A roadmap for electronic commerce
Paris, 29 May, 1998 - The ideal is easily defined, but harder to put into practice. Business needs seamless and trustworthy electronic commerce.
Essential requirements include: foolproof checks and balances to secure the integrity of transactions, a balance between privacy protection and freedom of communication, the ability to transmit secure messages, intellectual property protection and ethical standards of advertising.
Then - and only then - will the electronic marketplace achieve its full potential.
Because the Internet covers the entire world, it needs global rules. ICC has already taken a crucial step forward in business self-regulation in cyberspace with its guidelines for ensuring trustworthy digital transactions, known as GUIDEC. Last month, it announced voluntary guidelines on interactive marketing and advertising. Next month, ICC will publish model contract clauses to ensure adequate protection of personal privacy in transborder dataflows.
Today, ICC introduces a road map setting out progress so far in creating a framework of global rules and outlining what governments and business each need to accomplish. The road map tackles one of the most troublesome issue of governance in cyberspace - where the dividing line should be drawn between the respective responsibilities of the private and public sectors.
With its long experience in business self-regulation, ICC continues to adapt its authoritative trade rules and codes to new business practices applied over open networks. It asserts that self-regulation in electronic commerce can set standards for acceptable commercial behaviour that are more flexible than legislation, and therefore better suited to fast-changing information technology.
ICC believes that the main role of governments is to enact facilitating legislation that will help the private sector to regulate itself.
Watch this site for further news of business thinking on electronic commerce. Coming soon:
an easily accessible e-terms database containing all best practice legal term
s for incorporation in electronic contracts.
Electronic commerce roadmap
ICC Commission on Telecommunications and Information Technologies