If you were to set up an online business today, what is your assessment on how well traditional legal concepts governing Contracts have evolved to cope with advancements in Information and Communication Technology?
An online business is considered a market without boundaries. It provides potential buyers and sellers an opportunity to adhere without the requirement of face to face interaction. The benefits of Internet access are limitless. One can be actively involved in electronic transactions in the palm of hand without recognizing that it has already become a requisite part of daily life. In the same vein, the involvement of obsolescent legal concept must be eliminated, yet, bring about more contemporary and prevailing laws to advocate the prosperity of the technological advancement.
The generic terminology of Contract Law is defined as rules implemented to conduct the terms of the relationship and the content of an agreement between two or more parties in the forms of individuals, enterprises or other associations contemplating the exchange of interests and ownership of goods and services. The offer and acceptance conditions are embodied within the contract law, perhaps certain regulations and obligations legislated are required to be apprehended in order to comply with the Contract Law. In recent years, it has become apparent that an establishment of a successful online business shall experience the benefits and drawbacks from a huge leap of technological advancement, ‘Digitalisation’. Thus, the development of Internet Law from such innovated apparatus has gradually mature and reveals itself as the coordinator of online transactional activities. The norm of E-commerce and electronic contracting has evolved to manipulate the diverge nature of business. Intellectual Property Rights and privacy issues exhibit the concerns on online business operations that yet to be compromised by the Internet Law enacted to protect business operators. Consumer protection from fraud and computer crime are to be avoided in order to preserve the genuinity of online integrity. The aforesaid issues are prioritized among the fundamental assessments on how well traditional legal concepts governing Contracts have evolved to cope with advancements in Information and Communication Technology.
The comparison of civil and commercial code in the past and present has to be determined in order to distinguish the changes that have been adjusted to suit the current technological advancements. The issue on E-commerce and electronic contracting issue are among the most significant variances in contract law. Formerly, provisions of law arranged the prerequisite criteria,; which can simply be satisfied only by the use of a traditional means of communication, namely, paper based communication. The prototypes of such provisions of the Civil and Commercial Code law are as follows. (Exclude from the 1,500 words assigned)
• Contract of Sale: A sale of a movable property of at least 20,000 Baht in value is enforceable only where supported by written evidence signed by the party liable (s. 456 C.C.C.)
• A contract of hire-purchase is void unless made in writing (s. 572 C.C.C.)
• A loan of money for a sum over 2,000 Baht is enforceable unless evidenced by writing signed by the borrower (s. 653 C.C.C.)
• A contract of insurance is enforceable unless evidenced by writing signed by the party liable (s. 867 C.C.C.)
• Only original documents can be adduced to the Court as evidence (s. 93)
The bottom line of the provisions above is that in order for one to bring a lawsuit to judicial settlement, written documents, and signature evidence in writing was to be adduced to the court as evidences, as an accordance of civil and commercial code law. Yet, due to the advancement of technology, it has consequently resulted in some adjustments of contract law respectively to the issue mentioned. The following provisions of contract law are examples