Legal and ethical issues related to e-commerce

by Sofia Akram

The developments in technology have projected very extensive possibilities in different spheres, one of these is e-commerce. The possibilities of retail became definitely unique and attained new levels. The environment of the web has recommended a lot of different capabilities for entrepreneurs. The very important trait of e-market today is its ability to accommodate novelties and speed. The notably quick changing atmosphere is the e-commerce market because the demand and fame of e-sopping are increasing day by day. Clients are concerned about the quality of services and products as well as the percentage of price and quality. The ambitiousness brings several solutions in e-commerce and abundance or lots of decisions might and should be made effectively with business ethics and legal and ethical decision making could be helped this way.

Legal issues related to e-commerce

The rapid growth of online and internet activities increases the number of contemporary supervisory or managerial problems and legal questioning. The competence and ability of the web to range the world bring with it an array of legal problems. These issues are often related to the concerns of intellectual property, privacy, trademark, copyright, etc. specifically in the circumstances and framework of doing business over the internet or online. The rapid change in the growth rate of online and internet activities increased the number of certain legal and regulatory questions.

The questions arise are; How the copyright should be applied over digital content? How are the laws nationally applied to cyberspace activities? Is there any existence of data protection and privacy on the web? Can we believe in electronic commerce? Is it true that taxation is implemented by governments over cyber trade? Could it be possible to regulate cyberspace by one authority or by many? Due to applying laws and regulations over the internet is there any problem that arises in the cyberspace world? Now, I’m discussing the core legal issues specifically in e-commerce.

Fraud over the internet

The e-commerce fraud appears out with brisk growth in recognition of websites. This is a scorching issue for both mortar and clicks merchants and cyber merchants. The small investors are allured by the commitment of wrong profits by the stock promoters. Buyers and sellers are opposed to conducting frauds in auctions as well. The availability of pop up ads and emails has opened the paths and paved the horizons for financial criminals and frauds to get access to many people.

Copyright

If you talk about laws of copyright protects the intellectual and smart property cannot be recycled freely.  It is very difficult for an investor in e-commerce to protect intellectual property.  For instance, if you have purchased software,  you have got the right to operate or use it but you have no right at all to spread and distribute it. The rights of distribution are just with the holder of its copyright.

Domain names

The competition over the selection of names of the domain is an additional legal issue. Internet addresses and locations are acknowledged as domain names. A dominant and elite name is microsoft.com or qburst.com. Top levels of domain names are accredited by essential non-profit organizations, they also check trademarks for possible infringement and conflicts as well. Issues arise when certain companies or organizations have similar names.

Ethical issues related to e-commerce

Commonly, lots of global and ethical issues of information technology employs to e-commerce. Therefore, what we need to know and understand is; what are the particular and specific issues related to the e-commerce? The following are a few ethical issues related to e-commerce.

Web tracking

E-commerce draws facts and data on how visitors operate a site with the log files. Firms track the movement of individuals through cookie analysis and tracking software. Programs like cookies can raise a bunch of privacy concerns. The history of tracking is stored on the hard disk of your PC and whenever you visit the website again the PC knows it already. Many intelligent end users like to install programs i-e; spam butcher, cookie cutters, etc.

Privacy

Most of the payment systems electronically have the identity of the client. Hence, it is important to provide protection to the identity of consumers who use the electronic mode of payment systems. A privacy problem connected to the employees/people of an organization is tracking. The systems of monitoring are installed and set up in many organizations to monitor web activities and e-mails in order to know the people who broadly use business hours for the activities not related to business. The activities of e-commerce performed by a consumer can be tracked by the companies.