Legal issues of e-commerce

Task 10 Omid Ashrafi

Unit 4

Legal and corporate issues

The growth of e-commerce has enabled M&S to involve and expand their business from their stores to the world of internet. Marks and Spencer is increasingly using the internet for electronic commerce, selling goods to consumers and also offer a range of information about the available products and services. However selling and offering information on the internet brings with it a list of legal and corporate issues. These issues are designed in order to protect the customers from fraud of misuse of personal data and also laws to consider disabled consumers who may be using the internet site, therefore will require special features. M&S corporate identity, including the corporate logo design and the company corporate identity and branding is the most important information that this company can convey to its customers, therefore specific consideration are designed in regard of protecting the companies identity.

Legal Issues

Data protection considerations

The Data Protection Act lays puts down a serious of rules that M&S must obey under their co-operation.

This is a preview of the whole essay

Legal Issues

Data protection considerations

The Data Protection Act lays puts down a serious of rules that M&S must obey under their co-operation.

Therefore as a successful trader any personal data that the company collects from its customers, such as name, address and billing information such as credit card details must be protected from fraud. Therefore M&S must deal fairly with the info they receive from consumers and tell the customer what data the have collected, upon that they must tell them what you are going to do with that information, and consult with the customers before taking any actions. For instance they must ask for permission before sharing the information with a third party, therefore the most important point to consider is to Keep the data collected safe and secure.

Website terms and conditions

The terms and condition are important and must be informed to the consumer before making a transaction. Different companies have different terms and condition therefore M&S must make sure they make it clear for their consumers the terms an condition of making this transaction. These terms and condition inform the customers of the Data protection act considerations, which is designed in interest of the consumers comfort in the transaction, reassuring them that the details they provide is kept safe. M&S must include these terms and condition to reassure their customers that using their e-commerce will be safe and secure. M&S must also include a clear privacy policy explaining how they will use the information collected on the site. It is also crucial to contain a clear "conditions of sale" which includes details of when the contract is actually formed (E.g. the order represents the offer and the email back confirming dispatch represents the acceptance) to avoid any mistakes in price of description of an item. It is also very important to offer clear returns policy, reassuring the consumers that if they are not happy with what they have purchased and in case of damage to the product, they can return the product for a possible refund or exchange. M&S must include in their terms and condition a clear pricing policy which offers the costumer a lucid explanation about pricing errors and any other issues relating to prices.

Disability discrimination act

M&S takes pride in offering the same services to disabled consumers, as the Disability discrimination act state; it is unlawful to discriminate against disabled consumers who may wish to use the services. Therefore M&S must consider making their services available for blind and partially sighted users, keyboard or voice only and Deaf users. It is essential for M&S to be recognised as a company who considers the need of disabled people, and it is also crucial for M&S in the race of staying competitive alongside their competitors.

DTI regulations

M&S sees the e-commerce as a good opportunity to reach their customers within the comfort of their own house, however wishing to sell over the internet would require consideration of The Department of Trade and Industry regulations. One of the first regulations is the necessity of showing full name of trader, VAT number and Trade associations. As discussed in terms and condition they are liable to represent clear pricing including any delivery charges. M&S must also acknowledge receipt of the order as soon as possible. They must also offer facility to check and correct before submitting the transaction. They must finally offer printable and saveable terms and conditions of sale.

DTI regulation must be obeyed, because these roles are designed for the comfort of customers, supporting them in making their choices, and answering all their possible questions.

Dealing with a web agency

The regulations and terms an condition that was mentioned, aren’t just designed for the protection and reassurance of customers, they are also designed to protect the company.

If an agency is building M&S site they need to have a website development agreement in place with them. Important things to include are Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) and Copyright. Make sure the agreement states they are transferred to you otherwise your agency may retain copyright of your site.

Peer Reviews

Here's what a star student thought of this essay

danielbeal

22nd of Feb 2012

Quality of writing

The report states within their opening paragraph the term e-Commerce, and there mention it stands for 'electronic commerce'. However this isn't very clear, as this isn't within the same sentence, and could potentially mislead the examiner. The student has done the work, it just needs to be presented in a suitable way. There's a few spelling mistakes within the report, such as 'puts down a serious of rules', this should state 'puts down a series of rules'. The term 'DTI' isn't explained within the report, and it's vital that all technical terms are explained within any report. This is due to that the examiner will need to understand what the report is saying, and the examiner may not have an in-depth knowledge of IT.

Level of analysis

The report uses the word 'corporate', although doesn't explain what there mean by this. I believe that if a person uses this word, this is their opinion and thus this needs to be explained. For example the report could include 'M&S's logo is quite corporate, due to the simplistic concept of the logo. There is a simple vibrant green and black text, and this looks professional, which makes this have a corporate feel to the website'.

Response to question

In summary, the report does mention a number of laws that M&S has to take into account. However the report is lacking a detailed view of how these different aspects will be implemented within the website. The report doesn't mention what M&S will have to do, to ensure these are followed. The section 'Data Protection Considerations' is quite weak. The report should state the eight different principles of the regulation, including a little information on why each of these principles are required of website owners. On the flip side, the section on 'terms and conditions' gives the examiner a detailed description of the reason to why M&S would need to implemented this legal requirement.

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