Visits to electronic commerce supervision bodies

As the electronic commerce bill is in its final stage of approval, and given that most member States are more advanced in the operational and legislative implementation of electronic commerce (some with legislation on electronic commerce in force for nearly two years), ANACOM saw fit to carry out a number of working visits to entities performing duties analogous to those it now prepares to take on. This initiative meant not only to gather information and experience on the supervision of electronic commerce, specifically with regard to the duties and the resources needed for it to function, but also to understand the virtualities and weaknesses of the organisational models used by those entities.

The main selection criteria were the proximity of the adopted legislative model, as well as the length of time the respective legislative acts have been in force. Spain, Germany and the United Kingdom were thus considered to be the countries where visits could be most useful.

The end result of the visits was extremely positive, and enabled important information to be gathered on the supervision of electronic commerce, specifically with regard to the functions, resources used and work volume associated with ANACOM?s new duties in this area.