While it is easy to imagine a continued increase in services available over the internet, it is harder to imagine what products will be available exclusively over the internet. An example of a pure Internet product liability issue is the sale of software over the Internet. Software is a product. Software can be bought, distributed, and received completely over the Internet with absolutely no physical contact. These electronic transactions have been observed and commented on by the courts.
Much software is ordered over the Internet by purchasers who have never seen a box.
Increasingly software arrives by wire. Even here, the issue before the court was jurisdictional rather than product liability law. Similarly, in CompuServe, the plaintiff frequently contacted Ohio to sell his computer software over CompuServe's Ohio-based system. CompuServe , in effect, acted as Plaintiffs's distributor, albeit electronically and not physically. The Court decided it would be unfair to allow individuals who purposefully engage in interstate activities for profit to escape having to account in other states for the proximate consequences of those activities.