Which choice of law would best facilitate commerce and provide effective consumer protection?
CommerceNet notes that allowing a seller to enforce a choice of law provision facilitates commerce by adding certainty to contractual provisions and, to the extent that it increases competition, benefits consumers. This is especially true with regard to small and medium enterprises which are unable to monitor either current law or new legal developments world-wide. CommerceNet notes that the Internet promotes increased consumer knowledge as evidenced by such sites as BizRate(1), which actively seeks customer feedback on its member merchants and publishes that feedback on the BizRate site, e-Bay’s (2)Feedback Forum, and the FTC’s own E-Commerce and the Internet consumer protection sites(3). The Internet empowers consumers by providing effective means for educating themselves on company practices and furthermore, by providing a highly effective public forum for unsatisfied consumers. An unacceptable choice of law provision is likely to become the subject of consumer feedback on such site
