U.S. and EU Regulatory Competition and Authentication Standards in Electronic Commerce

In 2006, businesses engaged in Internet commerce face a fundamental challenge when trying to implement strong authentication technologies because of the absence of widely accepted standards for the reliable authentication of transacting parties in Internet commerce. For more than a decade, governments have struggled unsuccessfully to create legal frameworks within which businesses can implement strong authentication technologies, and still enjoy the global reach and efficiency of Internet markets. The creation of such frameworks requires the simultaneous resolution of legal, business and technical issues, a result that none of the electronic commerce enabling legislation enacted to date in either the US or EU has managed to achieve. This paper will analyze the strengths and weaknesses of the different approaches taken by the US and EU in recent years, and will suggest what regulatory strategies might succeed in this area in the future. AbsTRACT