Rolf H. Weber – författare

Within the last decade, the Internet has developed as a phenomenon encompassing social, cultural, economic and legal facets. It has become common practice to use the Internet for both the retrieval and provision of information, with the result that the Internet has become a valuable tool in everyday life. Many Internet participants are unaware that they leave data tracks on every website they pass; surfing on the World Wide Web is far from being an anonymous activity of no consequence.

In recent years a number of networking techniques have been initiated in order to accommodate the netizen’s wish for anonymous communication and the protection of their privacy in the online world. Anonymization explores the legal framework developed to help protect netizens’ privacy and their wish for anonymous communication over the Internet. It debates the value in helping to protect anonymity over a network which sees an increasing number of cybercrimes, and explores governmental interventions into anonymity requests, and whether requests should only be legal if a sufficiently legitimized public interest is given.

The classification of services in the digital economy proves critical for doing business, but it appears to be a particularly complex regulatory matter that is based upon a manifold set of issues. In the context of the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS), when the services classification scheme was drafted in the early 1990s, convergence processes had not unfolded yet and the internet was still in its infancy and not a reality in daily life. Therefore, policy makers are now struggling with the problem of regulating trade in electronic services and are in search of a future-oriented solution for classifying them in multilateral and preferential trade agreements. In late fall 2011, the authors of this study were mandated by the European Union, Delegation to Vietnam, in the context of the Multilateral Trade Assistance Project 3 (MUTRAP 3), to work out a report clarifying the classification of services in the information/digital economy and to assess the impact of any decision regarding the classifications on the domestic and external relations policy of Vietnam, as well as to discuss the relevant issues with local experts during three on-site visits.