Journal of Law, Information and Science
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CHRISTOPHER BRIEN
In this article the author examines the problems and issues associated with a trade in goods, services and ideas across the internet. He indicates that the scope and range of commercial transactions will increase on the internet and canvasses some of the solutions to the problems that may occur.
The Internet is a global information network where goods, services and ideas can be traded. It exists beyond the borders of nation states. No central organisation is in control. Some goods and services are available but a critical problem concerns secure transactions. CommerceNet is a consortium which is attempting to establish common protocols. Whilst commercial dealings in goods and services are small the transfer of ideas is more prevalent. Many countries have attempted to regulate the Net without acknowledging that a community with defined rules already exits[2]. Wittes has stated,
"Suppose you wanted to witness the birth and development of a legal system. You would need a large, complex social system that lies outside all other legal authorities. Moreover, you would need that system somehow to accelerate the seemingly millennial progress of legal development, so you could witness more than a mere moment of progress. This hypothetical system might seem like a social scientist's fantasy, but it actually exists. It's called the Internet."[3]
Universal Resource Locaters or URLs are used to highlight where information, an article or a site is to be found on the Net. In many instances the document (consisting of text, graphics and sound) may only exist in digital form. URLs are the accepted standard for notation[4].
The Internet was developed by the Advanced Research Projects Agency in the United States of America (ARPnet) about 25 years ago. It was designed to enable military researchers to share computing resources. The idea of a network without a central control was important to national defence.
The Internet is not a single network, but rather a large number of smaller networks which are locally administered. A common set of protocols allows these networks to interconnect[5]. The Net has grown beyond nation-state borders. In 1983 the Internet consisted of fewer than 500 "host'' computers in the United States of America[6]. In 1987 it had grown to include 28,000 host computers[7]. The growth of the Net is depicted in figure 1.
Figure 1
The Net has grown rapidly in the last few years. Figure 1 represents the tremendous expansion in the number of host computers[8]. It is important to notice the almost exponential increase which has occurred in the last few years and that this trend is continuing.
Figure 2 represents Internet use. The Net affects most (if not all) countries across the world. The number of host machines in each country is plotted according to that country's population. Finland on this basis has the highest concentration. This is shown by the bar graph in Figure 2.
Figure 2[9]
Figure 2 also specifies the percentage growth from January 1994 to January 1995. New Zealand throughout this period increased its number of host machines by approximately 450 per cent. Other countries increased by at least 40 per cent. It would appear that many countries throughout the world are connected to the Net and they are rapidly improving access.
Negroponte has equated the workings of the Internet to a flock of birds, where the frontmost bird in a V-shaped flock is not the director of flight[10]. In the Internet, "information packets" are formed with the first part of each packet consisting of the destination address. The message does not go to a central place. There are many fast computers that read the addresses and send the packets onto the next branch.
"As Metcalfe's law states, the value of a network increases geometrically with the number of people who use it. Local area networks linking PCs within offices have been widespread for years, but isolated from each other. The Internet broke that bottleneck. It offers a standard method of transmitting data that works equally well for anything from voice to e-mail. Most importantly, it is in the public domain. Nobody owns it.."[11]
Any network can be part of the Internet if it uses the same TCP/IP protocol for data transfer.
The World Wide Web (WWW or the Web) is a distributed document database with hyperlinking capabilities. The Web and its use of hypertext was invented by Berners-Lee but it was not widely used until Andreesen wrote a program called Mosaic[12]. Hypertext is the ability to link documents to each other by a live footnote. "The web is as big as Internet itself and there has been a phenomenal growth in the number of web sites"[13]. Other tools are available; namely, email, file transfer protocol, gopher and Wide Area Information Servers. However it is the Web, with its integrated multimedia package which has made voyages over the Net more enticing.
There are three features of the Web that greatly assist trade across the Net[14]. Firstly that the Web enables a shop window or home page to be established. Secondly, a vendor that installs a Web server has the opportunity to link their Home Page to a diverse variety of others across the world. This is the equivalent of having multiple displays at several prominent locations[15]. The third advantage of using the Web is the ability to transfer files (ftp) as well as search for files (via Gopher) or with keywords (via WAIS)[16].
