Chapter 10: Public Policy: From Legal Issues to Privacy doc

© Prentice Hall, 2000 1

Chapter 10

Public Policy:

From Legal Issues to Privacy

© Prentice Hall, 2000 2

Learning Objectives

❚ List and describe the major legal issues related

to electronic commerce

❚ Understand the difficulties of protecting privacy

and describe the measures taken by companies

and individuals to protect it

❚ Describe the intellectual property issues in EC

and the measures provided for its protection

❚ Describe some of the ethical issues in EC and

the measures taken by organizations to improve

ethics

© Prentice Hall, 2000 3

Learning Objectives (cont.)

❚ Understand the conflict between Internet indecency

and free speech, and the attempts to resolve the

conflict

❚ Describe the issues involved in imposing sales tax

on the Internet

❚ Discuss the controls over exporting encryption

software and the issues of government policies

❚ Differentiate between contracts online and offline

❚ Describe the measures available to protect buyers

and sellers on the Internet

© Prentice Hall, 2000 4

Legal and Ethical Issues: an Overview

❚ Privacy

❚ Intellectual Property

❙ Difficult to protect since it is easy and inexpensive to copy and

disseminate digitized information

❚ Free Speech

❙ Internet provides the largest opportunity for free speech

❚ Taxation

❙ Illegal to impose new sales taxes on Internet business at the

present time

❚ Consumer Protection

❙ Many legal issues are related to electronic trade

© Prentice Hall, 2000 5

Ethical Issues

❚ What is considered to be right and wrong?

❚ What is unethical is not necessarily illegal.

❚ Whether these actions are considered unethical

depends on the organization, country, and the

specific circumstances surrounding the scenarios.