scholarly journals Comparison of E-Commerce Regulations in Chinese and American FTAs: Converging Approaches, Diverging Contents, and Polycentric Directions?

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jie Huang
Keyword(s):  
Free Flow ◽  
Digital Products ◽  
Goods And Services ◽  
Cross Border ◽  
Legal Challenges ◽  
The Us ◽  
Free Flow Of Information ◽  
Flow Of Information ◽  
Domestic Law

Insufficient WTO regulation of cross-border e-commerce confronts China and the US with three legal challenges: ambiguous classification of digital products, inadequate consumer and privacy protection, and weak protection of cross-border flow of information. China and the US have adopted converging approaches to address these challenges: inserting e-commerce chapters into their FTAs. However, the substance of these chapters is diverging. Firstly, US FTAs categorise digital products separately from goods and services and provide national treatment and most favoured nation treatment to products and their suppliers. China’s FTAs still offer no solutions to the classification of digital products and their treatment. Secondly, although China’s FTAs still provide weak protection for consumers and privacy, Chinese domestic law has converged towards US FTAs to provide better protection. Thirdly, US and China FTAs are significantly divergent in their regulation of the free flow of information. In the post-TPP era, a polycentric direction will emerge in the regulation of the free flow of information between China and the US.

Why Trade Agreements are not Setting Information Free: The Lost History and Reinvigorated Debate over Cross-Border Data Flows, Human Rights, and National Security

2015 ◽  
Vol 14 (04) ◽  
pp. 671-700 ◽  
Author(s):  
SUSAN AARONSON
Keyword(s):  
National Security ◽  
Trade Agreements ◽  
The United States ◽  
Free Flow ◽  
The Internet ◽  
Digital Rights ◽  
Cross Border ◽  
Data Flows ◽  
Free Flow Of Information ◽  
Flow Of Information

AbstractHerein, we examine how the United States and the European Union use trade agreements to advance the free flow of information and to promote digital rights online. In the 1980s and 1990s, after US policymakers tried to include language governing the free flow of information in trade agreements, other nations feared a threat to their sovereignty and their ability to restrict cross-border data flows in the interest of privacy or national security.In the twenty-first century, again many states have not responded positively to US and EU efforts to facilitate the free flow of information. They worry that the US dominates both the Internet economy and Internet governance in ways that benefit its interests. After the Snowden allegations, many states adopted strategies that restricted rather than enhanced the free flow of information. Without deliberate intent, efforts to set information free through trade liberalization may be making the Internet less free.Finally, the two trade giants are not fully in agreement on Internet freedom, but neither has linked policies to promote the free flow of information with policies to advance digital rights. Moreover, they do not agree as to when restrictions on information are necessary and when they are protectionist.

E-Democracy as a Contemporary Framework for Citizens' Deliberation

2005 ◽  
pp. 250-255
Author(s):  
Ulrike Kozeluh
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
New Media ◽  
Virtual Space ◽  
Free Flow ◽  
Information And Communication ◽  
Free Flow Of Information ◽  
Flow Of Information

The emergence of new media has raised the hope of many politicians, citizens, political activists and scholars from various disciplines to establish a (virtual) space for free flow of information and communication for increasing the quality of democratic decision making.1

Taking Care of Business

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dan Schiller
Keyword(s):  
Task Force ◽  
The United States ◽  
Free Flow ◽  
The Internet ◽  
Computing Services ◽  
Internet Policy ◽  
Global Commerce ◽  
Free Flow Of Information ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Flow Of Information

This chapter examines the Commerce Department's free-flow policy as part of its power over internet policy. It first provides an overview of U.S.–centric internet and Commerce's Internet Policy Task Force, established to launch an inquiry into “the global free flow of information on the Internet.” The inquiry's purpose was “to identify and examine the impact that restrictions on the flow of information over the Internet have on American businesses and global commerce.” The chapter also considers Commerce's commodification strategies based in part on data centers and the place of cloud computing services in the department's free-flow inquiry. It shows that the Commerce Department's free-flow policy was a major component of the federal government's overall efforts to keep corporate data flows streaming without restriction as new profit sites emerged around an extraterritorial internet managed by the United States.

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