E-commerce oriented software agents: Towards legal programming: a legal analysis of ecommerce and personal assistant agents using a process/IT view of the firm

Abstract Agent-based technologies and processing may answer some of the legal difficulties raised by traditional online commerce, introducing elements of compliance, control, flexibility and personalisation. However as they mediate commercial relationships with third parties, software agents in turn raise new legal difficulties, while potentially heightening user fears and mistrust. The autonomy, adaptivity and interactivity of agents, combined with the advent of ubiquitous computing, introduce a new set of legal dimensions including the liability of agent users, the automation of notification and consent or the attribution of responsibility, as well as new fears for users. This article presents a process oriented analysis of agent activities, within the context of augmented reality: the application of Internet technologies to the real world, specifically in this case to supermarket shopping. Specific areas of difficulty are contract and consumer protection law, as well as privacy. These topics are highlighted, together with trust issues raised in Multi-Agent Systems which will be discussed in a later article in this series.