ODR and Consumers 2010 » Uncategorized

Photos from ODRAC 2010

Doug Leigh — Fri, 05 Nov 2010 00:36:33 +0000

ODRAC 2010 Photos on Flickr

British Columbia PD Credit

Dave Bilinsky — Tue, 02 Nov 2010 23:51:55 +0000

For those lawyers from British Columbia attending the conference, this is to advise that it has been approved for up to 13.5 hours of professional development credit.

You should find it on the LSBC’s PD approved course list on-line.

Welcome ADR.EU

Frank Fowlie — Thu, 28 Oct 2010 15:19:17 +0000

Arbitration Center for Internet Disputes

We are very please to announce that ADR.EU is a sponsor of the ODR and Consumers Forum. ADR.EU is the organization which handles domain name disputes for the .eu top level domain. ADR.eu is a UDRP provider.

ODR and Consumers 2010 Vancouver Conference at the Digital Magazine Nº5 “El Derecho Informático”

Gabriela Szlak — Sun, 24 Oct 2010 19:32:05 +0000

I am pleased to share my article in the Iberoamerican Digital Magazine 5º edition “El Derecho Informático” (EDI) entitled “Global Online Dispute Resolution for Cross Border eCommerce Disputes B2B & B2C”

The article explains – in Spanish- the context for Global ODR and advocates for Latin American experts to collaborate regarding the use of ODR in order to benefit fully in the Digital Economy.

It also summarizes the latest international developments on the field:

The creation of a Working Group by UNCITRAL last July and its next meeting scheduled for December 2010 in Vienna
The international cooperation over, and activities held, in order to bring the issue into the Organization
The upcoming Vancouver 2010 ODR Conference and its mission
ILCE´s role and activities regarding ODR

ElDerechoInformático.com is a regional social network for ICT Law and related issues. It was founded over a year ago and brings together 1650 registered users (1200 visits/day).

Since 2010, in addition to other services, ElDerechoInformático.com publishes the Iberoamerican Digital Magazine, where this article originally appeared in the 5^th edition October 2010). Each edition is downloaded by approximately 4000 users and linked online to many specialized blogs and websites throughout Latin American. Later this year, all the 2010 articles would be collated and published in a paper based book.

For the coming year, at the Patagonia National University, ElDerechoInformático.com is hosting a course: Postgraduate Studies on ICT Law and New Technologies. Appointed professors for this course include experts from Mexico, Uruguay, Colombia, Paraguay, Chile and Argentina.

Also, the social network has special collaborators in Uruguay, Costa Rica, Mexico and Argentina.

For downloading the magazine please click here: www.elderechoinformatico.com (Please note that you should scroll down to find the downloading link)

Welcome Adobe Canada

Frank Fowlie — Wed, 20 Oct 2010 23:39:13 +0000

We welcome Adobe Canada as a major sponsor of the ODR and Consumers 2010 Forum.

Thank you Shawn Cruise, Adobe Canada country manager

Press release now available for journalists

Frank Fowlie — Fri, 08 Oct 2010 14:05:27 +0000

The press release may be found here

Creating a Multilingual Communication Standard for Cross-Border ODR

Zbynek Loebl — Tue, 05 Oct 2010 20:24:13 +0000

Cross-border eCommerce disputes involve multiple languages, and as a result, multilinguality is one of the key issues to consider in designing a cross-border online dispute resolution (ODR) system. In order to build a global ODR system, therefore, all or almost all communications must be standardized. This standardization will facilitate the filing of cases by consumers and the subsequent dialogue between the consumer and merchant.

In response to this need, an international group of experts has established a working group to develop the necessary open standards for global ODR. The working title for this new standard is ECRI (E-Commerce Claims Redress Interchange). The ECRI WG proposes the development of this standard as an open and free ETSI Industry Specification in parallel with the creation of an OASIS uniform data definition.

The ECRI standard must be open because it needs to continually evolve in order to incorporate developing communication standards for specific types of claims. Accordingly , the standard must contain a description of how the necessary additions and modifications are approved and incorporated. In addition, there should be a (small) central administration team responsible for maintaining and updating the communication standard. This team would work with voluntary sub-centers, organized regionally or by topic area. At the outset these groups would focus on the development of an ECRI standard for e-commerce disputes and proceed later to develop specific sub-standards for other dispute types, including counterfeit issues, financial services, privacy, or intellectual property.
The ECRI standard must be initially designed for narrowly defined claims only in order to deliver services appropriate for the volume and size of the claims involved.

