5 6 June 2003

News:

Simpay, was launched this week, in a move to kick start the use of mobile payments. Simpay, is the rebranded relaunched name for the Mobile Payments Services Association,which was founded by Orange, Telfonica Moviles, T-Mobile and Vodafone.

The UK Office of Fair Trading has received undertakings from 12 computer companies to revise their online terms and conditions.following complaints by local Trading Standards Offices. The OFT is also currently looking at around ten other computer companies that may be breaching unfair contract or distance selling laws.

The United States Supreme Court has rejected claims that the Children’s Internet Protection Act (CIPA), that makes federal funding of libraries conditional upon their use of site filters, is unconstitutional. The Court overturned in their 23 June ruling an earlier decision by the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania in United States et al v American Library Association et al.

Features:

mCommerce has been a long time coming. And the wait is still not over.

Applications aplenty are being lined up to provide the services that will generate the revenue that will dig the operators out of their financial hole.

VAT on eCommerce Directive

Communications Bill

EU sales promotion regulation

Television Without Frontiers Directive

Data Protection Directive

Ticket touts and internet auctions

EU’s telecommunications package

Dates for your diary

International data transfer of personal data outside the EU has been a major concern for global corporations, particularly those headquartered in the US. An EU Working Party has recently produced a discussion document on revising the rules which permit data transfers outside the EU.

The long awaited Part 3 of the Employment Practices Data Protection Code on Monitoring at Work was finally published on 11 June 2003. The Code spells out the “do’s and don’ts” for work place monitoring. The Code aims to strike a balance between the legitimate interests of workers and employers. But does the 104 page Code achieve this? Are its requirements practicable?

Site scraping is not a form of ophthalmic surgery but rather a search and rescue process for information published on the internet. Although arguably no less painful for the website in question, it is as much a part of the world wide web as deep-linking and, legally speaking, equally unresolved. This article looks at the issues surrounding this controversial activity.

Issues of identity continue to be important in the operation of e-commerce and other online activities. The use and regulation of electronic signatures receives much attention but such measures can only provide part of the answer. This article looks at some of the identification issues that arise on the Internet along with some of the practical developments generated in response.

In the last 12 months use of wireless LANs in the corporate market alone has almost trebled, and its now commonplace to see walk-in LAN services in airports, hotels, railway stations, and even your local sandwich shop. However, there are various factors that may inhibit future uptake of such technology - of particular concern to both businesses and individuals alike are its security vulnerabilities. This article looks at some of the issues you should be aware of when using Wi-Fi networks and hot-spots.

The UK Department of Culture Media & Sport published its Position Paper on Remote Gambling at the end of April. The paper reaffirmed ‘the Government’s desire to see Britain become a world leader in the field of online gambling’ and that ‘flexibility will be the key to managing the development of a successful British based remote gambling industry’1. The Bill to implement the proposals has been delayed but the Government has said that it is committed to pushing ahead with the legislation as soon as time permits.

The recent case of Toys “R” Us v Step Two1 in the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit (reported in E-Commerce Law Reports Vol.03 Issue 01) shows the United States Courts grappling again with the question of the standard for personal jurisdiction based on the defendant’s operation of a commercially interactive website in another forum. The questions of when the courts should take jurisdiction in cases of trademark infringement on a foreign website or when the use of a foreign registered trademark is actionable both arise out of the inherent conflict between national systems for registering trademarks, which allows the same mark to be registered to different parties in different jurisdictions, and the nature of the internet which allows trademarks to be exploited simultaneously across more than one jurisdiction at once.