Morgan has identified that advertising is the biggest market for the Net[17]. When using the Web consumers can determine how much of the information as they want, "instead of having all of it shoved down their throats...[furthermore] if the remote control was the great equaliser in the battle between advertiser and television viewer, [the Web] and the mouse may shift power completely to the hands of the consumer'"[18].
Thorell documented the full market potential of the Web during the Winter Olympics in 1994.
"Sun (a major computer company) established its WWW server on January 25, 1994. During the Winter Olympics in February, Sun...posted Olympic sports statistics on the Web. During the first day of service, there were more than 100,000 requests for Olympics information...When the flood of requests jammed the Internet transatlantic network lines, Sun posted a mirrored server (containing the same Olympic information) at its California headquarters. Over the next two-day period, Sun recorded 6,000 connections being made per hour to this Sports server, with 32,000 pages of information per hour retrieved by users.
Sun's Sports server is a dramatic demonstration of the combined power of highly topical up-to-the-minute sports information and the marketing reach of the WWW. The consequent media attention that Sun attracted during the Olympics so enraged the official computer sponsor of the Olympics (namely IBM) that Sun was forced to remove its logo from the Norwegian server's Home Page. [19]"
Although several businesses appear on the Net payment is usually made by conventional means such as posting a cheque. A variety of companies are attempting to establish their technologies as the means for conducting secure transactions.
The following is a summary of Morgan's analysis[20].
- CyberCash Inc. are working on a model for Internet commerce that will accept digital cash, credit cards, or debit cards[21].
- DigiCash Inc. pioneered E-Cash. It allows both paying and receiving payment[22].
- First Virtual Holdings Inc. is attempting to become the first Internetmerchant banking system. Introduced in October 1994, it enables any Internet user to initiate retail transactions via e-mail. "No sensitive data is exchanged online in First Virtual's system. Users set up accounts by telephone or fax, and credit-card payments are processed off-line. Registration fees are US$2 for consumers and US$10 for sellers. Sellers pay a 29-cent fee plus two percent of the transaction price and a $1 processing fee each time a payment is made to their account"[23].
- An approved Visa or Master Card is necessary for the Internet Shopping Network[24].
- NetCash is designed to support the transfer of electronic cash between servers. Other electronic cash systems only allow one financial institution to generate and accepts its own digital cash.
- Open Market is another secure Internet transactions venture. Buyers can set up an account by sending their credit-card details over the Net or by phone[25].
Credit cards are a means to purchase something on the Internet but "It's very easy to write a program that looks for a sequence of numbers beginning with a known credit-card prefix"[26]. Other problems regarding the commercial use of the Net by the Web relate to technical difficulties[27]. "It is clear that the business partners, suppliers, and resellers of these companies must also establish a presence on the Internet. These critical linkages do not yet exist. In fact, commercial WWW servers only represent a scant 5 percent of the total WWW servers."[28] Furthermore there is a tendency for executive management not to be involved with their organisation's activities on the Net.
Whilst the Net does provide the potential to provide new opportunities in the trading of goods and services Vaughan-Nichols has noted;
"On my virtual shopping trip, I found that there's more hype than stores along the Infobahn. Despite what you may have been hearing about virtual stores popping up like mushrooms after a spring rain, many have false fronts. All too often what you'll find is just a mail option for either an e-mail text catalogue or, horrors, a snail-mail paper catalogue"[30].
Vaughan-Nichols[31] used NetPages which is the equivalent of an online White Pages or Yellow Pages directory for the Internet[32]. He is based in Washington D.C. and attempted to "survive off the Net". He was unable to find a local grocery store. Chocolate he noted could be found at Five Star Cookies[33]. Pizza Hut was the only national fast-food Web provider (limited areas)[34] although there are local services; for example, Ann Arbor Michigan's Food by Phone [35].
