Alliance for Global Business

The Alliance for Global Business (AGB) is a coordinating mechanism of leading international trade associations created to provide business leadership on information society issues and electronic commerce. Jointly, these organizations represent the bulk of electronic commerce in almost all countries in the world. The coalition represents a diverse cross section of business in over 140 countries. Membership includes providers and users of information technology, large multinational enterprises and small start-ups, and companies in developing as well as developed economies.

The AGB was created in response to the need for a coherent and unified, global industry voice to international organizations and governments around the world. The Alliance represents a broad range of industry with a focus on high tech manufacturers, service providers and information technology users from nearly every sector of the global economy. The founding members of the Alliance are the:

• Business and Industry Advisory Committee to the OECD (BIAC),
• Global Information Infrastructure Commission (GIIC),
• International Chamber of Commerce (ICC),
• International Telecommunications Users Group (INTUG), and,
• World Information Technology and Services Alliance (WITSA).

The Alliance has issued a set of fundamental principles as the basis for policymaking for electronic commerce. The Global Action Plan for Electronic Commerce, a living and evolving document, calls for minimal government regulation and emphasizes business self-regulation as the most effective way of building confidence in transactions over open networks. A full copy of the 3rd edition of the Global Action Plan is available here. Previous versions of the Global Action Plan in 1998 and 1999 have been well-received by policymakers in national governments and international organizations. Its accessible format gives concise and up to date business views on all the issues relevant to e-business, setting out clear actions for both governments and business on issues including information and communications technology infrastructure, the domain name system, privacy, security, cybercrime, dispute resolution, electronic signatures, taxation, trade and intellectual property. WITSA members have been asked to distribute this document widely to their national governments as it represents a broad consensus of the business community and offers governments practical advice of where and where not to engage in the new economy.  In addition, the Plan has been widely disseminated into international organizations such as the WTO, WIPO and the UN.

The initial (1998) version of the plan was officially submitted to the OECD governments at the October 1998 OECD Ministerial Conference on Electronic Commerce. It set out industry's views on the full range of e-commerce issues, including privacy, cryptography, consumer protection in the online environment, taxation of e-commerce, intellectual property protection, standards, competition and Internet governance.

The Acton Plan describes in detail business initiatives in all these fields so that governments are informed of the extent to which self-regulation is already operating and what further initiatives are under development. The plan's stated aim is to create trust in e-commerce across the whole spectrum of providers of services and goods.

In addition to describing specific business actions and commitments in the field of e-commerce, the plan identifies business expectations in regard to government action. Business would like to see governments concentrate on providing a minimalist and predictable legal framework in specific areas of government competence such as intellectual property protection, taxation, and the removal of barriers to competition in providing the underlying infrastructure. An annex to the action plan contained summaries of various business initiatives. Business executives who compiled the document said they provided ample evidence that comprehensive business self-regulation of electronic commerce is well on its way. The respective roles of government and business responsibilities for (Internet governance is a red flag for domain names -- we should probably use something like "developing and administering the rules for electronic commerce") need to be clarified , and that is what the action plan sets out to achieve. Furthermore, international organizations must ensure that their initiatives do not duplicate or contradict each other.

The global business action plan is used by the coalition to convey industry's views on electronic commerce in several fora beyond the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development. Currently, the coalition is using the document in discussions with several other international organizations including the World Trade Organization, the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum, the Free Trade Area of the Americas, and others.

For more information on the Alliance for Global Business, please contact Anders Halvorsen at ahalvorsen@itaa.org.