Assessing Legal Challenges on the Mobile Internet
Olli Pitkänen, Martti Mäntylä, Mikko Välimäki, and Jukka Kemppinen
International Journal of Electronic Commerce,
Volume 8, Number 1, Fall 2003, pp. 101.
Abstract: This article describes some legal challenges related to information products and services on the mobile Internet and the World Wide Web. Using a scenario-based methodology, it describes the future mobile Internet and explains how information products and services would be used on it. A systematic method is used to build the scenarios. As the problems likely to emerge are very complex, the scenarios take into account several major factors that delineate the mobile Internet and its use-not just technological changes and economic factors, but societal issues and how individuals feel and behave. The scenarios make it possible to identify the kinds of legal challenges that are likely to emerge. Analysis of the scenarios indicates that intellectual property rights, privacy, and contracts are the legal areas most likely to involve challenges on the mobile Internet.
Key Words and Phrases: Contracts, digital rights management (DRM), information product, intellectual property rights (IPR), legal issues, mobile Internet, privacy, scenario methods, societal aspects of information technology.