Top executives from a broad array of industries are getting together to set policies for the booming business of e-commerce.
Time Warner chief Gerald Levin, America Online Chairman Steve Case and Bertelsmann CEO Thomas Middelhoff were among those present to announce the establishment of the Global Business Dialogue on E-Commerce.
E-commerce will be a $430 billion business by 2002, according to the group.
“It’s now big enough to matter, but it’s still young enough and small enough to be shaped,” Case said, explaining he thinks the Internet will have as much impact as did TV and the telephone.
“The Internet has developed to a point where business leaders put aside their competitive issues and shape the medium in a positive way,” he said.
The group will initially focus on privacy, taxation and consumer-data protection, and has representatives from the Americas, Asia, Europe and Africa.
The GBDE’s Steering Committee includes CEOs from all industries that in some way or another could be affected by the emerging e-commerce sector, including Internet, computer, telecommunications, financial services, retail, manufacturing and media companies.
The group plans to study self-regulatory, market-driven initiatives to “facilitate e-commerce,” said Middelhoff.
“This is a profound event,” said Time Warner’s Levin. “While we may have a home office somewhere, we now have true global reach.”
Levin said the business world has a role to play in shaping public policy.
The GBDE wants to rid the world of patchwork regulations that could be inconsistent from country to country.
That global Internet commerce business – including e-commerce and all other aspects of the industry – could reach $3.2 trillion by 2003, if businesses and governments can work together, according to a Forrester Research study.
About $1 trillion are at stake.
Putnam said the formation of such a group is very necessary.
“If they can’t cooperate, if deregulation stalls or if the government throws up walls of uncoordinated regulation, we believe it could be a low as $1.8 trillion,” said Michael Putnam, an analyst with Forrester’s business, trade and technology group.
“Inclusion is what this is all about,” Levin said. “We’re talking about the most democratic medium.”
Middelhoff said the steering committee was elected by a wide range of business leaders and, while Microsoft wasn’t present this year, it could easily be next year.
At the press conference the executives were emphatic in their assurances that this group wasn’t formed to fend off any government regulations.
Over the next three months, working groups will be looking at policy initiatives, including a conference on personal-data protection, consumer confidence, liability, jurisdiction, infrastructure, content, protection of intellectual property rights and security.