Clothing can be obtained from a variety of sources; namely, Werger [36] and Menswear Unlimited [37]. Vaughan-Nichols noted that "the spiffiest music shop of them all" is CDworld [38]. He also found that Books On-Line [39] and The Future Fantasy Bookstore [40] are good sites if you are trying to find a particular book. Borders Books & Music in Dallas is also recommended with over 70,000 titles in stock[41]. Computer hardware and software are available from Computer Express! [42] and the Internet Shopping Network[43]. It is possible to purchase some items across the Net but the range is limited.
CommerceNet was established in 1994 with the aim of creating an infrastructure for business-to-business transactions on the Internet[45]. It is a non-profit consortium with over 70 members. CommerceNet has six working groups: connectivity, network services-with a focus on security--payment services, catalogues and directories, Internet electronic data interchange, and design-to-manufacturing integration. [46]. Ubois has noted,
"The Internet is ideal for post-sales support, providing your installed base of customers with upgrades and training. That is where a lot of companies have focused their efforts. Then there is pre-sale promotion--getting the word out - and that has gotten a lot of attention."[47]
The current technique for using the Web requires the customer to examine several sites. "Searching and discovery is weak. There is a need for protocols to allow software agents to query the various sources in a similar fashion. CommerceNet is trying to get people to agree on protocols and approaches that are standardised"[48] .
Tenenbaum has carefully summarised the problem of commerce across Internet.
"The key for electronic commerce is transaction security. It is the ability to authenticate who is at other end of a connection so you know whether to give them access to sensitive data. The second aspect is ensuring the privacy of sensitive data you are sending--a bid amount, a credit-card number, or a new CAD drawing--things you don't want other people to see. The third aspect is digital signatures: to be able to sign non-repudiably, which is the basis for contracts and audits. The fourth element is message integrity...
In the end, you want all these things put together so you can send or receive a digitally signed object, put it on a disk, and prove later that someone signed a document at a certain time...The key aspect is spontaneity, as opposed to making transactions by prior arrangement"[49].
Essentially people will have a digital wallet that will enable them to purchase goods and services. Due to the economics of the Net there will be a change in pricing structures. In other words as Tenenbaum has noted "if the price is low enough, you will be able to exploit the large number effect of the Net. If I can sell an article for two cents to enough people, I won't need to worry about getting more than that."[50]
"Post your results on Ginsparg's computer...and you have the potential (URL http://www.lanl.gov/) audience of millions within an hour. Anyone can contribute and anyone can call up the end result"[52]. Ginsparg's electronic publication started in 1991 as a clearing house for research in physics. Currently the latest findings in 20 disciplines are available. "Everyday 20,000 or so electronic mail messages carry the abstracts of new papers stored in the computer's databases to more than 60 countries"[53]. Furthermore,
"As this phenomenon emerges, the definition of scientific collaboration may change. Commentators on articles virtually become members of research teams. The network even opens the possibility of broader participation in the experimental activity itself. Investigators from throughout a discipline can witness an experiment as it takes place - and register their comments for future perusal by other workers."[54]
Electronic mail can be sent to a particular person or be published to many people at the same time. The latter method is referred to as using a listserv. The World Wide Web can also be used especially in the production of Electronic journals or E-journals.
Mathews has noted that "scientific communication is becoming less a historical account and more a live record of how thinking on a research problem evolves...Paper is necessary and important but it is depressingly slow"[55].
A practical perspective regarding the production costs of paper journals has been noted by Stix,
"the wealth of scientific knowledge doubles about every 12 years...the costs of producing journals...are recovered from a tiny subscriber base that consists mostly of university libraries. There are sometimes only a few hundred subscribers, so the prices remain high"[56].
The Net enhances the global exchange of ideas by overcoming both the time and cost problems associated with paper publishing.
New technologies tend to create new cultures[57]. There are many abbreviations like BTW (By The Way), and IANAL (I Am Not A Lawyer) that are used across the Net. Furthermore emotions are expressed online.
