February 27, 2019: Rich countries including Australia decided at the recent World Economic Forum meeting at Davos to push for an E-Commerce Agreement in the World Trade Organisation. Their formula is for ‘free digital trade’, for rules that suit global digital corporations – notably Google, Amazon, Microsoft and Apple. This push has been strongly criticised by consumer and civil society groups.
February 13, 2019: Chakravarthi Raghavan, an esteemed author of several books on the WTO, and Jomo Kwame Sundaram, former United Nations Assistant Secretary General for Economic Development, have issued a sharp warning to developing countries about the e-commerce initiative recently launched at Davos by a group of rich country governments, including Australia.
January 31, 2019: The Trans-Atlantic Consumer Dialogue (TACD), a grand alliance of seventy-five US and EU consumer organisations, has issued a strong critical statement about the intention of 76 WTO member governments to negotiate binding rules for e-commerce that would not protect consumer rights.
January 29, 2019: The elite business and government World Economic Forum meeting last week was a perfect setting for Australia and 70 other mostly industrialised country governments to announce exclusive plans for an e-commerce trade deal that was rejected after fierce debate by the majority of the 164 WTO members who met in Argentina in December.
8 October 2018: The United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (“USMCA”), a remodelling of the North American Free Trade Agreement (“NAFTA”), has serious implications for data privacy and usage for consumers in those countries and around the world according to Michael Geist in a Washington Post article.
April 17, 2018: In a communication to other WTO members on April 12, the US government has outlined its seven areas for a possible WTO work program on e-commerce.
July 21, 2017 There are proposals in the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership that government regulation should have no compulsory disclosure of source codes, no restriction on transfer and processing of data outside the country, and no requirements for computing facilities to be locally based. These proposals raise questions about the ability of governments to have effective national regulation of data privacy and data security.