E-Commerce Strategy for Canada
Canadian Government Pushes E-Commerce in Canada
Dateline: 09/30/98
While Canadian businesses have been struggling to figure out how to make money on the Web, the Canadian federal government has been developing a Canadian strategy for e-commerce.
The Canadian e-commerce strategy covers issues key to the future of all kinds of electronic transactions.
Trust
The strategy puts a heavy emphasis on the trust factor - ensuring that people feel secure enough to use e-commerce technologies. Areas the government is working on are:
- security and cryptography
- privacy
- consumer protection
Marketplace Rules
Canadian businesses have been urging the government to clear up uncertainty that has arisen from new business practices. Digital signatures, the assignment of liability, and the protection of intellectual property are three examples.
Work is being done to establish a legal framework that will recognize electronic documents as well as paper ones, and digital signatures as well as original pen and ink ones.
Financial issues include jurisdictional questions on taxation and tariffs, as well as the impact that changing technology is having on the structure of the financial services sector.
The Canadian federal government is also working on intellectual property issues, like content ownership, liability of Internet service providers, trademarks and domain names, and the protection of databases. And, as always, competition guidelines.
Information Infrastructure
The Canadian federal government and the private sector continue to invest in improvements to the information infrastructure. Examples include SchoolNet's CanConnect program to connect all Canadian schools to the Internet, and the Community Access Program to help rural communities get affordable public access to the Internet, as well as the skills to use it.
Canada is also working with international organizations to establish standards for the interoperability of networks and communication.
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