E-Contract

Today with the recent advancement in the areas of computer technology, telecommunications
technology, software and information technology have resulted in changing the standard of living of
people in an unimaginable way. The communication is no more restricted due to the constraints of
geography and time. Information is transmitted and received widely and more rapidly than ever
before. And this is where the electronic commerce offers the flexibility to business environment in
terms of place, time, space, distance, and payment. This e-commerce is associated with the buying
and selling of information, products and services via computer networks. It is a means of transacting
business electronically, usually, over the Internet. It is the tool that leads to ‘enterprise integration’.
With the growth of e-commerce, there is a rapid advancement in the use of e-contracts. But
deployment of electronic contracts poses a lot of challenges at three levels, namely conceptual,
logical and implementation. In our article we have discussed the scope, nature and legality and
various other issues related to e-contracts.

Definition: E-contract is a contract modelled, specified, executed and deployed by a software

system. E-contracts are conceptually very similar to traditional (paper based) commercial contracts.
Vendors present their products, prices and terms to prospective buyers. Buyers consider their
options, negotiate prices and terms (where possible), place orders and make payments. Then, the
vendors deliver the purchased products. Nevertheless, because of the ways in which it differs from
traditional commerce, electronic commerce raises some new and interesting technical and legal
challenges.

For recognition of e-contracts following questions are needed to be considered:

# Whether e-contract is a valid contract?
# Would a supplier making details of goods and services with prices available on a website be
deemed to have made an offer?
# Whether e-contracts satisfy the legal requirements of reduction of agreements to signed
documents.
# Whether e-contracts interpret, adopt and compile the other existing legal standards in the context
of electronic transactions?

Recognition E-contracts
Offer: The law already recognizes contracts formed using facsimile, telex and other similar
technology. An agreement between parties is legally valid if it satisfies the requirements of the law
regarding its formation, i.e. that the parties intended to create a contract primarily. This intention is
evidenced by their compliance with 3 classical cornerstones i.e. offer, acceptance and consideration.
One of the early steps in the formation of a contract lies in arriving at an agreement between the
contracting parties by means of an offer and acceptance. Advertisement on website may or may not
constitute an offer as offer and invitation to treat are two distinct concepts. Being an offer to
unspecified person, it is probably an invitation to treat, unless a contrary intention is clearly
expressed. The test is of intention whether by supplying the information, the person intends to be
legally bound or not. When consumers respond through an e-mail or by filling in an online form,
built into the web page, they make an Offer. The seller can accept this offer either by express
confirmation or by conduct.
Acceptance:
Unequivocal unconditional communication of acceptance is required to be made in terms of the
offer, to create a valid e-contract. The critical issue is when acceptance takes effect, to determine
where and when the contract comes into existence. The general receipt rule is that acceptance is
effective when received. For contracting no conclusive rule is settled. The applicable rule of
communication depends upon reasonable certainty of the message being received. When parties
connect directly, without a server, they will be aware of failure or partial receipt of a message. Such
party realizing the fault must request re-transmission, as acceptance is only effective when received.
When there is a common server, the actual point of receipt of the acceptance is crucial in deciding
the jurisdiction in which the e-contract is concluded. If the server is trusted, the postal rule may
apply, if however, the server is not trusted or there is uncertainty concerning the e-mail’s route, it is
best not to apply the postal rule. When arrival at the server is presumed insufficient, the ‘receipt at
the mail box’ rule is preferred.

Consideration and Performance:

Contracts result only when one promise is made in exchange for something in return. This something
in return is called ‘consideration’. The present rules of consideration apply to e-contracts. There is
concern among consumers regarding Transitional Security over the Internet. The e-directive on
Distance Selling tries to generate confidence by minimizing abuse by purchasers and suppliers. It
specifies---
# A list of key points, must be supplied to the consumer in ‘a clear and comprehensible manner.’
# Written confirmation, or confirmation in another durable medium available and accessible to the
consumer, of the principle points.
# The right of withdrawal enabling consumers to avoid deals entered into inadvertently or without
sufficient knowledge, providing for seven-day cooling-off period free from penalty or reason to
return the goods or reimburse the cost of services.
# Performance should be delivered within thirty days of order unless otherwise expressly agreed.
# Reimbursement of sums lost to fraudulent use of credit cards. It places the risk of fraud on the
credit card Company, requiring them to take steps to protect their position.
# On the other hand, there is also need to protect sellers from rogue purchasers. For this, the
provision of ‘charge-back clauses’ and encouragement of pre-payment by buyers is recommended.
# Thus, this Directive adequately protects rights of consumers against unknown sellers and sellers
against unknown buyers.

