Legal Requirements for the Personalization of Commercial Internet Applications in Europe
Petra L. Schubert, Mathias Kummer, Uwe Leimstoll · Journal of Organizational Computing and Electronic Commerce · 2006
Most electronic-commerce (e-commerce) applications require the collection and storing of information about customers. As a consequence, the performed transactions involve legal issues. For 3 years, we have been involved in a project that has studied the potentials of personalization of e-commerce systems from the particular angle of small- and medium-sized enterprises. In this article, we pick up a couple of scenarios that many e-commerce vendors face when implementing personalization on their Web sites. The specific focus of the discussion is the legal use of costumer profiles for e-commerce applications. Because most legal issues are difficult to understand for nonlawyers, in this article, we make use of a case study, which shows explicitly what e-commerce vendors need to keep in mind when implementing personalization on their Web sites.