For most people, shopping is still a matter of wandering down the street or loading a cart in a shopping mall. Soon, that will change. Electronic commerce is growing fast and will soon bring people more choices. There will, however, be a cost: protecting the consumer from fraud will be harder. Many governments therefore want to extend high street regulations to the electronic world. But politicians would be wiser to see cyberspace as a basis for a new era of corporate self-regulation.
Consumers in rich countries have grown used to the idea that the government takes responsibility for everything from the stability of the banks to the safety of the drugs, or their rights to refund when goods are faulty. But governments cannot enforce national laws on businesses whose only presence in their country is on the screen. Other countries have regulators, but the rules of consumer protection differ, as does enforcement. Even where a clear right to compensation exists, the online catalogue customer in Tokyo, say, can ha
rdly go to New York to extract a refund for a dud purchase.
One answer is for governments to cooperate more: to recognize each other’s rules. But that requires years of work and volumes of detailed rules. And plenty of countries have rules too fanciful for sober states to accept. There is, however, an alternative. Let the electronic businesses do the “regulation” themselves. They do, after all, have a self-interest in doing so.
In electronic commerce, a reputation for honest dealing will be a valuable competitive asset. Governments, too, may compete to be trusted. For instance, customers ordering medicines online may prefer to buy from the United States because they trust the rigorous screening of the Food and Drug Administration; or they may decide that the FDA’s rules are too strict, and buy from Switzerland instead.
Consumers will need to use their judgment. But precisely because the technology is new, electronic shoppers are likely for a while to be a lot more cautious than consumers of the normal sort---
and the new technology will also make it easier for them to complain noisily when a company lets them down. In this way, at least, the advent of cyberspace may argue for fewer consumer protection laws, not more.
小题1:According to the author, what will be the best policy for electronic commerce?
| A．Self – regulation by the business. | B．Strict consumer protection laws. |
| C．Close international cooperation. | D．Government protection. |
小题2:In case an electronic shopper bought faulty goods from a foreign country, what could he do?
| A．Refuse to pay for the purchase. | B．Go to the seller and ask for a refund. |
| C．Appeal to consumer protection law. | D．Complain about it on the Internet. |
小题3:In the author’s view, businesses would place a high emphasis on honest dealing because in the electronic world
.
| A．international cooperation would be much more frequent |
| B．consumers could easily seek government protection |
| C．a good reputation is a great advantage in competition |
| D．it would be easy for consumers to complain |
小题4:We can infer from the passage that in licensing new drugs the FDA in the United States is
.
| A．very quick | B．very cautious | C．very slow | D．rather careless |
小题5:If a customer buys something that does not meet his expectation, what is the advantage of dealing through electronic commerce over the present normal one?
| A．It will be easier for him to return the goods he is not satisfied with. |
| B．It will be easier for him to attain the refund from the seller. |
| C．It will be easier for him to get his complaints heard by other consumers. |
| D．It will be easier for him to complain about this to the government. |
which will enable us to win huge sums of money. Radio and television have made it possible for advertisers to capture the attention of millions of people in this way. 
ring a radio programme, a company of biscuit manufacturers once asked listeners to bake biscuits and send them to their factory. They offered to pay $10 a pound for the biggest biscuit baked by a listener. The response to this competition was tremendous. Before long, biscuits of all shapes and sizes began arriving at the factory. One lady brought in a biscuit on a wheelbarrow. It weighed nearly 500 pounds. A little later, a man came along with a biscuit which occupied the whole of his car. All the biscuits that were sent were carefully weighed. The largest was 713 pounds. It seemed certain that this would win the prize. But just before the competition closed, a lorry arrived at the factory with a truly colossal biscuit which weighed 2,400 pounds. It had been baked by a college student who had used over 1,000 pounds of flour, 800 pounds of sugar, 200 pounds of fat, and 400 pounds of various other ingredients. It was so heavy that a crane had to be used to remove it from the lorry. The manufacturers had to pay more money than they had anticipated, for they bought th
e biscuit from the student for $24,000.
driver was frightened and wanted to leave him as soon as possible.
hing a child to read a book , but rather to think, to use his mind. And that is more important.
