E-Commerce is the buying and selling of products using an electronic service. Discuss.

E-Commerce Electronic Commerce, also known as E-Commerce is the buying and selling of products using an electronic service e.g. internet. More and more people everyday are buying over the internet as it is a much easier way of shopping for the things that you want. E-Commerce covers a lot of things such as electronic funds transfer, supply chain management, Internet marketing, online transaction processing, electronic data interchange (EDI), inventory management systems, and automated data collection systems. However, it isn't only buying products from a certain site e.g. Amazon, EBay but also upgrading an account from a standard to a premium account such as Megavideo. This type of E-Commerce is called "business to consumer", whereby the business is selling to the public instead of a certain business. Some common applications related to electronic commerce are the following: * Email * Enterprise content management * Instant messaging * Newsgroups * Online shopping and order tracking * Online banking * Online office suites * Domestic and international payment systems * Shopping cart software * Teleconferencing They way E-Commerce works is simple. It all starts from the customer buying the product from their computer off an E-Commerce website. This is then processed through the World Wide Web and inserted into the shopping cart program. The customer then is lead

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The Data Protection Act.

The Data Protection Act The Data Protection act is an act that came into force on 1 March 2000. It gives effect in UK law to the 1995 EC Data Protection Directive. The Act strengthens and extends the data protection regime created by the Data Protection Act 1984, which it replaces. The 1998 Act applies to: * Computerised personal data (like the 1984 Act); * Personal data held in structured manual files (new). It applies to anything at all done to personal data ("processing"), including collection, use, disclosure, and destruction and merely holding data. It was created to protect everyone's civil rights and the information that is kept on them by organisations. Principles of Data Protection The rules Anyone processing personal data must comply with the eight enforceable principles of good practice. They say that data must be: * Fairly and lawfully processed; * Processed for limited purposes; * Adequate, relevant and not excessive; * Accurate; * Not kept longer than necessary; * Processed in accordance with the data subject's rights; * Secure; * Not transferred to countries without adequate protection. Personal data covers both facts and opinions about the individual. It also includes information regarding the intentions of the data controller towards the individual, although in some limited circumstances exemptions will apply. With processing,

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The Data Protection Act

The Data Protection Act (1998) The 1998 Data Protection Act was introduced to control the way information is handled and to give rights to people who have information stored about them. It was introduced due to a number of reasons. Towards the end of the 20th century, computers were getting more and more powerful and government and companies began to use them with databases to store large amounts of information about people, such as their customers and staff. Computers were being used instead of paper to keep personal data about people (i.e. contact details). Also, it became easy to access information due to the ease of databases. Also as more and more companies used computers to store personal information, there was a risk that the information could be misused in the wring hands. The main principals of the Act are that data must be: * processed fairly and lawfully * used for the lawful purpose it was collected for * data must be relevant to purpose collected for * kept accurate and up-to-date * kept no longer than necessary * processed within the rights of the data subjects * kept secure * not transferred to other countries without protection We have much information held about us in many places. Without the Data Protection Act, personal information could be misused and shared with anyone, however the Data Protection Act ensures that the companies and

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Ict and the law

ICT and the Law In this piece of coursework I will be talking about various laws and how they affect myself, Mr James (An Adult with a disability) and Mr Hulse (An adult in employment. There are 4 laws I will be concentrating on: * The DPA * Health and Safety * The CMA * The Copyright, Design and Patents Act DPA (1998) The DPA (Data Protection Act) is a law which enforces how data is collected and stored. It stops it from being misused and transported to countries who do not have similar protection of data. For instance, if a school had the personal data of a student and sold it to someone or gave it away, or pinned it up on a notice board or a wall somewhere, they would be prosecuted by the DPA for misuse of data. The DPA ensures all personal information digitally stored is not used in any other way than necessary, and are not viewed and changed when there is no need to. How would you feel if you applied for a job and someone had changed your GCSE results to a very poor standard, making it near impossible to get the job, or if someone had made all the results really good, you would be given a position and expected to do more work than you can possibly accomplish. What if someone had added one or more offences to your criminal record? This is why the DPA exists. This law covers both digital and written information which is covered from the moment it is created until

