Electronic commerce refers to the new world of economic activity created by advances in information technology and communication. While electronic commerce has existed for many years, with the earliest uses of EDI dating back into the 1970s, the public emergence of the Internet and the World Wide Web have revolutionized this young and vibrant economic sector. On all levels of government in the United States, efforts are underway to take advantage of these economic opportunities and realize the efficiencies made possible by the technologies. Taken literally, electronic commerce ranges from old-fashioned telephone conversations, through the use of facsimiles, electronic mail and electronic data interchange, to establishing a presence on and conducting retail transactions through the use of Internet websites. In each manifestation, electronic commerce presents challenges for the legal system, but these challenges are brought to their fullest, most obvious manifestations with commercial transactions based on Internet websites.
Electronic commerce poses a number of challenges for the law.
The first and most fundamental challenge is presented by the simple fact that transactions may be memorialized on electronic communications, rather than solely on paper. It is no longer accurate to say that paper is required in order to assure that there will be a record of a transaction, in order to assure that a party receives a copy of terms and conditions, in order to assure that notice is given to a counter party. Yet most of our laws were written during an era when paper was the only realistic medium for communicating and storing information and when our mental constructs for such concepts as notice, communication, sending and delivering information, recording the terms of final agreements, etc. depended on paper. The first step toward laying a legal foundation for electronic commerce is to clear away the barriers to electronic commerce. Each state law or regulation, each local or national law or regulation that requires a writing or signature, delivery or production of an original record impairs electronic commerce.