;-) a wink :-o shock
:-) a smile :-( unhappy
8-) wearing glasses #-) drunk
Brand has noted that across the Net,
"There's always another mind there. It's like having a corner bar, complete with old buddies and delightful newcomers waiting to take home and fresh graffiti and letters, except instead of putting on my coat, shutting down my computer and walking down the corner, I just invoke my telecom program and there they are. It's a place"[58].
Fundamental to the Net is the right of every group to be heard. No one needs permission to join a discussion forum and no one is accorded any special courtesy but users will often go to extraordinary efforts to help strangers[59].
There is a culture or community across the Net and informal regulations, have developed. "Netiquette" is the term given to these customs. One rule is that advertising must not be distributed by the electronic equivalent of "junk mail."
Zorn[60] has documented the position of Canter and Siegel in the United States of America who in April 1994 were "the most hated couple in Cyberspace"[61]. They sent an electronic advertisement which offered their legal services to thousands of people.
"Canter and Siegel's act of "spamming"[62] the network, led to swift retribution from the "Internet police." Commenting on the experience, Spiegel said "We got death threats. They jammed our computer. They jammed our telephone. These people are the worst kind of bully!". A user from Australia set 1,000 phoney requests for information every day. A 16 year old threatened to visit the couple's "crappy law firm" and "burn it to the ground." One Norwegian programmer wrote a piece of software known as "cancelbot" that roamed the Internet looking for Canter and Siegel mass mailings and deleting them before they spread.
Three days after their alleged crime, Internet Direct of Phoenix removed Canter and Siegel's Internet access account from their computer system because the computer crashed repeatedly from the load of e- mail "flames" heaped upon the lawyers[63].
Other forms of regulation beyond netiquette itself need to be considered since Canter and Spiegel were unrepentant for their actions and have promised to advertise again.[64]
The net interprets "censorship as damage, and routes around it. It reflects its users' confidence that their electronic world, designed to resist nuclear attack, can also shrug off government regulation. By nature of its global reach and its decentralised design, they believe, it is unpoliceable"[65].
Many existing laws are in difficulty regarding their application to Internet and many countries may have conflicting regulations. Copyright law is having trouble with adjusting to the unique properties of digital information[66]. Criminal Law also has problems. The issue is not so much that criminals will use the Internet, but that the police will not be able to keep track of them. Encryption techniques are rapidly developing. Leibs has noted that with encryption we are at the fork, "one road leads to no proof, the other to no privacy. One is anarchy, the other to totalitarism..."[67]
Zuboff provides a useful summary of the problem;
"We are used to the face to face interaction where words disappear. We assume that over the phone, too. We don't stop to think that someone is recording what we say. How does electronic communication fit with the stuff we are used to / I assume keyboard communication was like a letter or phone call, but now I understand that it doesn't disappear. The social aspects of confidentiality and security have not been thought through. The myth is that electronic communications is invisible. No one acknowledged the visibility of the medium because it was abstract. Input is abstract: output is concrete."[68]
In 1993 a group of lawyers spent several weeks online discussing the possibility of exercising independent jurisdiction over the Net to avoid territorial laws[69]. The NEWJURIS conference discussed many issues. The participants noted that the laws which govern interactions in the Net should be established by those who participate in the electronic world[70].
Discussion also involved whether rules should be published in a document and who had ultimate power to decide the rules[71]. Essentially there was no consensus regarding these issues. However "there was agreement that communities on the Net should be given the opportunity to develop and test their own rules before external bodies bring them into conformity with the real world"[72]. "Consensus was given to existing legal rules, such as the law of associations, or customary international law applying to net communities"[73].
