members after its emails were blocked following the placement of the company on a list of electronic mail abusers.

Features:

e-government sounds good. Putting it into practice is no easy matter. The barriers to implementation are a mix of organisational, historic and regulatory factors. But there is little doubt that e-government is on its way.

The Electronic Communications (Jersey) Law 2000 (the “Law”) was adopted by the States of Jersey on 19 July 2000 and provides a welcome boost to the Island’s efforts to promote itself as a jurisdiction in which it is beneficial to base an electronic business. The text of the Law is available online at http://www.jerseyisc.org. This article is intended to highlight the most important points of the Law.

Many articles on trademarks on the Internet concentrate on issues relating to domain names and metatags, but there is quite a lot more to the subject. This article seeks to explore those other areas.

The Distance Selling Regulations 2000 are designed to implement EC Directive 97/7 on the protection of consumers in relation to distance contracts. This article examines the regulations, noting those areas which have been addressed and those where ambiguity and uncertainty remain

The UK Government has missed another opportunity to regulate unsolicited commercial emails (“UCE”). This means that, in the absence of a specific regulatory regime dealing with electronic direct marketing, uncertainty will continue for both consumers and businesses. This article looks at the UK legislation currently applicable to UCE and suggests a possible way forward for businesses wishing to carry out this type of marketing.

E-procurement holds out the possibility of substantial cost savings for government, both national and local. But to take advantage of the benefits of online transactions government has to overcome a number of barriers…

Providing Share options has become a major part of the package to attract high quality staff to dot.coms. But the road to riches can prove bumpy ; both companies and share option holders can find the parting of the ways holds unpleasant surprises unless careful thought has gone into the schemes.

“Without the public demand for entertainment, the electronic equipment industry would not be able to sell its machines to the public. Without the facilities provided by the electronic equipment industry, the entertainment industry could not provide entertainment in the home, and could not, for example, maintain orchestras which fill the air with twentieth century cacophony or make gratifying profit from a recording of a group without a voice singing a song without a tune.”

Lord Templeman, CBS Songs Limited and others -v- Amstrad Consumer Electronics plc and another, 1988.

Identrus, the provider of identity trust for global business-to-business Internet commerce, announced this month that a consortium of Identrus member financial institutions will deliver trusted payment services to facilitate electronic commerce on the Internet. The consortium, known as Identrus Project Eleanor, will release its open specification for initiating payments over the Internet in October 2000.