This brief guide serves as an introduction to the strategies and resources for researching electronic commerce law and policy. It does not purport to be comprehensive. Although electronic commerce is a global topic the emphasis of this guide is Canadian. The selected references provided are intended as a starting point that will lead the student and researcher to further materials. Introduction There are as many and varied definitions of what constitutes electronic commerce as there are forms of it.
Commerce is a well understood, if broad, term.
In the law and policy-making sense it encompasses all the steps involved in negotiating, confirming and performing transactions and includes both the contractual relationships formed in those transactions and the regulatory or administrative steps necessary to the conduct of those transactions. Electronic commerce is the application and development of those steps and processes in the light of the advances wrought by technology, particularly the Internet and the World Wide Web. At the same time as enormous opportunities have opened up for 'globalisation' of commerce using new media and new forms of communication, so have the complexities involved in the governance of continually evolving enterprises. It is important to remember that, in most areas of legal research, there is little that is entirely new. Others will have gone before you and written books or articles on a topic that is at least related.