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Editorial

International Business and e-arbitration

The Internet is being waved in front of businesses large and small as the future for prosperity. The oft-touted battle cry is ‘benefit from a world market at your fingertips’. Nevertheless, despite government pressure to join the fray, the EU reports that many smaller businesses (SMEs) are reluctant to go online. They also conclude that access to affordable alternative dispute resolution (ADR) is necessary to give SMEs confidence in cross-border trading. It is easy enough to pinpoint a need but developing a real solution, E-Arbitration-T, has been a much longer story with players across Europe.

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M-legal

This tour of m-legal issues and technologies from Paul Lambert was also published in the Irish Law Society Gazette.

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E-Privacy and Online Data Protection

Marc Dautlich of Olswang reviews E-Privacy and Online Data Protection by Peter Carey and Eduardo Ustaran (Butterworths, £103.55).

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Privacy and Data Sharing Implications of E-government: An Analysis of the PIU Report

Last April the Performance and Innovation Unit, one of Whitehall’s most influential bodies, produced a report entitled “Privacy and data-sharing, the way forward for public services” (PIU report). The report took two years to write and its aim was to provide a ‘new strategic approach’ to the use of personal data held by the public sector. But there are some significant limitations in the report, not least poor analysis of the legal issues. Sarah Williams of Masons feels that questions remain about how the exchange of information can be justified and what the implications for privacy rights will be.

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The Conversion of Sex.com

What may turn out to be a milestone in legal thinking about the Internet is currently awaiting decision by the California Supreme Court. It concerns the rights to “sex.com”, the domain name for a Web site offering links to a variety of sex-related online services. David Marchese explains the background to the case, which is not unsurprisingly murky. He feels that it is the ingenuity of those involved in the case that raises wider issues about how the information society and the law interact.

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The Gap between IT and Business

This article is an edited version of a ‘White Paper’ published by Boxwood Technology, a unit of management consultancy Boxwood Group. It is the product too of a research agency which was commissioned by Boxwood to talk to managers and partners at 20 leading law firms. There is an oft-reported gap between expectations at board or partner level of what IT can do and what the IT function actually delivers. The aim of the research was to test whether that gap existed in business operating in the legal profession.

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Tried, Tested and Trusted

With over 25 years experience in the industry, Marcus O’Leary, founding partner at the eponymously named firm of solicitors, must be one of the most experienced IT legal professionals in the UK. Yet, despite his long-standing enthusiasm and fascination with technology, the firm’s use of technology is refreshingly uncomplicated.

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