For most people, shopping is still a matter of wandering down the street or loading a cart in a shopping mall. Soon, that will change. Electronic commerce (trade) is growing fast and will soon bring people more choices. There will, however, be a cost: protecting the consumer from being cheated will be harder. Many governments therefore want to apply street regulations to the electronic world. But politicians would be wiser to see cyberspace as a basis for a new era of corporate self-regulation.
Consumers in rich countries have grown used to the idea that the government takes responsibility for everything from the stability of the banks to the safety of the drugs or their rights to refund when goods are faulty. But governments cannot enforce national laws on businesses whose only presence is on the screen. Even in a country where a clear right to compensation exists, the on-line customer in Tokyo, say, can hardly go to New York to get a refund (退款) for a clothes purchase.
One answer is for government to cooperate more: to recognize each other’s rules. But that requires years of work and volumes of detailed rules. And plenty of countries have rules too fanciful for sober countries to accept. There is, however, another choice. Let the electronic businesses do the regulation themselves. They do, after all, have a self-interest in doing so.
In electronic commerce, a reputation for honest dealing will be a valuable competitive asset. Governments, too, may compete to be trusted. For instance, customers ordering medicines on- line may prefer to buy from the United States because they trust the rigorous screening of the Food and Drug Administration; or they may decide that the FDA’s rules are too strict, and buy from Switzerland instead.
Customers will still need to use their judgment, but precisely because the technology is new, electronic shoppers are likely for a while to be a lot more cautious than customers of the normal sort. And the new technology will also make it easier for them to complain when a company lets them down. In this way, at least, the advent(出現(xiàn)) of cyberspace may argue for fewer consumer protection laws, not more.
小題1:In case an electronic shopper bought faulty goods from a foreign country, what could he do?
| A．Refuse to pay for the purchase. | B．Go to the seller and ask for a refund. |
| C．Appeal to consumer protection law. | D．Complain about it on the Internet. |
小題2:In the author’s view, businesses would place a high emphasis on honest dealing because in the electronic world _______.
| A．international cooperation would be much more frequent |
| B．consumers could easily seek government protection |
| C．a(chǎn) good reputation is a great advantage in competition |
| D．it would be easy for consumers to complain |
小題3:We can infer from the passage that in licensing new drugs the FDA in the United States is______.
| A．very quick | B．very cautious | C．very slow | D．rather careless |
小題4:According to the author, what will be the best policy for electronic commerce?
| A．Self-regulation by the business. | B．Strict Consumer protection laws. |
| C．Close international cooperation. | D．Government protection. |