This ECRI standard can be incorporated with automatic translation tools to offer maximum flexibility to parties in choosing their preferred method of communication.

The communication standard also must include a common technologically-neutral protocol enabling:

• Seamless exchange of information and coordination among dispute resolution providers
• Real-time data exchange with a possible future Central Administrator of a new global e-commerce redress system,
• the capacity to interface with various commercially available systems,and
• a common categorization of outcomes and other services.

This ECRI standard will introduce new approaches to customer redress. In addition to textual information localized by language, the standard will also address the inclusion of graphic and audio communications as appropriate. The standard should be applicable across a wide variety of communication types, including computers, telephones, and mobile devices.

The ECRI standard will be comprised of the following principle components:

• Direct negotiation (no third party involvement)
• Claims (e.g. non-receipt, not-as-described)
• Case presentation (types of evidence such as a copy of the order, photo of defective product, or confirmation of a change order from the consumer)
• Remedies (e.g. price discount, return and supply of a new product)
• Key words and phrases (e.g. acceptance, rejection)
• Resolution types, including Result Categorization (e.g. consumer must be paid back 10 USD)
• Enforcement Item description (e.g. required information for various item types)
• Key values/data (e.g. exchange rates, key dates and times in the process)

All of these components will be implemented in a technology and platform independent manner, to ensure interoperability amongst different systems.

We invite you to actively participate in the ECRI development process within ETSI. Your involvement may include any of the following: (i) support in the launch of the ETSI Industry Specification process; (ii) active participation in the ECRI WG; and (iii) sponsoring the work of the ECRI WG.

If you are interested, please contact any of the three coordinators mentioned below.

ECRI Working Group Coordinators:

Zbynek Loebl zbynek.loebl@adr.eu
Colin Rule crule@paypal.com
Vikki Rogers vrogers@law.pace.edu

Odr Latinoamerica Webcast Recording “Cross Border ODR” -Colin Rule-Vikki Rogers-Zybnek Loebl

Alberto_Elisavetsky — Tue, 28 Sep 2010 12:49:56 +0000

Webcast recording September 24th online conference in Odr Latinoamerica access here: Recording (English & Spanish).

Teaching ODR

Doug Leigh — Wed, 22 Sep 2010 16:52:22 +0000

Doug Leigh

Over the past several months various ODR practitioners and scholars (including several contributors to this blog) have been engaged in the conceptualization of a Master’s in Technology and Dispute Resolution (MTDR). The taskforce has grouped the prospective curriculum under five thematic areas: foundations, theories, techniques, technologies and applications.

After the curriculum’s themes and topics have been decided upon, their application toward specific courses will be determined. Prospective course titles will then be created and sample syllabi developed that indicate course objectives, learning activities, readings, course materials and assignments.

It is anticipated that all courses in the curriculum will be delivered in a hybrid or blended format, with some content delivered face-to-face and the remainder delivered online both synchronously and asynchronously. It is also anticipated that delivery of course content will take place at the annual ODR Forum.

What recommendations would you make to the taskforce with regard to teaching ODR’s foundations, theories, techniques, technologies and applications? You are invited to submit your comments here, or if you would like to request access to the taskforce’s online working documents, please contact me at dougleigh@gmail.com.

Cross Cultural Capacity Building for the New ODR Global System

Gabriela Szlak — Sun, 12 Sep 2010 00:09:43 +0000

Gabriela Szlak

As has been announced in this blog, UNCITRAL has decided to create a Working Group for the development of standards of practice for Cross-Border Online Dispute Resolution for eCommerce and Mobile Commerce, B2B and B2C.

It is expected, as Zbynek Loebl has stated, that: “[H]opefully the UNCITRAL future work could be used by the future new global ODR system”.

This way UNCITRAL would be facilitating the work being undertaken by the designers for the new ODR Global System in order to make it a reality; but even with this substantial input, challenges for the designers will still be huge.

Designers of the new system would need to be as pragmatic as possible in order to focus on the many details that the creation and implementation of such a system would require. At the same time, thoughts and actions would also have to be dedicated to the great leadership and vision that is going to be needed throughout the long process, in order for a Global System to be not only possible, but also successful. Ben Ziegler’s 10 collaborative principles and David Bilinsky´s Three steps for implementation I think might be considered precious examples of inputs for leadership and vision.

