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policy makers to speed up their efforts for its governance and regulation. The policy
issues described in this section have to be addressed in order to facilitate the
development of a safe and well-defined environment for electronic commerce,
addressing the social concerns outlined in the previous section. These policy issues
are presented following the six levels of Internet policy architecture including
infrastructure, governance, security, privacy, content and commerce. These have
been defined by the Global Internet Project (GIP), a group of senior executives
from leading companies around the world (Patrick, 1999; www.gip.org). The
second part of the section presents the dilemmas in addressing policy issues, leading
on to a discussion of the implications for policy makers in the remainder of the paper.
Policy Issues at Six Levels of Internet policy
Infrastructure
The infrastructure level aims at addressing “the challenge of meeting the
demand for reliable and scaleable access to the Internet”
(Patrick 1999, p. 106).
The speed, the quality, the reliability and the cost of the networks used for on-line
transactions, are very important factors that can either boost or obstruct evolution
of electronic commerce. One of the top priorities of governments is the support of
the telecommunication industry so that it can offer better quality services in terms
of speed, reliability, continuous access and interconnectivity between sub-net-
works (Patrick, 1999).
The American government, for example, aims at the
provision of on-line services to the majority of American households not only
through desktop computers connecting to the Internet but also through devices such
as television, cellular phones and portable digital assistants (US Department of
Commerce, 1998). The liberalization of the telecommunication market is a relevant
directive of the European Union (EC, 1997) and OECD (1997b) to their member
states. It demonstrates the intention of international policy making organizations to
reduce the cost and improve the robustness of the telecommunication infrastructure
worldwide.
In relation to the social concerns discussed in the previous section, policies that
support the infrastructure level contribute towards better trust in terms of Internet