Note: Senator Joseph Lieberman and Representative Ellen Tauscher sent letters to the President, U.S. Trade Representative Robert Zoellick, and their Congressional colleagues in support of PPI's "A Third Way Framework for Global E-Commerce" report.

Washington, D.C. -- The Progressive Policy Institute (PPI) warned today that regulatory uncertainty could threaten the viability of international e-commerce and proposed a policy framework to alleviate global conflicts which threaten free trade on the Internet.

As the Internet expands globally, the cross-border nature of the technology is revolutionizing international trade. Consumers now have the ability to bypass the traditional export-import system and conduct a transaction directly with a foreign seller, without needing to travel to the seller's country. But unless industry and policy makers can come to grips with a host of pressing policy issues, web consumers may lose confidence to visit web sites beyond their national borders and with the mish-mash of confusing and conflicting laws of nearly 200 nations, many erected by countries seeking to protect their domestic industries from global e-commerce competitors, e-commerce sellers may find it easier to not conduct business with foreign buyers. The PPI paper, entitled "A Third Way Framework for Global E-Commerce," by Robert Atkinson, Director of the Technology and New Economy Project at PPI, and Shane Ham, Technology Policy Analyst for the Technology and New Economy Project, lays out a comprehensive policy framework and proposes specific policy recommendations to ensure that this emerging form of trade is allowed to flourish.

"The Internet is revolutionizing trade by connecting sellers and buyers in different countries directly," Atkinson said. "But if consumers are wary of venturing into foreign cyberspaces or businesses are burdened by conflicting national laws, we risk the creation of a digital iron curtain which may balkanize the Internet, causing the World Wide Web to become Numerous National Nets."

To preserve the cross-border nature of the Internet and promote its continued growth, policymakers must address two essential questions: jurisdiction, the question of whose laws apply to a cross-border transaction; and sovereignty, the question of how much domestic control over access to the global Internet must be relinquished in order to promote global e-commerce. Through a combination of government action and development of new private institutions, it is possible to create an environment of trust for buyers and sellers that will allow cross-border electronic commerce to flourish. PPI has developed a framework of six principles to achieve this goal: