Cultural, geographic and trading relationships will play a significant role. Some governments will react more readily to less regulation and even promote it. Others will at least, give business a chance to demonstrate the degree to which self-regulation can be made to work effectively, and weigh the evidence. For others, the concept of self-regulation is foreign, frightening and improbable at best. In some countries the acceptance of market forces working in a satisfactory way without the enforcement of regulation, is still several years away.
Sovereignty is another challenge for governments.
Some can be expected to take more time than others to come to terms with the fact that certain regulations can no longer be effective unilaterally, and that business can simply relocate or otherwise bypass unfavourable environments. So in conclusion, I think that there is some basis for optimism that governments are listening, and accept in general, that they have a role to facilitate the business leadership that is critical for electronic commerce to be successful. At the same time, how this is interpreted, will vary depending on a number of factors. Governments will not readily trust business to do the right thing in the public interest and in their constituent interest, without a legal or regulatory fall-back. Indeed some governments believe that business want a set of rules in an appropriate flexible framework that still provide a predictable, stable regulatory environment.