ecommerce

The Digital Mission companies have arrived in New York and are well into the first day's activities, which kicked off with the Master Class session at Winston & Strawn's offices.

It's amazing to think that a year has passed since the previous Digital Mission to New York, but the view across New York from the Met Life Building brought the memories back. New York is a unique city, with a very distinctive vibe and culture. Doing business here is both challenging and exhilarating.

The panels were a pleasant mix of new and familiar faces, kicking off with the basics of setting up in the US, including dealing with general legal issues, employment law, Intellectual property and tax. You might be a UK business, but US courts can claim jurisdiction over you. The US legal systems operates at a state level, which raises the spectre of 50 different courts reaching their long-arms out to you.

A revision of EU privacy law could have a devastating effect on online advertising.

Under the new rules publishers must gain users' consent before placing cookies on their machines. Online ad practises like behavioural targeting, retargeting and audience segmentation will all be effected.

The change will see national governments having to:

"ensure that the storing of information, or the gaining of access to information already stored, in the terminal equipment of a subscriber or user is only allowed on condition that the subscriber or user concerned has given his/her consent, having been provided with clear and comprehensive information."

The EU are objecting to online advertisers collecting data without the users' knowledge. Common practice is to make users aware of cookie use through privacy policies posted in their small print. With ever-improving behavioural and semantic targeting relying on cookies, the EU's threats to step in if the industry doesn't regulate itself will raise concerns at publishers in an already-difficult advertising market. The gloves, it appears, are most definitely off.

Note that this is a UK/EU perspective and laws do vary across territories.

1.  A trade mark is anything that identifies the goods and services of a business or distinguishes them from those of another.

2.  A registered trade mark gives statutory protection and an effective monopoly in respect of that mark for the goods or services it is registered for AND for similar marks with the same or similar goods where there is a likelihood of confusion. Well known registered trade marks have additional protection if used by others for different goods or services to those for which they are registered if that use takes unfair advantage of or is detrimental to the repute of the well known registered mark.