A great deal of uncertainty surrounds the impact of the continuing growth of electronic commerce (e-commerce) on existing law.
While commercial law has evolved over the centuries in response to the development of trade in goods and services, within or across nations, the emergence of an electronic medium (‘cyberspace’) as an additional avenue for trade has pushed to the fore many questions: whether and how an adaption of existing law would possible, appropriate or sufficient to catch up with the problems thrown up by the new medium.
For one thing, the nature and effects of transactions that would ordinarily have been taken for granted had they occurred on non-electronic media confound established notions of commercial law.
Secondly, the unpredictability of the ultimate consequence of such transactions to the respective trading partners, who would be more likely to come from different jurisdictions, prompts scrutiny of preexisting, widely accepted formulations in domestic trade law, custom and treat among nations.
A major feature of the emergent situation that the impact of e-commerce on the law has not been across the board, simply because e-commerce has not been developing evenly.
Most transactions ton date relate to the purchase of computer hardware or software or the supply of information of various types; plain news, financial data, entertainment, education, travel, advertisement, health and DIY tips.
These item have one characteristic, namely the buyers’ lack of interest in, or disregard of, any need to have to conduct checking r inspection prior to purchase, or at any rate, before delivery.
In light of the general uncertainty surrounding the status of the online buyer and seller, the relevant law and of how it might be applied on behalf of a buyer claiming redress, the purchase of “safe” items acquires as precautionary significance.
In other words, the very nature of the involved in the transactions seems to rule out any fundamental failure that cold surface at a later stage and necessitate the intervention of the law to resolve the consequence of that failure.
Obviously, once money has passed form buyer to the seller, the path to recovery of that money, let alone further damages as would be expected under normal contract law, could be too complicated for the buyer to understand or pursue.
What makes the flight of an on-line buyer who seeks redress intractable is that solutions to online legal disputes are only just evolving in bits and pieces. New rules have begun to emerge in the form of statuary reforms in single jurisdiction or through case decisions on disputes arising from on-line transaction.
Law vs Electronic Commerce