Liability and Damages:

A party that commits breach of an agreement may face various types of liability under contract law.
Due to the nature of the systems and the networks that business employ to conduct e-commerce,
parties may find themselves liable for contracts which technically originated with them but, due to
programming error, employee mistake or deliberate misconduct were executed, released without
the actual intent or authority of the party. Sound policies dictate that parties receiving messages be
able to rely on the legal expressions of the authority from the sender’s computer and this legally be
able to attribute these messages to the sender.
In addition to employing information security mechanisms and other controls, techniques for
limiting exposure to liability include:
1. Trading partner and legal technical arguments
2. Compliance with recognized procedures, guidelines and practices
3. Audit and control programmers and reviews
4. Technical competence and accreditation
5. Proper human resource management
6. Insurance
7. Enhance notice and disclosure mechanisms and
8. Legislation and regulation addressing relevant secure electronic commerce issuing.

Digital Signatures: Section 2(p) of The Information Technology Act, 2000 defines digital signatures as
authentication of any electronic record by a subscriber by means of an electronic method or
procedure. A digital signature functions for electronic documents like a handwritten signature does
for printed documents. The signature is an unforgettable piece of data that asserts that a named
person wrote or otherwise agreed to the document to which the signature is attached. A digital
signature actually provides a greater degree of security than a handwritten signature. The recipient
of a digitally signed message can verify both that the message originated from the person whose
signature is attached and that the message has not been altered either intentionally or accidentally
since it was signed. Furthermore, secure digital signatures cannot be repudiated; the signer of a
document cannot later disown it by claiming the signature was forged. In other words, digital
signatures enable "authentication" of digital messages, assuring the recipient of a digital message of
both the identity of the sender and the integrity of the message. The fundamental drawback of
online contracts is that if there is no alternate means of identifying a person on the other side than
digital signatures or a public key, it is possible to misrepresent one’s identity and try to pass of as
somebody else.

Conclusion:
E-contracts are well suited to facilitate the re-engineering of business processes occurring at many
firms involving a composite of technologies, processes, and business strategies that aids the instant
exchange of information. The e-contracts have their own merits and demerits. On the one hand they
reduce costs, saves time, fasten customer response and improve service quality by reducing paper
work, thus increasing automation. With this, E-commerce is expected to improve the productivity
and competitiveness of participating businesses by providing unprecedented access to an on-line
global market place with millions of customers and thousands of products and services. On the other
hand, since in electronic contract, the proposal focuses not on humans who make decisions on
specific transactions, but on how risk should be structured in an automated environment. Therefore
the object is to create default rules for attributing a message to a party so as to avoid any fraud and
discrepancy in the contract.
 Internet Jurisdiction

The internet can be seen as a multi jurisdictional because of the ease which a user can access of
website anywhere in the world. It can be even viewed as a jurisdictional in the sense that from the
user‘s perspective that the state and national borders are essentially transparent. For courts
determining jurisdiction situation is more problematic. The court in Zippo mfg. v. Zippo dot com inc
said that there is a global revolution looming on the horizon and the development of the law in
dealing with the allowable scope of personal jurisdiction based on internet use in its infancy.

The developing law of jurisdiction must addressed whether a particular event in cyber space is
controlled by the law of state or country where the website is located, by the law of the state or the
country where the internet service provider is located. A number of commentators have voiced their
opinion that cyber space should be treated as separate jurisdiction. In practice this view has not
been supported or addressed by the law makers. Cyber jurisdictional cases have been dealt with
primarily in civil courts. Since the advent of US v. Thomas, infra and Minnesota v. Granite gate resort,
Cyber jurisdictions issues have been began to be examined in criminal courts as well.

Cyber Jurisdiction in Criminal Cases: - the question of cyber jurisdiction came to a forefront of
attention of early 1996 in US. v. Thomas where the sixth circuit upheld the conviction of a couple
operating a pornographic bulletin from their home. The defendant began, operating the amateur
computer bulletin broad system (AABBS) from their home199.

The AABBS content approximately 14000 gif files. These files should be easily accessed or retrieved
or download by one who possessed a password. 1994, a US magistrate judge issued a search
warrant which led to authorizing the confiscation of the defendant computers. The defendant was
convicted in the district courts against which they appealed. The court held that the statute must be
construed to affect the intent of the Congress which was to prevent any obscene matter. ―D argued
that the internet environment provides broad ranging connections among people in cyberspace. As
such that notion obscenity tied to geographical local would put a chill on protected speech.

‘D‘asserted a more flexible definition was needed was DMS operator could not select to receive their
materials.

The court ruled out that the D had pre existing method of screening potential members by pre-
screening their members; they could protect themselves from being subjected to liability in
jurisdiction with less tolerant standards. This could be further said that D was to tailor their message
on as selective to the communities it should to serve so there no need to develop any definition.

