The chapter builds on the author’s article titled ‘Gender-Inclusive Governance for E-Commerce’, which broke new ground by examining electronic commerce (e-commerce) from a gender perspective, and the proposal for a provision on gender equality in services domestic regulation (services DR). Since then, both the provision and the policy landscape have developed. The provision was included in the negotiations on services DR that concluded on 2 December 2021 among the sixty-seven World Trade Organization (WTO) members participating in the Joint Statement Initiative (JSI) on Services Domestic Regulation. The chapter aims to meet the moment with a restatement of the framework that the article proposed, using original and new analysis by including the concluded text. The chapter generates new knowledge that is actionable for policymakers and stakeholders by responding to three questions: What is gender-inclusive governance? What is the relationship between gender divides, e-commerce, digital trade, and trade in services? What policy interventions are necessary, and why, to meet the moment? The goal is to discuss ways to attain gender-inclusive governance for trade policy at this unique time for implementing changes that are fit for the digital age. The chapter argues that multi-level dedicated gender-inclusive governance can contribute to closing the gender gap.

This chapter examines the role of China and the rest of the BRICS countries in the WTO e-commerce and fisheries subsidies negotiations. The analysis suggests that despite China’s self-proclaimed developing country status, the fact that it is now one of the most competitive players in global trade but at the same time still holding the position to stay within the developing countries’ coalition and maintaining protectionist policies has made it increasingly difficult for China to continue to align its negotiation position with other BRICS countries. Over time, the dynamics of WTO negotiations have been transformed. The North-South divide under the GATT, which has later evolved into a three-tiered structure of developed, emerging powers and the rest of the developing countries during the early years of the Doha negotiations, has given away to a more complex matrix of interest-based and issue-specific coalition building which is no longer bound by the developed/developing division in today’s WTO negotiations. Due to its sheer size and unique domestic political and economic system, China has increasingly been singled out in the negotiations due to the difficulties for it to align with either developed or developing countries.

The first chapter explores an area of entrepreneurship in which China in many ways leads the world. As well as considering e-commerce in general the chapter highlights some particularly Chinese innovations. The relevance of social embeddedness to online communication and interaction is widely acknowledged. In addition, there are now many studies which explore how online networks are affected by offline networks. Sociological research on e-commerce nevertheless remains underdeveloped. Little is known about how individuals participating in e-commerce markets take initiatives in creating, expanding, and maintaining online social networks behind the screen. Chapter 1 identifies forms of social embeddedness that while obscure are important to online markets. The chapter develops a concept, ‘personalized anchoring reputation’, in highlighting this phenomenon. Additionally, analysis is presented of an e-sales approach, called by its practitioners ‘fission’, which integrates characteristics of face-to-face transaction with online exchanges.

Last mile delivery is the most expensive part of the delivery operations. Especially with the significant growth in e-commerce, last mile delivery operations continue to increase. Since most of the parcels are delivered to urban and suburban areas, the delivery operations have a considerable impact on our lives, by increasing the air and noise pollution and worsening the traffic within cities. The crowdsourcing and sharing economy approaches, such as crowdsourced delivery and shared urban distribution centers, in last mile delivery may reduce these negative externalities. However, since these approaches are relatively new and bring new aspects that were not part of the conventional business models, open questions arise in both business applications and academic research. In this chapter, we provide a brief history of e-commerce and related optimization literature. We introduce several sharing economy business models in last mile delivery and discuss the open problems that might be studied by comparing these business models to the conventional ones.

With the exception of India and Pakistan, South Asian countries have yet to properly implement their competition laws and policies. This chapter explores ways in which the implementation gap may be bridged, focusing on factors which may motivate governments or competition authorities in these countries to engage more meaningfully with competition enforcement and also considering strategies for doing so. The chapter argues that governments and competition authorities are more likely to support competition enforcement in their contexts if they are convinced of its potential to help them realise their goals of economic and social developmental goals. It also observes these countries’ growing engagement in the digital economy for its potential for growth and development and explores the role of competition enforcement for regulating e-commerce platforms. Finally, the chapter considers how the South Asian countries may learn from each other, and strategies for competition enforcement.

