The GBDe will establish and empower a number of working groups that will span the breadth of significant e-commerce issues, facilitate outreach within the business community and assess the actions and responses of business, government and non-governmental organizations. These working groups will be living entities and their subject matter and objectives will be drawn from issues critical to the continued growth of the electronic marketplace. The dialotue these working groups will lead will reflect the proactive nature of the GBDe, and will produce analysis and recommendations for action.

Privacy
In order to foster consumer confidence in the Internet, the GBDe will continue its work to encourage world-wide industry adoption and enforcement of fair information (privacy) practices, consistent with the principles presented by the GBDe at the Paris conference and based on codes of conduct developed by private sector organizations. In this regard, the GBDe notes the progress made by business in developing self-regulatory solutions, and encourages businesses in all regions to adopt intiatives that build on this work. In addition, the substantive and long-standing work of the OECD in developing privacy principles is also recognized.

Consumer Confidence/ADR
The GBDe will commence a new initiative through its members to foster the development of consumer protection and alternative dispute resolution mechanisms designed to promote fair business practices across international borders. These mechanisms will be designed to permit consumers, wherever located, to enjoy basic protections against false and misleading advertising and marketing practices, and to have access to private rederess for violations of those protections. In addition, this working group will subsume the integrally related issues of jurisdiction and authentication.

Consumer Confidence/GBDe Trustmark
This group will focus on a tangible commitment which the GBDe made at its Paris conference: the exploration of a GBDe "trustmark", or endorsing one or more existing marks, that would be awarded to commercial e-commerce sites around the world which meet the codes of conduct and standards set or endorsed by the GBDe and its member companies.

Trade and Taxation
The GBDe supports the development of a seamless global system that delivers the broadest array of goods and services to the largest number of consumers at the most competitive prices. This work effort will: offer recommendations to the WTO, including making the moratorium on online tariffs permanent; and collaborate with governments to target and eliminate discriminations against, or other non-tariff barriers to global trade in, electronic commerce. This working group will also provide an avenue for the GBDe to consider and promote the growth of the electronic marketplace in an environment unencumbered by detrimental taxation.

Intellectual Property Rights
The IPR working group will develop the general self-regulatory framework for voluntary notice and takedown procedures which would apply in cases where service providers are notified that they are storing on their networks, at the direction of a user, material allegedly infringing upon the rights of intellectual property rights holders. Although this framework would be based on procedures established in the recent US Digital Millenium Copyright Act, and in light of the express encouragement of self-regulatory industry-led codes of conduct found in the proposed EU Directive on E-Commerce, it would be made adaptable for use in other parts of the world where such procedures do not currently exist. This work would also take into account associated liability issues.

Advocacy of GBDe Recommendations
Advocacy and education will play a major role in the GBDe's activities going forward. Among other things, the GBDe will monitor and report on the efforts of the public and private sectors to implement the recommendations made at the Paris conference, and any new recommendations which may arise over the course of the next year. All governments participating in the GBDe process have been asked to respond to the recommendations made at the conference within six months, and government outreach efforts should focus on this significant milestone to assess government and industry reponse and gauge progress towards concrete actions. With respect to the private sector, the GBDe will assess whether and how well it is meeting its various committments.

The GBDe will not create specific working groups for recommendations that are self-contained or otherwise require no further elaboration or explication. However, the members expect the Advocacy working group to engage on these issues, such as taxation, in order to promote the recommendations of the GBDe as appropriate.

Advocacy and education will likely figure prominently in the activities of all working groups, as they develop plans to implement GBDe recommendations. The Advocacy working group should, therefore, lead a consultative process with the other working groups to formulate the best approaches to take in all applications of advocacy conducted by the GBDe.

In order to capitalize fully on the vast expertise within the GBDe, it is also contemplated that the former issue group chairs and contact points will play a major consultative role in the work of the Advocacy group, and the continuing espousal of GBDe principles. They have established substantial credibility within their regions and globally on the particular issues which they focused upon, and this should be fully leveraged for the benefit of GBDe advocacy efforts.

Outreach
The GBDe is well-positioned to benefit from the full richness, depth and global nature of the Internet community. By continuing to reach out to a broad range of companies around the world, the GBDe will be best prepared to recognize the constant changes in the electronic marketplace, the evolving policy challenges to these changes and to identify consensus solutions to them. We will also coordinate our efforts with the work of existing international institutions and organizations, and open a dialogue with consumer groups.

The chairs of this working group will work closely with the GBDe executive committee to maximize outreach potential and coordination.

The GBDe working groups will be called upon to issue a six-month interim report and a formal report at the GBDe 2000 conference. For more business related info visit business coach, where you will find business news, business articles and other business related information.