Clark, Eugene; Cho, George; Hoyle, Arthur --- "Editorial" [2000] JlLawInfoSci 1; (2000-2001) 11(1) Journal of Law, Information and Science 5

• EDITORIAL

EDITORIAL

The Technology Law Group of the National Centre for Corporate Law & Policy Research is pleased to take responsibility for two special issues of the Journal of Law and Information Science focussing on e-business/commerce.

Our group is comprised of university academics as well as lawyers working in Commonwealth and State Government and private practice. Your Editors (Clark, Cho and Hoyle) have recently published the first major Australian textbook in this important area. It is entitled, E-Business: law & Management for the 21st Century.

We trust that the articles presented here will be of practical use to lawyers in both the public and private sector. We hope that Australian law students, too, will examine the issues raised here and the challenges they pose for lawyers operating in a digital economy. The law has always struggled to keep pace with technology, yet the legal infrastructure must be in place if the dreams of e-business are to be realised. This means that it is more important than ever before for Australian lawyers and judges to familiarise themselves with new technologies and business models so that this new legal architecture may evolve and answers be found. Only in this way can business people, governments and consumers gain the certainty and confidence required to operate successfully in the new Information Age.

The emphasis on this first issue is on public infrastructure issues. E-business/commerce cannot operate in a legal vacuum. It can only grow and prosper if laws are in place that encourage its use and provide consumers, businesses and others with some degree of certainty regarding their rights and responsibilities in this new environment.

One of the most important of these issues is privacy. Clark and Cho survey the privacy regime operating in Australia. Their paper argues that in the area of privacy protection, it is important to achieve an appropriate balance between the various interests—business, consumers, government and others. Their article also outlines the major provisions of the amendments to the Privacy Act that were passed on 6 December 2000. These amendments will extend the provisions of the Commonwealth Privacy Act to the private sector.

Closely related to the issue of privacy is that of encryption. Kate Boyle’s article, An Introduction to Gatekeeper: The Government’s Public Key Infrastructure, describes Australia’s pioneering project creating a national scheme that facilitates the use of digital signatures.

Another concern of government and business is how to tax internet commerce/business. If the new medium is taxed too heavily the new technology and digital commerce will be impeded. If taxed insufficiently, traditional forms of business will be at a serious disadvantage and states may find their tax base seriously eroded. These and related issues are discussed in Prof Brian Andrew and Mark Hughe’s article, ‘Tax Issues in Cyberspace.’

The final four articles examine international and comparative developments.

An important aspect of government regulation concerns electronic or digital money. In a wide ranging article, Law Lecturer, Olujoke Akindemowo, offers a comparative survey of the European Union, Australia and the USA.

Professors Roger Brownsword and Geraint Howells from the Institute for Commercial Law Studies, University of Sheffield provide an excellent analysis and evaluation of European Union Directive 2000/31EC which came into being on 8 June 2000. The authors sketch the main provisions of the directive and argue that the ‘rush to legislation’ has resulted in poor quality solutions to many e-commerce problems.

Malaysia was one of the first Asian countries to enact specific legislation dealing with electronic commerce. Professor PS Sangal of the National University of Malaysia describes the six cyber-laws governing e-business/commerce in Malaysia.

Finally, Australia’s Doris Bozin, looks at the issue of free of speech in cyberspace and how Germany and the US are tackling the challenges raised by different standards operating in a borderless world of the Internet.

In sum, we trust that readers will enjoy the articles presented in this edition. We hope you will agree with us that collectively, they provide a good coverage of some of the major issues faced by regulators in their quest to promote e-business/commerce.

Eugene Clark, George Cho & Arthur Hoyle

University of Canberra 2001