2002, Vol.9, No.1

Informatization Policy 2023 KCI Impact Factor : 4.08

pISSN : 1598-3498
https://journal.kci.go.kr/nia

With the rapid development and diffusion of information and communication technology, the possibility of digital divide seems to be widened among the classes in terms of the accessibility to service and information. How to ensure and deliver the universal service has become the main concern of the government for electronic public service delivery. Universal service means to make the residents easily access and use of the government services for their own purpose regardless of economic, physical, regional differences, etc. They have been discussed as major factors to widen the information gap. However, the issue of contents for digital divide has been recently concerned with the importance of the access to information and furthermore the information itself. In this regard, this study is to raise and explore the issue of digital divide focusing on the "contents" of electronic service delivered by public organizations, and to find some policy implications.

In this paper, we study consumer's characteristics leading to shopping and buying over the Internet. Based on a survey data, we apply the multinomial logit model for following three discrete choices: those who have the experience of internet purchases, those who did window shopping only, and those who have none of the experiences. The results are as follows: Demographic variables such as schooling, marital status, and occupational groups are shown to affect the probability of internet buying. Also likely to buy over the internet are those who frequently access to the Internet, have longer experiences of use, and are subscribed to broadband services. Internet buying is also highly correlated with transactions-related activities on the Internet but not to entertainment or non-transaction information gathering activities. Next, those who use the Internet only for window shopping have similar characteristics to the Internet buyers in general, but the former tend to be new users and are likely to have experiences in relatively basic Internet activities. On the other hand, our results indicate that marketing over the Internet is not quite as effective as over the television.

This paper aims at proposing alternative methods for problems of electronic trade laws in Korea. I examine problems of electronic trade clauses on Foreign Trade Laws 2001 and the other laws concerning electronic trade. To be concrete, problems of electronic trade clauses such as the following are solved; ① improvement and replenishment of electronic trade definition, ② extension and specification of electronic trade object scope, ③ formalities of electronic trade results confirmation and ④ improvement of electronic trade agency institution. Reformative proposals are offered on how to solve these problems. The key to the solution of the questions is to harmonize conflicts between electronic trade clauses on Foreign Trade Laws and the other laws concerning electronic commerce.