World Wide Web of Legislation
THERE ARE MANY things DMers consider when setting up Web sites. Frames or no frames? Animation and sound or text-only? Get legal advice or go it solo?
For international marketers, that last item is a very important link in e-commerce-and something the U.K.-based Electronic Commerce Association (ECA), part of the Alliance for Electronic Business (AEB), recommends.
Specifically, the ECA is working to clarify the legal position of transactions conducted over the Web, a topic of discussion this month at an Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) conference in Ottawa.
“Companies should get legal advice from a lawyer competent in this field before setting up a Web site,” says David Marsh, partner with London law firm Needham and Grant, and chairman of the ECA’s legal advisory committee. He notes that while e-commerce is no different from any other form of international trade, marketers can make it easier on themselves by doing their homework first.
“The question you have to ask yourself is: Does the information in an electronic mall constitute an offer the consumer can accept, or is it merely an invitation a consumer can respond to by making an offer, which then gives rise to an acceptance by the Web site operator?” he notes.
“Depending on which it is,” Marsh says, “that will decide what legislation is appropriate.”
The way an offer is formulated may determine if the laws of the country of origin (i.e., where the trader is based) apply, or whether those of the country of destination (where the consumer lives) prevail. In the U.K., the Office of Fair Trading has rejected blanket proposals from the OECD to make the country of destination’s laws apply because “it would be wholly inappropriate to make companies involved in e-commerce subject to all the different laws of countries in which Web pages can be accessed.”
AEB has recognized the need to have in place a framework of legislation that is both understandable to the consumer and workable for traders. To this end, it has been lobbying the U.K. government’s Department for Trade and Industry, and the Canadian Minister hosting the OECD Conference. AEB unites the U.K. Direct Marketing Association, the Confederation of British Industry, the Federation of Electronics Industry, the Computing Services and Software Association, and the ECA.
Despite attempts to harmonize consumer protection laws within regions-such as the introduction of the Distance Selling Directive across the European Union-e-commerce remains fraught with the possibility of complex international legal disputes. Marsh counsels caution: “If you don’t want to be subject to the legislation of a country, say on your Web site that you won’t accept orders from that country.”