Also, part of the success of such a challenge would depend on cross cultural capacity building.

I don’t necessarily mean by this the creation of a multilingual ODR system; but rather, the creation of a global system that will take into consideration the particularities/diversities of each country/region regarding online activities.

Just to mention some examples (and leaving the legal issues aside), I refer to:

Level of Internet penetration for doing business in each country/region
Level of penetration of online payment systems among eCommerce and/or eBusiness online transactions
Level of professionalism and capacity of integration of online vendors and intermediaries into the new Global ODR System
Awareness of online vendors of the advantages of adhering to the new Global ODR System and willingness to do so
Level of knowledge on Online Consumers Protection, online skills and cultural patterns of behavior of the consumers that would be the beneficiaries of such a system in each country/region (regarding B2C)
Level of knowledge and capacity of adaptation regarding ICT of the community of Conflict Resolution practitioners of each country/region
Consensus among public/private local and/or regional bodies that might be considered partners for implementation and/or enforcement
Relationship and capacity of integration among the private and the public sectors in each country/region (political particularities)
Existence of academic programs that would be assuming a leadership role regarding ODR education, research and training in each country/region
Etc.

I keep asking myself many questions, for example:
- How are these challenges going to be addressed?
- Would it be necessary to define common actions for harmonization; not only regarding standards of practice and legal issues but also at a more pragmatic level?
- And if so, who would be responsible for the evaluation and determination of necessary steps to be taken and for implementation of such actions?

I believe the Vancouver Conference would be a great start for the exchange of ideas, debate and further analysis.

Just to share an experience, two weeks ago as part of my work at the Latin American eCommerce Institute, I was invited to a panel at a Post Graduate Program Course called: “Internet Business Strategy”, held at one of the most prestigious Universities in Argentina. Most students were qualified employees of different enterprises participating in the Internet industry in my country. Notwithstanding this background, they were not really aware of the developments on the ODR field. Some of them heard something about ODR, mostly due to the fact that last June, we had the opportunity to have two programs: the 2010 ODR Forum and an International Colloquium on ODR, held in Argentina, but most of them new very little about the ODR field.

The good news is that feedback was excellent and that students were really interested in the Latin American eCommerce Institute’s ODR Program and in becoming more aware of the ODR field developments in the future.

One important step towards the development of Latin American voices on the field is that regional Scholars are already working at high academic levels.

One example is the Scholar Rolando Joaquin Ortega Hernández (1) who is currently working on his doctoral thesis at Universidad de Salamanca (Spain) on ODR. I believe his would be the first Doctoral Thesis on ODR written in Spanish by a Latin American researcher. His thesis will have insights from the general knowledge gathered in books and journals from the Katsh and Rifkin’s philosophical wave, and would be integrated with the laws and criteria of the Continental Civil Law system. It will also address the issue of legal framework for ODR from both a European and a Latin American perspective, and will try to give some future perspectives on the latest developments on the ODR field regarding business to consumers’ online relationships.

I am looking forward to reading Rolando’s work, and I hope his efforts would help in the process of developing our region’s own particular voice on the field, and would inspire others to do research, teaching and outreach activities as well.

Finally, I hope to keep hearing about scholars, projects, courses, and similar activities in every corner of the globe, in order to preserve the key matter of diversity for the cross cultural capacity building that would be needed for the implementation of a successful ODR Global System.

Notes:
(1)Rolando Joaquin Ortega Hernández, is working at the University of Salamanca, under the direction of Dr. Fernando Carbajo Cascón, author of several books, among others Conflictos entre Signos Distintivos y Nombres de Dominio en Internet, (Conflicts Between Domain Names and Distinctive Names on the Internet). Rolando is a graduate Lawyer both from Venezuela and Argentina, a Masters in Private Law from Venezuela, and a PHD candidate from Universidad de Salamanca (Spain). He has also participated in lectures related to IT Law and was a speaker at the ODR International Forum held in Buenos Aires, in June, 2010, where I had the opportunity to meet him in person. Rolando has been contributing with thoughts, ideas, and articles written together with colleagues from Universidad Nacional de La Plata, Argentina, at the GECSI (Research Study Group for the Complexity of Information Society). PHD candidate Rolando J. Ortega Hernández, can be reached at: Rolandortega at hotmail.com