The advantage of cyberspace over 800 numbers for such orders is that working knowledge of written English is much wider than fluency in spoken English. Therefore, scam artists can operate from any country that has Internet connections. Pornography in cyberspace is the ultimate form of borderless commerce. The key ingredient is the method of payment, which may offer the only form of consumer protection other than not patronizing a deceptive vendor again. The potential for government sponsored consumer protection for consumers of pornography is probably very limited in any case, as many consumers would not want any publicity and would prefer to suffer in silence even if ripped off for hundreds of dollars.
Government has only limited resources to police cyberspace.
With the number of web pages approaching ten million, consumer protection is very difficult. For some consumer problems in the U.S., such as product safety, civil actions, such as medical malpractice and product liability cases can help reduce the extent of consumer problems in the long run. Given that most cyberspace commerce is conducted through credit cards, it may be that credit card companies will provide the greatest assistance to consumers. If the major credit card companies would act against merchants who cheat consumers, there would be a powerful force against fraud in cyberspace. Before a few years ago, on-line services such as CompuServe, Prodigy and America Online played a major role in cyberspace commerce.