Feb 6 - Feb 16, 1998

A significant amount of work related to electronic commerce by the Internet industry can be found at http://www.ilpf.org/ with pointers to other sites. The Internet Law and Policy Forum has effectively become the leading industry organization in this area.

Thank you to all who responded to my message both on this mailing list and with private mails.

Prof.Dr. Srisakdi Charmonman: Congratulations on your appointment as the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Commerce. Let us hope that the net has the power to integrate and expand the Asian markets which is otherwise under challenge. It is certainly allowing us to communicate better!! This list is widely read by major net figures in Japan. Your message will reach them directly.

Following is a summary of points discussed in the parallel Japanese Online Conference.

January 19th to January 27th
The Japanese market is roughly 20% to 30% the size of the American market, which indicates the difference in nature between the mail order customers in both markets.
Also, the question of who bears responsibility for fraud and accidents was raised.
Should intellectual property rights be protected by the law, or by autonomous rules?

January 28th to February 1st.
With regard to the societal impact of EC, consumer communication is vital. The merits of EC can be summarised in two points.
(1) It's much more efficient.
The biggest is one to one marketing. This makes mass customised production to order possible, so the customer can edit the marketplace. Also, real time marketing becomes possible, along with gigantic search and retrieve services such as Amazon.com.
2) Communication is fun! Satisfaction from the communication itself comes in two forms.
A) Between customer and business.
With production to order, the customer is able to share in the philosophy of the business or employee, and a personal touch can be provided by having attention paid to details.
B) Between customers.
Interaction between customers forms a type of community, which impacts product development and sales. Nifty Canon forum and HP200LX are examples. It was pointed out that the inter-customer interaction in (2) B) does not go well with (1), which demands efficiency. (Also, perhaps (2) A) would be better included in (1).)
To summarise, seen from the individual user's point of view, the merits of EC are that you can find exactly what you want, cheaply and quickly, and that you don't need to shop by yourself, but can have fun interacting with others.

The major B to B themes were the transition to more open systems, and the expansion of electronic commerce, and questions related to settlement.

February 2nd to February 4th
The nature of the Web as a business or marketing tool was discussed, with regard to the essential impact of EC.
Also, the question of EC and taxation was discussed.
Further, the B to B theme was taken up in earnest, and the following points raised.
1) What is the current scale? Around 10% of the closed Net, and hardly anything on the open Net. Is this the same in America?
2) EC on the open Net is likely to take off rapidly from now. However, probably not completely open. The spread will probably begin with trade transactions, and transactions between small and medium sized enterprises. The introduction of the Internet itself into small and medium sized businesses has been slow, and electronic commerce will probably be slower still. One of the biggest reasons is that people don't understand how they will benefit.
The following were cited as examples of demerits.
1) Before you can reach the other party in the transaction, you need to have the infrastructure in-house.
2) Concerns over security.
3) Production on demand already exists in the industry, and there are VAN connections with the other parties, so that there is no obvious reduction in cost.