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E-commerce - the legal considerations

E-commerce - the legal considerations There are lots of legal considerations and I've tried to include some of the main ones. Although e-commerce can mean a lot of things, here I've related it to actually selling items on a website (although a lot of the legal considerations would need to be considered even if you were not selling on the web. Data protection considerations The Data Protection Act lays down lots of rules that must be adhered to. If this is a website for a company that is already trading and keeps customer data then they should already be registered with the Information Commissioner but you may need to review what's been registered. The main points you need to consider is that for any data you collect on the site you must: * Deal fairly with the info * Tell the customer what data you collect * Tell them what you are going to do with it * Keep it safe and secure This should be set out in the website's terms and conditions (and you should link to it at the main point where you collect the data) Website terms and conditions The site must have comprehensive terms and conditions and you will need to link to these wherever applicable (eg if you are selling there should be a check box that the consumer ticks to say "I have read the terms and conditions etc etc". Things the terms and conditions should contain include: * Data protection act considerations (as

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Managing Research and Information: Data Protection Act

Managing Research and Information First Name: Hanjuan (Vicky) Surname: Deng Title: Data Protection Act The Data Protection Act (DPA) exists to ensure that information relating to people that is stored in computer databases (e.g. PMR systems) or written records (e.g. physical or mental health or condition )is confidential. The 8 Data Protection principles Anyone processing personal data must comply with the eight enforceable principles of good practice. These state that data must be: I. Personal data shall be processed fairly and lawfully, unless it shall not be processed. For example, the company has got the right to take their details about their date of birth or their credit card number if customers want to book holiday in an agency. It is fairly to exchange the data. Furthermore, their privacy details are protected by the law. Also the company must keep them securely. 2. Personal data shall be obtained only for one or more specified and lawful purposes, and shall not be further processed in any manner incompatible with those purposes. 3. Personal data shall be adequate, relevant and not excessive in relation to the purpose or purposes for which they are processed. For instance, we are doing special offer for the customers who have got best payment records, so we only need to put relevant details about theirs address, telephone number, e-mail address, and good

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Legal issues of e-commerce

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. 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

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The Main Features and Difficulties Regarding the Regulation of E-Commerce

Laurynas Ramuckis 2118 02/02/04 La of E-Commerce; Prof. J. L. Basset The Main Features and Difficulties Regarding the Regulation of E-Commerce A narrow definition of the Electronic Commerce reads that an internet transaction is the sale or purchase of goods or services, whether between businesses, households, individuals, governments, and other public or private organizations, conducted over the Internet. The goods and services are ordered over the Internet, but the payment and the ultimate delivery of the good or service may be conducted on or off-line. 1 E-Commerce is an entirely new form of doing business, which ignores international borders of states. Traditional approach to commerce is yet more popular among the companies and individuals, however recent growth in electronic transactions creates a need for legislation and regulation of such commerce. Regulation of e-commerce faces two major disadvantages, first it involves a fast changes in the scope of e-commerce with changing technologies, and second, its' trans-nationality which leads to the question of which legal system should be applied in the regulation of electronic transactions. It has been concluded by the conference on e-commerce held in June 1998 by EC Commissioner Bangemann, that regulation on e-commerce should be

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Copyright patents act

MATTHEW ALLEN N5 Copyright Patents Act What is it? The copyright patents act of 1988 states that it is illegal to copy software without the permission of the person/company that owns the copyright of the software. The copyright holder is usually the author of the software. Illegal copying of software reduces the income to software companies. Having invested money in producing the software, these companies need to earn income from software sales to make profits. Offences which are outlawed by the act: * Unauthorised copying of software. * The selling of software that is known to be copied. There are some very serious actions which a court can use on anyone breaking the law. These include: www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright,_and_Patents_Act_1988. * The copying or sale of copied software can mean a prison sentence of up to two years and a large fine. * Being in possession of a device designed to copy software can mean a prison sentence of up to six months and a fine of up to £2000. * Compensation is also often awarded to the software company that has had its software copied. Despite the fact that copying software is illegal many people still do it. To prevent this some software companies use copy protection methods to make it harder to copy software. Software companies also use licensing agreements to restrict what customers can do with the software that

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