In short, the issue of laws applying to the Net is difficult. Trotter has commented,
"The question of whether an issue in cyberspace or elsewhere is "new" is largely a subjective determination. At a shallow level of analysis, every new medium is fraught with complex new legal questions, the most fundamental among them being whether existing laws designed with other media in mind should be applied to the new medium as well. On the other hand, at the deepest or most general level of analysis, no legal questions are unique: they all involve human conflict. The trick is knowing when to take a shallower and when a deeper view.[74]"
Trotter maintains one possible solution for commercial dealings to achieve the status of legal enforceability is derived from history; namely the Medieval "Law Merchant"[75]. This was the forerunner to contemporary commercial law and it developed as a response to international trading in the Fourteenth Century. The "trade fair" was a regular gathering in Europe or England where goods were traded. Merchants came from Asia and Europe.
The "Law Merchant" was an enforceable set of customary practices that was uniform across all the jurisdictions involved in the trade fairs. No government or other public body enacted this law. It was derived from the merchants who were trading. The Law Merchant was,
". . . a system of law that did . . . not rest exclusively on the institutions and local customs of any particular country, but consisted of certain principles of equity and usages of trade which general convenience and a common sense of justice have established to regulate the dealings of merchants and mariners in all the commercial countries of the civilised world."[76]
Furthermore, it "was a law which necessarily differed at many points from the ordinary law, for no technical jurisprudence peculiar to any country would have been satisfactory to traders coming from many different countries."[77]
Special courts were developed and judges were drawn from the merchants themselves. Trotter concluded,
"The parallels with cyberspace are strong. Many people interact frequently over networks, but not always with the same people each time so that advance contractual relations are not always practical. Commercial transactions will more and more take place in cyberspace, and more and more those transactions will cross national boundaries and implicate different bodies of law. Speedy resolution of disputes will be as desirable as it was in the Middle Ages! The means of an informal court system are in place in the form of on-line discussion groups and electronic mail. A "Law of Cyberspace" co-existing with existing laws would be an eminently practical and efficient way of handling commerce in the networked world"[78].
The Medieval Law Merchant analogy that Trotter has analysed can assist the regulation of commercial transactions across the Net. However it,
"...should act as a reminder that building a real electronic nation involves a lot more than laying down the pipes. Despite the racing pace of the Internet today, it will not happen overnight...Ubiquitous, open networking seems as fundamental to civilisation's needs in the first half of the 21st century as ubiquitous, open roads did in the first half of the 20th. century"[79].
The Net enables goods, services and ideas to be traded in a digital market place. Online communities must continue to develop and explore these new opportunities.
Brand has noted that this century was shaped by the structure of industrialism,
"A set of rules was enshrined toward the end of the nineteenth century about how life and the world was to be organised. It led to the cities, it led to the kinds of technology we have, it led to the economic structures that we have. They were very deep structural rules that later became organised and were never really questioned.
Now our technology has progressed so that increasingly the wealth creation process has to do with information instead of with the material manipulations of manufacturing. That is, the value added in the transformation of stuff has to do with our capacity to understand and use information in various ways. If that's the case, then you have to ask yourself, how're the rules of that system going to be written ?"[80].
The Net is a global marketplace. The range and scope of commercial activities will increase as secure transactions are adopted and standards are established. More is involved with the Net than it being merely another means by which people interact with others. Fundamental shifts are occurring regarding information. Katsh has noted that the "the CEO of a large trucking firm...commented that people get the mistaken impression that [my] business is running trucks, rather the business is really an information system masquerading as a trucking line."[81] The Net creates a new business environment. Informal rules are maintained and enforced by individual members acting collectively. A modern form of the Medieval Law Merchant may be the most effective method of regulating this new commercial environment of consisting of goods, services and ideas.
Borders Books and Music Cafe, URL http://www.borders.com/(5th April 1996).
Brand, S. The Media Lab: Inventing the Future at M.I.T., (Penguin, New York, 1988).
Branscomb, A. "Anonymity, Autonomy, and Accountability: Challenges to the First Amendment in Cyberspaces", 104 Yale Law Journal (1995) p. 1666.
Branch Mall, URL http://www.branch.com/index.html (5th April 1996).
CD World, URL http://gate.cdworld.com/cdworld.html (5th April 1996).
CommerceNet, URL http://www.commerce.net/ (7th April 1996).
