Electronic Commerce Rules in the European Union and in India

Résumé du document

Today, the European market growth is increasing. These last ten years, electronic sales have been increasing a lot, particularly in Western Europe. For example, in United-Kingdom, 89% of internet users have bought something or the other through the internet in the last six months. 70% of the sales are concentrated in United-Kingdom, Germany, France and Belgium. We can divide the European Union into two parts. Western Europe that we can consider as a mature market and East-Central European countries where the electronic commerce is still in expansion. But there are some exceptions as Portugal or the Czech Republic and also Spain to a certain extent. Indeed, Portugal is in the process of expansion, whereas Czech Republic is almost mature. Electronic commerce laws in India are dictated by the 'Information Technology Act' of 9th June 2000, and revised in 2008. The Information Technology Amendment Act, 2008 passed on 23rd December 2008 and received the assent of President of India on 5th February, 2009. But it came into force on 27th October, 2009. Modern communication systems have come to be increasingly used by businessmen and in the all day to day life, and this phenomenon continues to grow. Everybody started to use a computer to create, share and save information. So this share of information is easy and fast, but can be easily stolen. With the increasing number of international transactions executed by means of electronic commerce comes the need for guidelines for electronic commerce and certification of the validity of electronic transactions.

Extraits

[...] Information Technology Act 2000 and 2008 are about the following issues: - Legal Recognition of Electronic Documents - Legal Recognition of Digital Signatures - Offences and Contraventions - Justice Dispensation System for Cybercrimes It consists in 94 sections divided in 13 chapters[4]: - Preliminary - Digital and electronic signature - Electronic governance - Attribution, acknowledgement and despatch of electronic records - Secure electronic records and secure digital signatures - Regulation of certifying authorities - Electronic signature certificates - Duties of subscribers - Penalties and adjucation - The cyber regulations appellate tribunal - Offences - Network service providers not to be liable in certain cases (Examiner of electronic evidence) - Miscellaneous The Information Technology Act The preliminary chapter is a short introduction chapter, which tell us the name of the Act and under which conditions it will come into force, by decision of the Central Government. This Act applies to all India and to all the offences committed outside India. It also gives us some exceptions where the Act won't apply. The second chapter, about digital signature, explain us the authentication of records by those digital signatures. Any person can verify the electronic record thanks to this signature. private key and the public key are unique to the subscriber and constitute a functioning key pair”[5]. [...]

[...] Everybody started to use a computer to create, share and save information. So this share of information is easy and fast, but can be easily stole. With this increasing number of international transactions executed by means of electronic commerce comes the need for guidelines for electronic commerce and certification of the validity of electronic transactions. That's why the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law adopted the Model Law on Electronic Commerce in 1997, 30th January[1]. This model was to provide same treatment to the users of computer than for the users of paper. [...]

[...] Several authors criticize the Act, considering now India as the “E-Police State”[11]. The cyber law of India has become an instrumentality for mass deprivation and grave suppression of cyber rights of Indians. It's a suppression of civil liberties of Indian citizens. “Indians have ceased to hold some of the basic human rights in cyberspace and the omnipresent state powers have doomed the Indian cyber sphere”[12]. The 2008 Act seems to be a death knell for privacy rights in India. Human Rights violations in Indian cyberspace have now become an official norm. [...]

[...] That's why, internet will be an indispensable sector for sales in the following years. Here are the e-sales in millions Euro in 2006 and 2010, and also the variations between these two dates: The average progress is +115% for the mature countries and +237% for the non-mature countries. E-commerce rules The directive 2000/31/EC The European Parliament and the Council have adopted an European Directive (in June 2000) about the e-commerce (the directive 2000/31/EC). Before this directive, the law and rules for e-commerce were different in each state of the European Union. [...]

[...] A lot of different points are defined in this last chapter such as the power of police officer, the protection of action taken good faith, the offences by companies, the power of Central Government to make rules, or the amendments of former acts. The Information Technology Act of 2008 amends the 2000 one on several sections, sub-sections and clauses. It counts 21 pages of amendments[9]. Criticism The Indian courts have not yet found any opportunity to appraise the impact of the provisions of the IT Act on substantive principles of contract formation. An analytical evaluation is needed to identify the issues raised by the information technology relating to contract[10]. [...]