Political issues
The political and regulatory environment is shaped by the interplay of government agencies, public opinion, consumer pressure groups such as CAUCE (the coalition against unsolicited e-mail), www.cauce.org, and industry-backed organisations to improve privacy and security such as Truste (www.truste.org).
Political action enacted through government agencies to control the adoption of the Internet can include:
• Promoting the benefits of adopting the Internet for consumers and business to improve a countries economic prosperity;
• Sponsoring research leading to dissemination of best practice amongst companies. For example in the UK, in September 1999 a new 'UK online' campaign (www.ukonlineforbusiness.gov.uk) was launched. This provided a raft of initiatives and investment aimed at moving people, business and Government itself online (e-government).
• Enacting legislation to regulate the commercial environment, for example, to protect privacy or control taxation;
• Setting up International bodies to co-ordinate the Internet such as ICANN (The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, (www.icann.com) who have introduced new top-level domains such as .biz and .info. In the final section of this unit we will look at ‘who owns the Internet’ in more detail, by reviewing some of the other organisations which control its development.
Some examples of the role of government organisations in promoting and regulating e-commerce is given by these examples from the European Commission:
• In 1998 new data protection guidelines were enacted as is described in the section on privacy to help protect consumers and increase the adoption of e-commerce by reducing security fears.
• eEurope Action Plan launched in May 2000 with objectives of ‘a cheaper, faster, more secure Internet; investing in people’s skills and access; and stimulating the use of the Internet’. The commission intends to increase Internet access relative to the US, in order to make Europe more competitive.
• Also in May 2000, the EC announced that it wants the supply of local loops, that is the copper cables that link homes to telephone exchanges, to be unbundled so that newer companies can compete with traditional telecommunications suppliers. The objective here is the provision of widespread broadband services is a major aim of the EU.
• In June 2000 an E-commerce directive was adopted by the European Union. The most fundamental provision of the act is in Article 3 which defines the principles of country of origin and mutual recognition. This means that any company trading in an EU member state is subject to the laws of that country and not the other member states. This prevents the need for companies to adhere to specific advertising or data protection laws in the countries in which they operate.