Computer Express, URL http://www.cexpress.com/ (5th April 1996).
CyberCash, URL http://www.cybercash.com (5th April 1996).
DigiCash, URL http://www.digicash.com (5th April 1996).
Electronic Frontiers Foundation, URL http://www.eff.org (1st February 1996)
First Virtual Holdings Incorporated, URL http://www.fv.com (5th April 1996).
Five Star Cookies, URL http://virtumall.com:80/
LateNightCookies/FiveStar.html (5th April 1996).
Food by Phone, URL http://www.branchmall.com/phonfood/phonfood.htm (5th April 1996).
Gray, M. Statistics about the Growth of the Net. URL http://www.mit.edu: 8001/people/mkgray/mkgray.html (6th April 1996).
G. Greanleaf, "Law in Cyberspace", 70 Australian Law Journal (1996), p. 33.
Internet Shopping Network, URL http://www.internet.net/ (5th April 1996).
Katsh, M. "Rights, Camera, Action: Cyberspatial Settings and the First Amendment", 104 Yale Law Journal (1995), p. 1681.
Leibs, S. "The Secret Sharer", Netguide May 1995, p. 66.
Mathews, R. "Storming the Barricades", New Scientist, 17th June 1995 p.38.
Menswear Unlimited, URL http://www.clark.net/pub/menswear/suits.html (5th April 1996).
Morgan, L. "Cashing In: The Rush to Make Net Commerce Happen", URL http://pubs.iworld.com/iw-online/Feb95/feat48.htm (8th April 1996).
National Centre for Supercomputer Applications (NCSA), University of Illinios Urbanna Champagne, USA. URL http://www.ncsa.uiuc.edu/
General/Internet/WWW/HTMLPrimer.html (6th April 1996).
NetPages, URL http://www.aldea.com/wwwindex.html (5th April 1996).
Open Market, URL http://www.openmarket.com (5th April 1996).
O'Reilly Internet Market Research 1995 URL http://www.ora.com/survey/ (6th April 1996).
Pizzahut , URL http://www.pizzahut.com (5th April 1996).
Stix, G. "The Speed of Write", Scientific American, December 1994, p. 72.
"The Accidental Superhighway", The Economist: A Survey 1st July 1995.
URL http://www.economist.com/surveys/internet/index.html(6th April 1996)
The Future Fantasy Bookstore, URL http://futfan.com/home.html (5th April 1996).
The Online Books Page, URL http://www.cs.cmu.edu/Web/books.html
(5th April 1996).
Thorell, L. "Doing Business on the Internet: Case Studies - DEC, Silicon Graphics and Sun", URL http://www.mecklerweb.com/mags/iw/v5n5/feat52.htm (6th April 1995).
Trotter, I. "The Proper Legal Regime for Cyberspace", 55 University of Pittsburg Law Review, (1994) p. 995.
Ubois, J. "Wheels of Commerce: An Interview with CommerceNet's Cathy J. Medich and Jay M. Tenenbaum", URL http://pubs.iworld.com/iw-online/Apr95/feat62.htm (7th April 1996).
Vaughan-Nichols, S. "Living Off the Web", URL http://pubs.iworld.com/iw-online/Jun95/feat44.htm (5th April 1996).
Wittes, B. "Law in Cyberspace; Witnessing the Birth of a Legal System on the Net", Legal Times, January 23, 1995, at S27.
Zuboff, S. In the Age of the Smart Machine: The Future of Work and Power (Heinemann, Oxford, 1991) .
[1] Christopher Brien, B.A.(Macq), LL.M.(Syd), GDLP (UTS), Grad.Cert.Ed.(JCU).
Associate Lecturer, Faculty of Law, James Cook University.
Christopher.Brien@jcu.edu.au URL http://www.jcu.edu.au/~lwcjb
[2] Blue Ribbon Campaign concerning the Communications Decency Act 1996 USA.
Electronic Frontiers Foundation URL http://www.eff.org (1st February 1996).
