report part 6

Conclusion
As evidenced by the above analysis, the US is positioned well for future leadership in the global realm of Ecommerce. From an infrastructural perspective – it is abreast of the world leaders in wireline telephony and not far behind in wireless telephony. It is a leader in information processing technologies, and dominates the global use of the Internet. The largest number of Internet sites are located in the US, as well as the majority of .com tld sites. All of the conventional measures of electronic commerce activity show the US to be the leader in volume and most other indicators. Furthermore, its society as a whole has shown itself to be very adept at embracing the Digital Revolution as evidenced by trend towards larger numbers of households and businesses leveraging the Internet’s power.
Although the US appears to set the benchmark for other countries in setting aspirations for Ecommerce, it is not clear exactly how much electronic commerce is taking place there. Even the most optimistic estimates of electronic commerce in the US state that it currently constitutes a fraction of total commerce. For example, although according to Forrester Research online consumer spending is expected to hit $65 billion in 2001 (up from about 55 billion last year) it must be noted that less than a quarter of the US population is Online. Of that population of approximately 100

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million users, less than half of them make online purchases. The B2B realm is expected to climb dramatically to become a $6 trillion sector by 2004. However, currently only about 3-6 percent of business is being conducted online and in 2000, business trade only accounted for about $300 billion in revenues. This information indicates that although significant revenue is already being generated through the use of B2C and B2B models, and annual growth continues to be robust, there is still a tremendous amount of capacity for growth and expansion remaining in all areas of Ecommerce in the US. This is highly significant when one considers the effect that this small amount of commerce has had on the US business world.
The bottom line seems to be that although there is still a long way to go in the scope of global Ecommerce, and there are barriers in place that the US must overcome, the combination of its long history of global leadership and its current momentum in the Digital Revolution position it quite well to maintain its status as the frontrunner in this realm.*
*See Appendix 1 for a summary of the key US Ecommerce points presented in this paper.

MCGANN, KING AND LYYTINEN/GLOBALIZATION OF E-COMMERCE
Appendix 1 - Summary of Key Points
• The US is the economic and commercial epicenter of the world and has set the pace in the early stages of the Digital Revolution
• Demographically, the US has the third largest population and it is the wealthiest in terms of Gross Domestic Product
• The US has suffered from and economic downturn in the past year which has adversely affected the diffusion of Ecommerce. In addition, the terrorist attacks on the US in September of 2001 further destabilized the economy as well as the international political situation. There are indications that the economy will recover without going too deep into recession, but uncertainties in the international situation remain.
• The US has consistently demonstrated its strength in the IT sector through large investments in infrastructure, which have bolstered its position as the Ecommerce leader.
• A significant challenge for US Ecommerce leadership is its lack of adaptation of 3G wireless technology to set the stage for the expected rise of mobile commerce. At present, the US lags significantly behind Asia and Europe in this area.
• The US Government stands firmly behind US Ecommerce and has taken an approach of enacting enabling policies to promote it while leaving overall leadership in this area to the private sector.
• Factors such as the communal nature of our society, propensity to engage in liberal credit card spending and higher tolerance for the inherent risks of Ecommerce have made the US the leader in Ecommerce readiness to date.
• Highly available Internet access (both dial-up and broadband), large number of commercial websites with high levels of activity and overall leadership in Ecommerce dollars transacted (B2C and B2B) are measures that show the US has realized the highest level of Ecommerce diffusion
• The US Society has been significantly impacted by the integration of the Internet into its core. This is exemplified by its use for everything from communication, shopping and banking to conducting B2B transactions.
• Despite all barriers in place, the US is by all measures the global Ecommerce leader and is expected to maintain this position in the future

MCGANN, KING AND LYYTINEN/GLOBALIZATION OF E-COMMERCE
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Other Links
Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act Federal Trade Commission http://www.ftc.gov/ogc/coppa1.htm
The Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998: U.S. Copyright Office Summary U.S. Copyright Office http://www.loc.gov/copyright
E-rate U.S. Department of Education http://www.ed.gov/Technology/eratemenu.html
Economic and Financial Data for the United States FEDSTATS
http://www.fedstats.gov/imf/
Electronic Commerce Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development http://www.oecd.org/subject/e_commerce/
Electronic Commerce U.S. Department of Commerce http://home.doc.gov/Electronic_Commerce/
Electronic Commerce and Intellectual Property World Intellectual Property Organization http://ecommerce.wipo.int/index-eng.html
Global E-commerce Law Baker & Mackenzie http://www.bmck.com/ecommerce/
International Telecommunication Union
http://www.itu.int/home/index.html
National Telecommunications and Information Administration http://www.ntia.doc.gov/

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Telecommunications Act of 1996 Federal Communications Commission