Like time, e-commerce self-regulation waits for no man
Paris, 2 September 1999 - Private sector self-regulatory initiatives governing e-commerce have more than doubled in less than a year while technological progress has opened up exciting new prospects for its rapid expansion.
These two developments have prompted the International Chamber of Commerce and other business organizations to update their proposals to governments for speeding the development of global e-commerce and increasing public and business trust in the medium.
The broadly based business alliance that produced the original action plan of October 1998 covering the full range of e-commerce issues is putting final touches to proposals that will be submitted next month to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and other intergovernmental organizations.
The business action plan, to be tabled at an OECD forum on e-commerce in Paris from October 12-14, places special emphasis on trade-related e-commerce issues ahead of the ministerial conference of the World Trade Organization in Seattle at the end of November. The Seattle WTO ministerial is expected to launch a new round of negotiations on trade liberalization.
The plan says that effective implementation of the WTO agreement to open up markets for basic telecommunications will be of critical importance for the development of electronic commerce.
Over 40 business initiatives are listed - many of them from ICC - covering the full range of self-regulation and including marketing and advertising standards, defences against illegal content, privacy protection, certification and authentication of transactions, current terms used in e-commerce, and so-called trustmarks, which enable users to identify reliable vendors. Most of these codes, standards and definitions are already being used.
Business organizations whose members account for the bulk of electronic commerce throughout the world are supporting the plan. The international coalition that assembled it includes provides of information and communications products as well as user industries such as financial services, retailers and others. The coalition numbers large multinational corporations alongside small firms from developed and emerging eco
nomies.
The plan was drawn up by ICC, the Business and Industry Advisory Committee to the OECD (BIAC), the Global Information Infrastructure Commission (GIIC), the International Telecommunications User Group (INTUG) and the World Information Technology and Services Alliance (WITSA). It is supported by more than 50 national, regional and sectoral trade associations.
ICC Secretary General Maria Livanos Cattaui said: "That business needs so soon to update its proposals for smoothing the path of e-commerce reflects the exponential rate at which communications and information technology are developing. It also shows the speed with which the Internet is becoming a mainstream vehicle for buying and selling goods and services.
"The new action plan is born of our conviction that business and governments must cooperate globally, so that the entire population of the world can derive maximum benefit from a technology that gives all businesses the chance to compete in the global marketplace, however remote they may be geographically from their customers." Mrs Cattaui added.
The action plan contrasts business actions with business recommendations to governments, frequently making the point that government regulation should be kept to a minimum because it is too inflexible to accommodate fast-changing technologies and because national jurisdictions cannot effectively control a medium that knows no frontiers.
Another recurring theme in the plan is the importance of removing impediments to trade caused by conflicting national laws. The action plan notes for example that internationally incompatible laws on advertising and promotion seriously impede cross-border sales in the borderless global environment of the Internet.
A Global Action Plan for Electronic Commerce
October 1999
Committee on Electronic commerce project