G. Greanleaf, "Law in Cyberspace", 70 Australian Law Journal (1996), p. 33.
[3] B. Wittes, "Law in Cyberspace; Witnessing the Birth of a Legal System on the Net", Legal Times, January 23, 1995 at S27.
[4] Universal Resource Locators are extensively used across the Net to archive online discussions and documents. The date when the information was accessed is normally put in brackets. National Centre for Supercomputer Applications (NCSA), University of Illinios Urbanna Champagne, USA.
URL http://www.ncsa.uiuc.edu/General/Internet/WWW/HTMLPrimer.html (6th April 1996).
[5] Adapted from Hobbes Internet Timeline v1.3 hobbes@hobbes.mitre.org.
[6] O'Reilly Internet Market Research 1995
URL http://www.ora.com/survey/ (6th April 1996).
[7] "The Accidental Superhighway - Net History", The Economist 1st July 1995.
http://www.economist.com/surveys/internet/history.html (6th April 1996).
[8] Mathew Gray's Statistics about the Growth of the Net.
URL http://www.mit.edu:8001/people/mkgray/mkgray.html (6th April 1996).
[9] "The Accidental Superhighway - Net History", The Economist, 1st July 1995.
URL: http://www.economist.com/surveys/internet/chart4.gif (6th April 1996).
[10] "The Accidental Superhighway - Like a Flock of Birds", The Economist 1st July 1995.
URL http://www.economist.com/surveys/internet/how.html (6th April 1996).
[11] Ibid.
[12] "The Accidental Superhighway", The Economist, 1st July 1995.
URL http://www.economist.com/surveys/internet/intro.html (6th April 1996).
[13] Ibid.
[14] L. Thorell, "Doing Business on the Internet: Case Studies - DEC, Silicon Graphics and Sun", URL http://www.mecklerweb.com/mags/iw/v5n5/feat52.htm (6th April 1995).
[15] Ibid.
[16] WAIS: Wide Area Information Service.
ftp: File Transfer Protocol.
Gopher: Created by the University of Minnesota Computer & Information Services.
It is another means to organise and present information.
Email gopher@boombox.micro.umn.edu
[17] L. Morgan, "Cashing In: The Rush to Make Net Commerce Happen", URL http://pubs.iworld.com/iw-online/Feb95/feat48.htm (8th April 1996).
[18] Ibid.
[19] Thorell, Op. Cit.
[20] Morgan, Op. Cit.
[21] CyberCash, URL http://www.cybercash.com (5th April 1996).
[22] DigiCash, URL http://www.digicash.com (5th April 1996).
[23] First Virtual Holdings Incorporated, URL http://www.fv.com (5th April 1996).
[24] Internet Shopping Network, URL http://www.isn.com (5th April 1996).
[25] Open Market, URL http://www.openmarket.com (5th April 1996).
[26] Morgan, Op. Cit.
[27] Thorell, Op. Cit.
[28] Ibid.
[29] S. Vaughan-Nichols, "Living Off the Web",URL http://pubs.iworld.com/iw-online/Jun95/feat44.htm (5th April 1996).
[30] Ibid.
[31] This is an edited summary of S. Vaughan-Nichols, "Living Off the Web",
URL http://pubs.iworld.com/iw-online/Jun95/feat44.htm (5th April 1996).
Some URLs have been updated.
[32] NetPages, URL http://www.aldea.com/wwwindex.html (5th April 1996).
[33] Five Star Cookies, URL http://virtumall.com:80/LateNightCookies/FiveStar.html (5th April 1996).
[34] Pizzahut , URL http://www.pizzahut.com (5th April 1996).
[35] Food by Phone, URL http://www.branchmall.com/phonfood/phonfood.htm (5th April 1996).
[36] Branch Mall, URL http://www.branch.com/index.html (5th April 1996).
[37] Menswear Unlimited, URL http://www.clark.net/pub/menswear/suits.html
(5th April 1996).
[38] CD World, URL http://gate.cdworld.com/cdworld.html (5th April 1996).
