An article by Iman Sjahputra, SH, SpN, LL.M. 

The existence of internet in the communication world cannot be avoided anymore. The sophisticated instrument used to be used by the United States Department of Defense in 1957 to communicate with its colleague has become a worldwide major communication instrument. It is hugely spreading and now almost the whole countries in the world are using and utilizing internet for communication. The major users of internet are the United States, Japan and China and they take the role in communication through internet. It is predicted that such three countries are dominating the internet users and it is equivalent to half of the world population.

The benefits of internet do not need to be questioned anymore. The facilities such as E-mail/Listserv/Mail Exploder; searching/web/ftp; Usenet and Newsgroup are very useful for the internet users to interact one to another, to socialize and communicate, and exchange information. But it is really unfortunate that those huge benefits are often to be misused by the internet users.

The crimes such as hackers, cyber talking, terrorism, fraud, theft especially for the banking data, personal data, Intellectual Property Rights, sabotage, harassment and denial of service are most crimes regularly happened. The motif are varies such as business, group and organization competition and interest, and hobby. In many cases the purpose is to get personal benefits. For an example the case of Steven Haryanto with wwwklikbca.com, klikbca.com, klickbca.com that have been deceived the consumers to conduct internet banking transactions. The purpose is simply to o steal the consumers’ private data.

The internet misused indication is quite apprehensive. Steven’s talent in creating misleading websites to hit and trap the careless BCA customers needs to be aware. What is Steven’s aim and motif if it is not something related to the crime? Similar to such case, the false websites internet transactions offered fake fancy goods such as Rolex watches, branded bags, international trademark shoes and international books where the sellers expect the buyers to pay the sold goods with credit cards. Once the transaction and payment are completed but the purchased goods never been delivered.

From the survey that had been conducted by 12 world consumer organizations at the end of 1998 and 1999 reported that the negative factor of the internet transaction so far faced by the consumers is that one of ten from the ordered goods never been accepted by the consumers. Another case is that 2 buyers from England and Hong Kong had waited for more than 5 years to get the refund from the seller. Further that nearly 73% of the sellers failed to fulfill the contract in the internet transactions and 25% of the sellers do not mention their addresses and telephone numbers in the internet transaction. The result is that the consumers will be harmed then where the consumers should report it to?

The crimes in the internet world are happened so often but up until today Indonesia still has not tried to give any legal protection towards the consumers. On the other side the information and technology developments have made the internet using be greater. If the legal protection is still very low then the crimes are going to be increased continuously in the future.

We should realize that in an internet transaction, the internet users or consumers expect that there is a law and legal order. The buyers wish that there is no false advertisement or websites spreading around that finally could damage their interests in the transaction. On the other side the sellers in internet also have the same principle that there will be law and legal order in conducting the internet businesses. Therefore it can be concluded that the sellers and buyers are expecting the certainty of law and trading through the websites world in order to have the both parties equal rights and duties.

The legal certainty for internet field in Indonesia has not been realized yet. It continuously happens since there is no valid rule governs the interests of the businessman and consumers. For a developed country such as England, they already have a protection model towards the consumers especially for the internet transactions. One of them is Distance Selling Regulation 2000 that governs the consumers’ rights in the internet transactions. The Article 7 Paragraph 1 stipulated that the suppliers/businessmen are obligated to provide the information to the consumers in a proper time before conducting any transaction. The information contains the identity of the businessman, term of delivery, price, payment system and the most important thing is that the consumer has the right to cancel the transaction, except for special terms as mentioned in the Article 13 of the regulation for example that the price of goods is fluctuated based on the market. How is about the protection towards the consumers in Indonesia? We only could be patient and wait for the realization.

* Writer is an Attorney handling many cases on copyright, trademark and patent infringements and domiciled in Jakarta.