Azim-Khan; Brock

E Business; a Practical Guide to the Laws

Governments have continued to play ‘catch-up’ as the Internet and mobile web-enabled devices and methods of doing business continue to evolve at an ever increasing pace. Domain names are one such area that has seen significant change, the European Court of Justice has been called upon to provide some clarification of the role of database rights in the new media age, particularly given the increasing use of web based platforms for customer profiling and the provision of “bespoke” online shopping experiences. Many operators in cyber space have lobbied hard to extend the protections originally granted under the E-Commerce Directive to intermediaries such as ISPs and a further review of the E-Commerce Directive is now on-going. Businesses have sought to come to grips with the Distant Selling Directive and Regulations as they have struggled to understand the various “opt-in” and “opt-out” rules regarding e-mail. We look at the new rules on this and also the further rules that the relevant Privacy and Electronic Communications (EC Directive) Regulations 2003 have brought in regarding the ability to monitor and intercept e-mail traffic. Further changes are covered in relation to the advertising regulatory regime and not least the demise of the ITC and Ofcom’s “contracting out” of the regulator duties to BCAP. Other developments include the rejection of the proposed EC Directive on the Patentability of Computer Implemented Inventions (EC Software Patent) Directive by the European Parliament in the Summer of 2006 and the implementation of the EU Copyright Directive in the UK by way of the Copyright and Related Rights Regulations 2003 which aimed to bring copyright laws into the modern era particularly to cover web style exploitation. The aim of this book is not to be a definitive, academic, legal text but rather a practical guide to how these and other laws may impact those who to do business or indeed simply use the internet. The introduction to the book is as the first edition as we believe it is a good scene setter. However, we have added a new section to the end of this updating the second edition. We hope that we have in this second edition managed to keep pace with some of these changes, and that it continues to provide a practical and cutting edge analysis.