[39] The Online Books Page, URL http://www.cs.cmu.edu/Web/books.html (5th April 1996).
[40] The Future Fantasy Bookstore, URL http://futfan.com/home.html (5th April 1996).
[41] Borders Books and Music Cafe, URL http://www.borders.com/ (5th April 1996).
[42] Computer Express, URL http://www.cexpress.com/ (5th April 1996).
[43] Internet Shopping Network, URL http://www.internet.net/ (5th April 1996).
[44] J. Ubois, "Wheels of Commerce: An Interview with CommerceNet's Cathy J. Medich and Jay M. Tenenbaum", URL http://pubs.iworld.com/iw-online/Apr95/feat62.htm (7th April 1996).
[45] CommerceNet, URL http://www.commerce.net/ (7th April 1996).
[46] Ubois, Op. Cit.
[47] Ibid.
[48] Ibid.
[49] Ubois, Op. Cit.
[50] Ibid.
[51] R. Mathews, "Storming the Barricades", New Scientist, 17th June 1995 pp. 38-41.
G. Stix, "The Speed of Write", Scientific American, December 1994, pp. 72-77.
[52] Mathews, Op. Cit., p. 38.
[53] Stix, Op. Cit., p. 72.
[54] Ibid., p. 73.
[55] Mathews, Op. Cit.
[56] Stix, Op. Cit., p. 72.
[57] M. Katsh, "Rights, Camera, Action: Cyberspatial Settings and the First Amendment", 104 Yale Law Journal (1995) p. 1681 at 1683.
[58] S. Brand, The Media Lab: Inventing the Future at M.I.T., (Penguin, New York, 1988), p. 24.
[59] "The Accidental Superhighway", Op. Cit.
[60] D. Zorn, Commerce on the Internet Information Superhighway, unpublished thesis available via email: dozorn@mailbox.syr.edu.
A. Branscomb, "Anonymity, Autonomy, and Accountability: Challenges to the First Amendment in Cyberspaces", 104 Yale Law Journal (1995), p. 1657.
[61] Cyberspace was introduced in 1984 by William Gibson in his novel Neuromancer. It has been adopted by users of electronic networks more broadly to encompass the entire experience of computer mediated communication.
[62] "Spamming" is the equivalent of throwing a piece of Spam at a fan and watching the pieces fly in all directions.
[63] A "flame" is an angry, and typically emotional response sent by one Internet user to another user when the former is angered by the latter lack of netiquette.
[64] Zorn, Op. Cit.
[65] "The Accidental Superhighway - Lawless", The Economist, 1 July 1995.
URL http://www.economist.com/surveys/internet/regulate.html (6th April 1996).
[66] The Australian Law Reform Commission is currently reviewing the Australian Copyright Right Act in the light of technological developments. Their Report is expected later this year.
[67] S. Leibs, "The Secret Sharer", Netguide May 1995, p. 66.
P. Zimmerman and the exportation of PGP from the United States of America: "pretty good encryption" technology.
[68] S. Zuboff, In the Age of the Smart Machine: The Future of Work and Power (Heinemann, Oxford, 1991), p.381.
[69] Branscomb, Op. Cit., p. 1666.
[70] Ibid., p. 1667.
[71] Ibid., p. 1668.
[72] Ibid.
[73] Ibid.
[74] I. Trotter, "The Proper Legal Regime for Cyberspace", 55 University of Pittsburg Law Review, (1994), p. 995.
[75] The following pages concerning the Medieval "Law Merchant" are a summary of Trotter's article. pp. 995-1022.
[76] Ibid., p. 1010.
[77] Trotter, Op. Cit., p. 1015.
[78] Ibid., p. 1021.
[79] "The Accidental Superhighway - The Shape of Nets to Come", The Economist, 1st July 1995,
URL http://www.economist.com/surveys/internet/conclud.html (6th April 1996).
[80] Brand, Op. Cit., p. 230f.
[81] Katsh, Op. Cit., p. 1714.
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