Legal compliance in commercial service provisioning across administrative domains

Abstract

Internet design principles do not focus on commercial service provisioning. Hence, support mechanisms need to be implemented in order to ensure that value added services can be offered in a competitive context. Commercial product offerings base on contractual agreements concluded between service providers and service customers. Contracts need to reflect business-driven requirements originating from involved contract parties, while they are invariably required to respect those regulations imposed by commerce law. Legal compliance, thus, determines the available range of applicable contractual terms - irrespective of whether such a contract governs commercial value added services in the Internet or not. Legal determinations are valid in a limited geographical area. The Internet, however, lacks a distinct notion of location. Consequently, technical means to overcome this fundamental design gap are investigated, in order to ensure that legally compliant contracts can be concluded. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2007.