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The intention of this essay is to examine the following statement: “The regulation of electronic commerce is not an issue for National or even European legislators. The issues are global and they must be regulated at that level. This can only be achieved by self regulation.” In order to discuss the regulatory issues of e-commerce clearly, I would like to explain the nature of electronic commerce first. In my opinion, “electronic commerce” is used to refer to commercial transactions using the internet and other web enabled technologies, including WAP, other mobile telephony systems, and interactive digital television. E-commerce is a vibrant and rapidly expanding area of business, initially created in the US but increasingly extends to the whole world. These new forms of business transactions provide enterprises, particularly SMEs (small and medium enterprise), the opportunity to do business with anyone, anywhere and at any time. Electronic transactions may be completed automatically and with no human intervention. On the other hand, it could also threat the trust between business and consumer if without human intervention. Whether the interests of both sides of electronic transactions can be satisfied by the law? In fact, legislations always come later rather than technology develops. 1Lodder and Kaspersen (2002) claimed current legislation was drafted in a mainly paper-based society. These days, it is hard to identify a legal domain that does have some connection with e-commerce. The renown 2UNCTITRAL Model Law on e-commerce focuses on the shift from paper-based to electronic communication: “Nothing that an increasing number of transactions in international trade are carried out by means of electronic data interchange and other means of communication, commonly referred to as ‘electronic commerce’, which involve the use of alternatives to paper-based methods of communication and storage of information.” As far as the involved parties of e-commerce are considered, 1there are businesses (B), consumers (C), and administrations/governments (A/G). Their relations can be identified as B2B, B2C, B2A/G, C2C, C2B, C2A/G, A/G2B and A/G2C, whereas B2B transactions represent the largest share, approximately 80% of total transactions. B2B is the fastest growing sector of e-commerce, therefore legislations have concentrated mainly on issues in this area. But the importance of B2C transactions, the aspect of e-commerce with which more people are familiar, should also be highly regarded. With B2B e-commerce, the parties are usually known to each other, so trust issues remain the same as those in the off-line business world. 3When businesses interact, trust operates as a two-way process. For example, the buyer needs to be confident that the seller will supply the right quality of goods at the right time.
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