An introduction to ICT was given in last Thursday's class via a presentation on the relevance of Information Technology to Small & Medium Enterprises (SME's). Included in the presentation was a section on the factors which hindered SME's from access & use of IT. Among the factors enumerated was that of legal uncertainty.
With a global market, legal uncertainty is bound to exist as transactions span different countries with different commercial, criminal and civil laws. In the United States, however, an SME does not need to market globally to experience such a hurdle. Different state laws already subject the SME, with a national (US) market, to similar legal confusion.
An article, entitled "Internet conduct that crosses the state line?", provides an example to such a barrier.
In the said article, Global Payday Loan, a Pennsylvania and Salt Lake City-based lending company, which offered loans online, was ordered by the state of Illinois to stop issuing loans to its residents. Illinois deemed illegal the six day payment term, and the amount of loan fees, interest rates and finance charges given by Global Payday Loan. In the article's last paragraph, a suggestion on internet regulation was made to eliminate or at least minimize legal uncertainties in interstate commerce: for the federal government to have the sole authority to uniformly regulate inter-state/cross-border transactions in e-business.
The aforesaid suggestion seems reasonable to me as regards e-business transactions in the US. Following such train of thought and applying it to international e-business transactions, it also seems that there ought to be a single authority to perform such regulations for global e-business transactions, which SME's need to be competitive in the face of globalization. What if the UN convenes a body to draft a Treaty on ICT, to be signed by all countries who wish to engage in global e-commerce? (Has the UN already formed such a body or taken steps to draft such a treaty? I have no idea yet) Perhaps an International Cyber Tribunal (similar to the International Criminal Tribunal) could likewise be created. With such initiatives, legal uncertainties brought about by different laws in different countries could be minimized, if not eliminated.
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it will be quite convenient to have a a common legal framework, given the transnational nature of online transactions.
my problem: whose convenience? i remember the latest rounds of wipo meetings on the broadcast treaty. initial discussions were skewed in favor of developed countries (and indirectly, big media players) that supported the treaty. the treaty has been junked, for now, thanks in part to the timely intervention (from people like the EFF see http://www.boingboing.net/2007/06/23/broadcast_treaty_wou.html)
so yes, let's consider a global framework for ICT law, but we have to watch it very carefully.
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