Commentary on the Directives on Distance Selling, Electronic Signatures, Electronic Commerce, Copyright in the Information Society, and Data Protection The enhancement of e-commerce is one of the important policy issues in the European Union. To this purpose the laws of the EU Member States should be further harmonised. The European Union has adopted a number of Directives relating to different aspects of e-commerce which should be implemented in the laws of the Member States. eDirectives: Guide to European Union Law on E-commerce provides article-by-article comments on four...

Electronic commerce is here to stay. No matter how big the dot-com crisis was or how far the e-entrepreneurs' shares fell in the market, the fact remains that there is still confidence in electronic trading. At least it would appear that investors are confident in e-companies again. However, not only trust of venture capitalists is of importance--consumers also have to have faith in on-line business. After all, without consumers there is no e-business. Interacting lawyers, technicians and economists are needed to create a trustworthy electronic commerce environment. To achieve this...

At a time when there are still a number of voices calling for the Internet to remain a law-free zone, a whole bundle of conflicts have already emerged, many of which have found their way to lawyers and the courts in a substantial number of different jurisdictions. This title looks at some of them.

This volume considers the theme of the protection of the user in the field of Information Technology, and more specifically in relation to software licences, electronic information services and Internet access services. Litigation in IT usually stems from the users' feeling that their expectations have been frustrated at performance. When dealing with such cases, the courts seem to increasingly take the objective of user protection into account. How is this protection implemented? Is this trend generally desirable? Is this judicial protection excessive? What are the constraints met by IT...

Cryptography is essential for information security and electronic commerce, yet it can also be abused by criminals to thwart police wiretaps and computer searches. How should governments address this conflict of interests? Will they require people to deposit crypto keys with a trusted' agent? Will governments outlaw cryptography that does not provide for law-enforcement access? This is not yet another study of the crypto controversy to conclude that this or that interest is paramount. This is not a study commissioned by a government, nor is it a report that campaigns on the electronic...