Traditional redress mechanisms such as litigation and traditional
alternative dispute resolution generally fail to strengthen consumer confidence
in e-commerce. Rather they may represent an additional source of uncertainty.
In particular litigation fails to offer the certainty the consumer seeks. To date,
neither European nor American courts have found reliable criteria for
determining Internet jurisdiction and have failed to provide consistency in their
decisions. In addition, uncertainty arising from unclear concepts on the
enforcement level and the high volume of disputes with low monetary value
have led to the development of online ADR providers that allow individuals from
across the world to settle disputes. Both online mediation and online arbitration
serve consumers as appropriate instruments to enforce their rights arising out
of online disputes. They are designed for disputes with small monetary value
and are capable of overcoming jurisdictional obstacles. On the enforcement
level, online arbitration based on the New York Convention provides the
consumer with a powerful tool on global level. Online consumer arbitration can
ensure a maximum of enforceability if the consumer arbitration rules of online
ADR providers incorporate the requirements of the New York Convention.
In addition or instead of online ADR, businesses increasingly rely on
other dispute avoidance and dispute settlement instruments in order to promote
consumer confidence. Some of those models employed by e-commerce
companies succeed in promoting trust, while others do so only to a limited
extent. In particular, mandatory credit card chargeback regimes give consumers
an effective and quick means of disputing a transaction with a merchant at
almost no cost. On the other hand, escrow services seem to be less appropriate
for the typical small amount e-commerce transaction mainly since consumers
are generally not willing to pay the added costs for the use of the escrow
service for the average small amount transaction. Trustmark and seal programs
provide the potential to give guidance to the consumer about consumer
protection standards of the online seller before any damage is done and offer
effective and inexpensive certification, monitoring and enforcement procedures.
However, to date trustmark and seal systems have applied these powerful tools
only to a limited extent. A proliferation of trustmark and seal programs make it
hard for consumers to distinguish between differences in the programs and to
assess their quality. Rating and feedback systems provide an immediate and
inexpensive source of information to buyers about sellers and a strong incentive
for good performance to repeat sellers. These systems are prone to abuse and
information gathered through these systems is often unreliable.
In my thesis I argue that traditional litigation no longer provides the most
appropriate means of dispute settlement in the case of small amount crossborder
consumer transactions. Neither do traditional ADR mechanisms provide
the most convenient and efficient method of settling online consumer disputes.
Online ADR and several other models of redress successfully replace traditional
mechanisms since they better meet the challenges of online disputes and live
up to recognised consumer protection principles. I argue that online arbitration
based on international arbitration law such as the New York Convention
presents a particularly viable instrument for the settlement of the average smallamount
online consumer disputes. After having sketched the jurisdictional
hurdles for the resolution of online disputes I analyse whether both online ADR
and other trust-creating models are capable of providing an efficient and fair
redress instrument for the consumer. For this purpose, the practises and
policies of online dispute resolution providers are mirrored in recognised
consumer protection principles and the international legal framework. Likewise
the potential and limits of other trust-creating models are explored under the
question of to what extent they serve the consumer as a viable instrument to
impose her rights. The guiding questions of this evaluation will be if and to what
extent these recently evolved institutions meet - according to their policies and
practises - the challenges set up by the particularities of online consumer
transactions.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:BVAU.2429/11857 |
| Date | 11 1900 |
| Creators | Schulze Suedhoff, Ulrich |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Relation | UBC Retrospective Theses Digitization Project [http://www.library.ubc.ca/archives/retro_theses/] |
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