Legal Issues of Software Agents

The objective of paper is to see how software agents can help carry out the contract-making activities (including pre-contractual negotiations and contract performance) involved in electronic commerce. One area in e-commerce where software agents can make a positive contribution is in virtual enterprises: they can do so by making business transactions more fluid in the digital environment. Another area is consumer protection, and this is the counterpart to the contribution made in facilitating business. The paper also gives examples of how agent-based architectures can be applied in industry and commerce, and indicates the main directions that researchers have taken in this field. The main lesson learnt in researching this paper is that it is indispensable to have a Code of Conduct to be adopted as a standard regulatory framework for the future.