U.S. Secretary of Commerce William M. Daley
and
Dutch Minister of Economic Affairs Hans M. Wijers

JOINT STATEMENT ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE INTERNET AND THE PROMOTION OF GLOBAL ELECTRONIC COMMERCE

Washington, DC
October 21, 1997

The U.S. Secretary of Commerce, William M. Daley, and the Minister of Economic Affairs of the Netherlands, Hans Wijers, met today to exchange views on the state of the development of the Internet and its applications for electronic commerce. The discussion highlighted the common vision shared by the U.S. and the Netherlands of the potential economic, political, and social benefits of the emerging global information infrastructure for the peoples of both countries, and of the entire world.

Secretary Daley presented the U.S. policies on electronic commerce as articulated in President Clinton and Vice President Gore’s "Framework for Global Electronic Commerce." Minister Wijers described the policies that are contained in the forthcoming Dutch "Action Plan Electronic Commerce," and the work being done by the E.U. on electronic commerce policy.

Specifically, Secretary Daley and Minister Wijers agreed on the following major points:

1) The Internet and the potential for global electronic commerce that it creates will be an important engine of growth for the world economy in the 21st century. Electronic commerce can improve productivity across all sectors of the economy, initiate a booming world trade in services, facilitate global communications, allow small companies to sell their products to a worldwide market, and create a revolution in the marketing and selling of all types of goods.

2) To enable the digital economy to flourish, governments must agree to allow electronic commerce to be a market-driven arena, not a regulated activity. The private sector should lead its development. Government legislation, regulation, and taxation should be held to a minimum. The Internet should grow as a seamless, decentralized, global marketplace where competition and consumer choice are the main drivers of economic activity.

3) The Internet was born as a global marketplace. Governments and the private sectors worldwide should enter into a series of understandings that will help ensure a predictable global legal and commercial environment for the conduct of business on the Internet. Since the Internet is developing so rapidly, these understandings should be made soon.

Accordingly, taking into full consideration the responsibilities and efforts of the E.U. with regard to Internet-related issues in general, and electronic commerce in particular, the governments of the U.S. and the Netherlands agree to work to resolve important issues, such as:

•a uniform commercial code for electronic commerce;

•creating a seamless global marketplace for electronic commerce without access barriers;

•intellectual property protections for copyrights, patents, and trademarks on the Internet;

•ways to empower consumers to protect their privacy online and to limit content they do not wish to receive;

•marketplace-driven means for the development of technical standards;

•a marketplace-driven approach to the development of electronic payment systems;

•ways to protect the security of digital communications networks and transactions made across them while protecting public safety and national security.

4) The Internet provides the opportunity for businesses of all sizes to conduct transactions with consumers and other businesses anywhere in the world at any time. The power of this technology requires that governments, research institutes, and the private sector work together to ensure that opportunities are met to the fullest extent possible. To this end, the U.S. and Dutch governments encourage private sector firms to cooperate in continuing to develop the technologies and methods for conducting electronic commerce transactions.

The U.S. and Dutch governments will continue regular discussions to identify mutual priorities regarding the establishment of a digital marketplace. Both countries will seek to promote through international fora, such as the European Union (EU), World Trade Organization (WTO), and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the continued development of a market-driven, deregulated, private sector led environment for electronic commerce to flourish.