Internet Governance
E-commerce takes many forms.
Business-to-consumer (B2C) – the most familiar type of e-commerce (e.g. Amazon.com). Business-to-business (B2B) – economically the most intensive, comprising over 90% of all e-commerce transactions.
Business-to-government (B2G) – highly important in the area of procurement policy. Consumer-to-consumer (C2C) – for example, e-Bay auctions.
Many countries have been developing a regulatory environment for e-commerce. Laws have been adopted in the fields of digital signatures, dispute resolution, cybercrime, customer protection, and taxation. At international level, an increasing number of initiatives and regimes are related to e-commerce. WTO and e-commerce The key policy player in modern global trade, WTO, regulates many relevant e-commerce issues, including telecommunication liberalisation, Intellectual property rights (IPR), and some aspects of information and communication technology (ICT) developments. E-commerce figures in the following WTO activities and initiatives:
A temporary moratorium on custom duties on e-transactions which was introduced in 1998. It has rendered all e-transactions globally free of custom duties. The establishment of the WTO Work Programme for Electronic Commerce, which promotes discussion on e-commerce.3
Dispute resolution mechanism. E-commerce was particularly relevant in the USA/Antigua online gambling case.4
Although e-commerce has been on the WTO diplomatic backburner, various initiatives have arisen and a number of key issues have been identified. Two such issues are mentioned here. Should e-commerce transactions be categorised under services (regulated by GATS – General Agreement on Trade in Services) or goods (regulated by GATT – General Agreement on Tarrifs and Trade)? Does the categorisation of music as a good or a service change depending on whether it is delivered on a CD (tangible) or via the Internet (intangible)? Ultimately, the same song could have different trade status (and be subject 106