EU: OECD meeting prompts concerns

The OECD meeting to consider the framing of guidelines to cover electronic commerce – scheduled for Ottowa in October 1998 – has begun to elicit concerns from several advertising and marketing organisations. Andrew Brown, Director-General of the UK Advertising Association, has written to the Office of Fair Trading in support of the objectives of the OECD meeting but also to express concern about paragraphs 23 and 24 of the draft recommendation on consumer protection; these paragraphs state that the law applicable to the electronic contact should be that of the country in which the country resides, ie the country of destination and not the country of origin.