Electronic Commerce
Electronic commerce, or e-commerce as it has commonly been come to be known as, has grown significantly in the past few years. With this growth, however, comes new and sometimes confusing policies that need to be put into place to protect both the buyer and seller of goods in such a new setting, and it does not help that most policies are still in their early stages and have many flaws where one party or another may lose out and have no legal right to take action against them. “The exponential growth of the Internet and online activity raise a number of new regulatory issues and legal questions” (Nasir, 2001). Luckily, it seems that there is not much of an impact on the United States legal system by e-commerce (Internosis, 2008). In fact, most states treat e-commerce just like all other forms of commerce that allow you to order goods from the comfort of your own home, such as mail order catalogs and the like (Internosis, 2008). However, this adopted stance only works when the business that is being ordered from is domestic (Internosis, 2008). When the business is based offshore, the commerce becomes international, and turns into a problem for the global legal environment instead (Internosis, 2008). The United States Government can take little action against the offshore companies when they misbehave as they are not within their jurisdiction, so instead are taking action to prevent their citizens from ordering from offshore companies at all, to prevent the problem in the first place (Internosis, 2008). While many officials world-wide are working to expand their authority to help better control the links that connect people internationally, they face many problems due to the vast nature of the Internet and its global reach (Nasir, 2001). There ...