E-Commerce

Legislation for E-Commerce

Every now and then people interact to things not just to socialize but to gain profits. And we can’t deny the fact that there are various ways to find money and buy things now that is more convenient without spending so much of your money, effort, and time strolling around from one market to another market to look and find for stuff or things that you want. Interaction between one people to another; accessing of information from the books, journals, magazines; and even buying goods and heading for services can be done by the most convenient machines technology brought up for called computer. Which gives all the information you like, it can be a library, a store, a place for meeting and socializing friends, or it can be an entertainment room.

Well, because of the rapid changes and innovation of technology there is a tool that has brought into life to be used in the business world. In making several transactions like paying, buying, delivering, purchasing, supplying and many others of goods and services all around the globe, and because of that situation e-commerce exist. E-commerce is the exchange of information and transactions using any form of electronic communication. E-commerce is not just for business but we can count also the normal way of living life. The area of business now is huge and spreading widely and from the natural way of buying and selling goods and services and from the natural way of interacting between buyers and consumers to the modern ways of transaction and interaction of the buyer and consumer in the market. Of course transaction online involves a lot of money and every single action or thing is abide by law, online businesses and transactions also have policy and rules also to consider like the offline world. Because selling and buying online is more risky than selling and buying it personally in the market because the action you have to take can be broadcast so to make it sure that it’s safe it must be put up with some regulations or law to become legal and decent.

Buying online or online shopping is easy and faster, you can communicate from one people to the others through various sites in the internet. To know more about the product, and to know more about the company who’s into. It reduces cost of information in just a click away you can collect as many information as you want instead of buying magazines to inform the legality and the name of the company and products. Buying online has its convenience because you can shop what you want from books, foods, clothes, cars and many more. You can pay your bill, or manage your finances through online. You can even try to find work and do your job in the convenient of your home.

But of course there are some problems that will arise and that we can’t control even for the convenient it takes. In sending and receiving mails or messages, you can also receive messages called spam or even viruses coming from someone anonymous to you. The other thing is that the important information that you sent can be used by other people. You maybe hacked by someone. When in terms of the product you can see the images that it is good but how about the other factor you must consider? You can really sure of the quality of the product. That’s why if you want to be make sure you are in the good track. Be sure to clarify all the possible information that will be hold that the company who introduced such product is legal and existing many years now. Also, are they following certain rules and regulation that the government wants to be implemented in every transaction to be made.

One of the most important factors in this kind of business is trust, the trust of the consumer to the producer and the trust of the producer to the consumer. If the company or enterprise made some regulation like of course both parties should have all the information they needed in order to know the company and in order to know the client if the client give the information needed for that particular company the company should be accountable of it that the company will leave all the information one a client from the others. If the company will not commit the rules they made they can’t gain trust to there clients. Privacy and security of information are the most spread out issue when it comes to online activities. Be sure that the company used to have such thing.

Since one’s privacy is very important some legalization has been mandated in order to protect the owner of the information and to protect the clients’ intellectual property from the intruders who wants to take the property of others.

There is an article I had read that the Philippine Congress enacted the Electronic Commerce Act in 2000. This law came out, which provides the legal framework for e-commerce, it gives documents and signatures transmitted electronically the same legally binding effect or legal protection as paper-based documents. Such electronic transactions would also be admissible as evidence in legal disputes. The Electronic Commerce Act also mandates the computerization of government offices that issue permits, licenses and other documents. It aims to reduce government red tape by requiring all government agencies to switch from paper-based to electronic documents in government transactions. Government agencies have moved gradually (though slowly) towards computerization in the last five years. The law also prescribes three years imprisonment and a fine of P100,000 for computer hacking, but it does not cover such areas as taxation, the jurisdiction of disputes or intellectual property. The Philippine government signed the e-ASEAN Framework Agreement in 2000. The agreement binds the ten members of the Association of South-East Asian Nations to harmonize regulatory frameworks and infrastructure for e-commerce. It aims to create high-speed regional Internet connections and eliminate duties on computer products and services by 2010.

Also, there is a law that is mandated to e-commerce in terms of the taxation which is released by the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) for the public comments a draft of regulation which is imposing the value added tax and income tax to every transaction that has been taken in e-commerce. Which the information about the law is focusing on the products in the internet like music, computer software, graphic program, books, film or databases, that will held as intangible personal property. That if the person will download from a site of foreign one such the action that will be going to take, the client will pay and it is accompany by a VAT. It says that, “the tax paid and withheld would be treated as the withholding agent’s cost or expenditure for income tax purposes”.

