As Internet use in private households continues to increase, so too do the number of consumers making purchases over the Internet. Against this background, this works considers consumer protection in the Internet with particular emphasis on the conclusion of contracts on the Internet, the company's duty to inform, the consumer's right of withdrawal, and the monitoring of general terms and conditions of Internet contracts. English and German law are presented and analyzed under consideration of the relevant European private law.

Master's Thesis from the year 2004 in the subject Law - Media, Multimedia Law, Copyright, grade: first, distinction (mit Auszeic, University of Wales, Aberystwyth, course: LL.M. Programm, 110 entries in the bibliography, language: English, abstract: This Dissertation aims to assess the effectiveness and suitability of European regulation in respect to E-Commerce. Taking the European 'Lisbon Strategy' as set out in 2000 as a starting point, this paper examines whether Europe is on the right track to becoming "the most competitive and dynamic knowledge-based economy (...) by 2010." Hereby, the scope of this paper is limited to E-Commerce only as one essential part of a 'knowledge-based economy' and an 'e-ready' Europe. After outlining the special nature of E-Commerce, the rationale behind regulation and the historical background of European regulation in this field, this paper concentrates on four issues where the EU has become active in regulating E-Commerce, namely, the essential prerequisite of an existing 'e-infrastructure', e-signatures, privacy and consumer protection. The European approach to each of these issues is assessed to reveal its strengths and weaknesses. Moreover, this European way of regulating E-Commerce is then compared with other regulative attempts. Hereby, special attention is paid to the US approach to regulating E-Commerce which is mostly based on self-regulation. Thus, this paper comes to the conclusion that Europe is on the right track to becoming 'e-ready' in respect to E-Commerce. Basic regulatory decisions have the potential to lead in the right direction, although they do not always provide the most effective solution. Often European Directives do not reach far enough and are outdated. Thus, they do not address E-Commerce sufficiently, give too much discretion to the Member States and leave prevalent gaps or do not interoperate properly. Therefore, the European regulation on E-Commerce needs some revision and has to take some brave

Seminar paper from the year 2004 in the subject Law - Media, Multimedia Law, Copyright, grade: First, distinction, University of Wales, Aberystwyth (Law Faculty), course: Seminar: International Copyright Law, 24 entries in the bibliography, language: English, abstract: This paper tries to examine the impact of technological change and thus asks, in how far copyright laws have developed as a direct answer to technological inventions and which other factors supported or delayed its development. After a short presentation of the concept of copyright, it is argued that worldwide technological change was and still is one of the most important factors influencing the development of copyright laws. However, it is also shown that this impact has not always been the same. This paper identifies four distinguishable 'epochs' which reflect different impacts of technology on the development of copyright law and it can be seen that basically the following 'epochs' can be found in various jurisdictions: 1. from 1445-1500 technological change was the initial drive for copyright law; 2. from 1500-1700 the stabilisation of political power through censorship determined copyright law; 3. from 1700-1886 technological progress is again in the centre of copyright developments and 4. from 1886-today technological progress is still highly influential, but the aim of international uniformity and economic considerations are of equally strong influence. Having a closer look on these four 'epochs', it is also shown that they cannot be seen as fixed, as not all countries fit nicely into this scheme.