This chapter traces the incredibly rapid expansion of the platform e-commerce and financial conglomerates Alibaba and Ant Group. It shows how they took advantage of government fragmentation and dependence on the private economy to attract huge foreign investment, using the variable interest entity (VIE) legal loophole, and then to diversify into payment services (Alipay) and finance in conjunction with state financial institutions, attracting hundreds of millions of customers and tens of millions of SME merchants. The chapter analyzes the key struggles between this Alibaba/Ant "corporate ecosystem" and government regulators seeking to protect consumers, finding that reports of a reining in of Chinese private firms by the Chinese Communist Party are premature.

This chapter discusses results for user-facing services that show whether the services show biases towards specific groups of users, whether they comply with policies, laws, and regulations, and how they use user data in providing their services. The chapter first focuses on network-level services, such as server-side blocking and the provision of wireless internet access. Then, the chapter discusses web-based services, including privacy policies, search, social networks, and e-commerce. The chapter closes by discussing results for mobile services, such as the characteristics of app stores, third-party libraries, and apps.

The role of this chapter is to introduce the reader to the digital entrepreneurial world where businesses exploit modern technologies in order to gain a strategic advantage over their competitors when entering the market. By distinguishing among the different types of online business – SMEs, start-ups or spin-offs – this chapter introduces the concept of open innovation that lies at the heart of every digital entrepreneur. Furthermore, this chapter delineates the series of steps that an entrepreneur should understand and follow to successfully establish an online business and outlines the risks and challenges to be aware of along the entrepreneurial journey. The last section of this chapter features two digital start-up success stories that leveraged the dynamics of digital technologies and achieved great growth rates as well as high revenues.

Much has changed since CompuServe introduced its “Electronic Mall” as the first major retail e-commerce platform in 1984. Digital technologies have driven down costs and improved access and opportunities for producers and consumers, manufacturers and farmers, and above all, users. Digital technologies have transformed how a large part of the global economy operates. A broad range of goods are now digital and thereby intangible, being made up of bytes. Likewise, many services that previously required costly face-to-face contact between the firm and consumer are now available remotely.

Technology has opened international trade – in the form of e-commerce – to a broad range of firms and sectors that beforehand would have been the sole domain of larger multinational companies. Most importantly, technology and the Internet reduced the transaction costs and information asymmetries associated with international trade. Social networks like Facebook and Twitter and search engines like Google and Bing give large and small businesses alike easy ways to advertise services to people around the world.

This chapter proceeds in four parts. The first part reviews the development of the Internet and e-commerce in China, as well as China’s experiences on e-commerce issues in WTO and beyond, especially in free trade agreements. The second part discusses the history of the e-commerce negotiations in the WTO, from the 1998 E-commerce Declaration and the Doha Declaration, to the joint statement in 2017 and the launch of the plurilateral Joint Statement Initiative negotiations in 2019, with China joining at the last minute. The third part analyses in detail China’s three submissions in the negotiations, as well as the most problematic issues for China. The chapter concludes with reflections on how the negotiations will unfold, especially how the main sticking points in China’s internet and data regulatory regime could be addressed. Why was China reluctant to participate in the e-commerce negotiation at first? Why did it change its position in 2019? What will be the main issues in the negotiation? What are the positions of China and how will its participation shape the negotiation? By answering these questions, this chapter provides a critical analysis of the data regulation of China, a world leader in the AI and data-driven economy.

This chapter calls for caution in the US drive to negotiate new trade provisions to govern the digital economy. It is in four parts. Part I introduces the transformative nature of innovation in the data-driven economy. Part II presents the severe challenges posed by this development, including its contribution to monopolization, inequality, social control through surveillance, geopolitical competition between the United States and China, and system vulnerability. Part III assesses the current trade negotiating context involving competing models advanced by the United States (advocating free data flow), the European Union (promoting privacy regulation), and China (stressing sovereignty and the facilitation of trade in goods through e-commerce). Part IV presents a governance framework that calls for modesty in recognition of national differences and the severe challenges posed, while building institutions to foster deliberation and learning in light of uncertainty.