Downloading materials now and downloading products and sites are many and now we can download videos, books, and music that we want not costly and for free. We can now freely surf it over numerous sites provided by us.

An article coming from Kenya which providing law that affects e-commerce and online transaction in their country that includes: Electronic transaction bill, ICT bill, and freedom of information bill. This was established to help the economic growth in their society. They believe that investing and supporting the e-commerce community will contribute and greatly help for their development and to promote innovation and open market. Technology now it strong, influential and brings up countless opportunity. Implementing the legislation is needed to legalize e-commerce transactions by recognizing an electronic signature, manage and control e-commerce risk, and remove e-commerce barriers. Since online shopping is risky than usual way its application in the public will make them most secure in the information they provided and also to reduce the problems that will occur online. The information and communication bill, 2008 and electronic transactions bill, 2007 were develop to improve the transaction being held online. And also to improve the quality of the bills and provide: provision on who can prosecute is missing; liability of internet service providers must be demarcated; clarification in which commercial documents are excluded from proposed legislation; eliminate any ambiguity on abmissibility of electronic evidence; need for data protection and privacy provision, this is the primary issue when it comes to the virtual world, the capacity of the data that can be secured and be remain private, we are not 100 percent sure if the data and information we provided are secured; the bills are more lenient on e-commerce fraud than on traditional fraud, in the cyber space ‘stealing’ is more prone and we don’t really know that the existence of some sites are true or just a spoofed to intrude others privacy ; remove inconsistencies in determining crimes and punishments; provision for the inclusions of cyber-crime within the scope of extradition act; and creation of an Administrator for e-commerce laws whose functions will be policy implementation and advisory, as a multi-sectoral body with industry associations. Those are the several issues which legislation are provided and implemented in one’s community.

Having a regulation and implementing the policy provided by the highest authority or by the government is really important. This will somehow use to regulate, to authorize us to our private life, to provide (in terms of financial), to declare, to sanction, to grant, or to restrict someone who have no authority within this matter. The rules and policy are established and mandated so that we are guaranteed safe and secure from the indigenous people or groups, not only an individual person. We have all the right in terms of our own property we must observe things, and practice to be wise in terms of it. We have the right to maintain, to protect manifestation from our own. Having all the possible legislation presented will help and benefited by the large numbers of consumers who are more convenient and following trend of the society this time, the business area, and the people like small-holder farmers, tourism operators, small scale industry and service providers in almost any business sector all over the world, business sectors who are trying to get the trust of their clients and serve high quality product.

Those guidelines being presented and provided will help ensure the consumer who are using e-commerce that state regulations of online legal services clearly focus on protecting consumers from convenient and low cost competition in routine legal matters. The online legal services industry should quickly establish a self-regulatory code of conduct explaining what online law can and cannot supply, but the bar itself should tread lightly where consumers are adequately informed about what they are buying from whom. The government, the decision they made, the law they made is not just about ensuring that laws are enacted by democratically elected representatives. All those are made to ensure that the public in general who are interacting such matters is given reasonable opportunities to contribute. Regulation of content, protection of intellectual property and consumer protection will be difficult to maintain for a government inexperienced in Internet matters. Authorities will probably become more sophisticated in regulating the Internet as they use it more often. The process whereby laws are prepared is as important as their content, it undergo different actions and perceptions, the higher authority spend time, effort, money to such law to be implemented because a more open, transparent and participatory process increases the likelihood that new laws will be will received, accepted, and properly implemented. All law existing is derived for the benefits of the public.

Although we have doubt on the several issues we encountered and heard. We should all welcome the online law provided for us it is for our own supervision, it will provide legal services cheaper, more convenient in a way, less confusing on the numerous problem arises, and it is better designed to replace fear and anger towards the law with trust and confidence.

But as the e-commerce activity are bound to be spreading, we should prepare for the big responsibility that will come to place because as it continue to spread out it become more and more complicated.

References:

http://www.legislation-and-regulation-for-e.html
http://www.ecommerce_legislation_taxation.htm
http://www.ecomassignment/legislationline.org.htm
http://www.ecomassignment/ndol_ci.cfm.htm

3 comments:



rejserenity said...

hehhe.. nice ideas^^ it in online transactions, security must be employed.. information must be aware of the possible vulnerabilities...^^ in refard with the taxation, i had read also that BIR is imposing some policies bout it, and really it is hot in debate.^^

marco said...

good... i mean it can be helped!

nhorms said...

jeje...yeah it really had a great help...