E Business:

a practical guide to the laws (second edition)

Amanda Brock and Rafi Azim-Khan

Publication date: December 2007 Price £75.00 ISBN: 978 1904905 49 3

This is an easy-to-read, jargon-busting guide to the legal issues affecting online business. The use of bullet points and checklists provide useful aide memoirs, while the sample clauses and contracts are invaluable. The book deals with the E-Commerce Regulations (EC Directive) 2002, and the Privacy and Electronic Communications (EC Directive) Regulations 2003. It explains how these affect on-line trading and marketing. Offering practical advice on how to manage e-business issues, the book also explains various contractual relationships which directors and managers will be asked to enter into. The authors provide useful pointers on negotiation and the practical analysis of contract issues including web site design and build, hosting content, linking, outsourcing and other third party relationships.

Since the first edition was published there have been significant developments:

· Court cases affecting file-sharing (such as Napster)

· The Police and Justice Act 2006 introduced stiffer sentences for some computer-related offences

· The massive growth if online auctions, gambling and entertainment (hence the recent sale of YouTube to Google for $1.65 billion)

If you, or your client, operate an e-Business you will need this book.

From the preface to the second edition

Governments have continued to play ‘catch-up’ as the Internet and mobile web-enabled devices and methods of doing business continue to evolve at an ever increasing pace. Domain names are one such area that has seen significant change, the European Court of Justice has been called upon to provide some clarification of the role of database rights in the new media age, particularly given the increasing use of web based platforms for customer profiling and the provision of “bespoke” online shopping experiences. Many operators in cyber space have lobbied hard to extend the protections originally granted under the E-Commerce Directive to intermediaries such as ISPs and a further review of the E-Commerce Directive is now on-going.

Businesses have sought to come to grips with the Distant Selling Directive and Regulations as they have struggled to understand the various “opt-in” and “opt-out” rules regarding e-mail. We look at the new rules on this and also the further rules that the relevant Privacy and Electronic Communications (EC Directive) Regulations 2003 have brought in regarding the ability to monitor and intercept e-mail traffic.

Further changes are covered in relation to the advertising regulatory regime and not least the demise of the ITC and Ofcom’s “contracting out” of the regulator duties to BCAP. Other developments include the rejection of the proposed EC Directive on the Patentability of Computer Implemented Inventions (EC Software Patent) Directive by the European Parliament in the Summer of 2006 and the implementation of the EU Copyright Directive in the UK by way of the Copyright and Related Rights Regulations 2003 which aimed to bring copyright laws into the modern era particularly to cover web style exploitation. The aim of this book is not to be a definitive, academic, legal text but rather a practical guide to how these and other laws may impact those who to do business or indeed simply use the internet. The introduction to the book is as the first edition as we believe it is a good scene setter. However, we have added a new section to the end of this updating the second edition. We hope that we have in this second edition managed to keep pace with some of these changes, and that it continues to provide a practical and cutting edge analysis.

About the authors:

Amanda C. Brock has almost a decade's experience as an in-house solicitor. She spent two years as the UK Legal Director and a member of the Executive Board of Aramark setting up their first legal department outside of the US. Prior to this she spent five years working with Dixons Group Plc, where she was the first lawyer employed to work on Freeserve and had responsibility for e-commerce issues in the UK and abroad. Prior to this she worked in private practice where she acted for a number of clients including Vauxhall Motors whom she advised on IT and Internet matters. Amanda is dual qualified as a solicitor in Scotland and England & Wales. She is LLB (Hons), University of Glasgow, Master of Comparative Jurisprudence, New York University and LLM (IP), Queen Mary and Westfield College, University of London. Amanda has lectured and written extensively on commercial, IP and e-commerce law. She has worked as a consultant to Hawksmere developing and delivering training programmes for in-house lawyers and most recently the In-House Layers’ Annual update. She is one of the founding Directors of In-House-In-Tuition, a training company specialising in providing regional based training for in-house professionals.

Rafi Azim-Khan, is the Partner heading the e-Business Group at major UK law firm Wragge & Co LLP. Rafi is based in the firm’s London office, and has advised clients ranging from major ISPs and technology companies to multinational manufacturers and media companies on a wide range of marketing, commercial, data protection and intellectual property issues and on all aspects of conducting business on the Internet. Rafi, described in one specialist E-Commerce Guide as one of the “Digital Dozen” leading UK experts, has co-¬authored numerous texts on such topics, is listed in Legal Experts, Legal 500, Chambers UK and, has been listed as one of the world’s leading lawyers, in Chambers Global Directory.

Praise for the first edition:

“This book is full of practical advice on the legalities of establishing and operating a website in the UK, and the author’s commentary is refreshingly easy to read”

Michael Miller, Head of Legal, Amazon.co.uk

“Accessible to lawyers and laypeople, brims with practical insight, industry understanding and commercial good sense. Refreshingly different. A good read.”

Professor Richard Susskind, Gresham Professor of Law, in The Times

"truly helps the non-legal expert to understand the law and the Internet... an invaluable tool"

Direct Marketing Association Web Site

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