Liability of Internet Service Providers

Internet service Providers acts a link for the activities that takes place on the internet. He runs the
risk of being liable for information that is transmitted over the information system provide by his
services. S.79 of I.T. Ct, 200 provides the network service providers is not subject to any civil or
criminal liability under this act for any third party information or data made available by him, if, he
proves that the offence was committed without his knowledge., or that he had exercised all due
diligence to prevent the commissioning of such offence. NSPs will be held liable for their consent or
third party consent that they adopt or approve of.

With transactions occurring over an open network environment, questions are raised as to the
liability of the carriers of their transactions, disputes and problems arise. In the physical world,
intermediaries such as publishers for the content published by the authors. However, in the
electronic there are some classes of intermediaries who carry the data and do not exercise the direct
control over the content. For promoting the electronic transaction it is important to clarify the
liability if such NSPs. It is proposed that intermediaries who are ISPs are not responsible for thirds
party content for which they mere provide access to. It is necessary to insure that providers do not
shirk their responsibilities under the licensing scheme to regulate the undesirable content. The
provision therefore makes it clears that it will absolve ISPs from their licensing obligations.

Contractual Obligation in Cyberspace

In modern societies contracts are enforced in two quite different ways: publicly, through the court
system, and privately, largely through reputation. For a simple example of reputational
enforcement, consider a department store that guarantees to refund your money if you are not
satisfied. If, when you discover that the jacket you bought is the wrong size and your wife points out
that purple is not really your color, the store refuses to give you a refund, you are very unlikely to
sue them--the amount at stake is not enough to make it worth the time and trouble. Nonetheless,
almost all stores in that situation will, at least in my experience, take the product back--because they
want the reputation, with you and with other people you may discuss the incident with, of living up
to their promises.

For a more elaborate example of reputational enforcement, consider the New York diamond
industry as described in a classic article by Lisa Bernstein.1 At one point, somewhat before the time
she studied it, the industry had been mostly in the hands of orthodox Jews, forbidden by their
religious beliefs from suing each other. They settled disputes instead by a system of trusted
arbitrators and reputational sanctions. If one party to a dispute refused to accept the arbitrator’s
verdict, the information would be rapidly spread through the community, with the result that he
would no longer be able to function in that industry. The system of reputational enforcement
survived even after membership in the industry became more diverse, with organizations such as
the New York Diamond Dealer’s Club providing both trusted arbitration and information spreading.

The central thesis of this article is that, for contracts in cyberspace in the future, public enforcement
will work less well and private enforcement better than for contracts in realspace at present. A
secondary thesis is that while the factors that make public enforcement less workable in cyberspace
will not apply to contracts in realspace, the factors that make private enforcement more workable
will. Hence we can expect some shift from public to private mechanisms for enforcing both realspace
and cyberspace contracts, although the shift should be larger for the latter.

Problems with Public Enforcement in Cyberspace

Currently, commercial activity in cyberspace, mostly on the World Wide Web, is increasing rapidly.
Such commerce poses two rather different problems for conventional mechanisms of public contract
enforcement. One, which is likely to be important in the near future, is that cyberspace has no
geographical boundaries. Purchasing goods or services from the other side of the world is as easy as
purchasing them from your next door neighbor. Delivery of physical goods is more costly from the
other side of the world--but a considerable part of cyberspace commerce is in information goods
and services, and they can be delivered online just as they can be purchased online. It follows that
an increasing fraction of commercial transactions, especially of transactions by private individuals,
will be between parties in different countries.

Public enforcement of contracts between parties in different countries is more costly and uncertain
than public enforcement within a single jurisdiction. Furthermore, in a world where geographical
lines are invisible, parties to publicly enforced contracts will frequently not know what law those
contracts are likely to fall under. Hence public enforcement, while still possible for future online
contracts, will be less workable than for the realspace contracts of the past.

A second and perhaps more serious problem may arise in the future as a result of technological
developments that already exist and are now going into common use. These technologies, of which
the most fundamental is public key encryption, make possible an online world where many people
do business anonymously, with reputations attached to their cyberspace, not their realspace,
identities. 2

There are a variety of reasons why people may in the future wish to avail themselves of such
technologies. One is privacy; many people don’t want others to know what they are reading, buying,
or saying online.3 A second is to evade taxes--it is hard for the government to collect taxes on
activities it cannot see. A third is to evade regulations--whether commercial regulations in the U.S. or
religious regulations in a country controlled by Muslim fundamentalists. Anonymity is likely to be
particularly attractive to people living in parts of the world where property rights are insecure,
making secrecy a valuable form of protection. If, for these or other reasons, a significant amount of
commerce becomes anonymous, public enforcement of contracts will become increasingly
irrelevant; it is hard to sue someone when you do not know who he is or what continent he lives on.

Private Enforcement of Contracts

What about the private alternative? At first glance, one might think that the same changes that
made public enforcement of contracts more difficult in cyberspace would make private enforcement
not only difficult but impossible. My local department store keeps its promises in part because if I
am dissatisfied with their behavior, the people I talk to are likely to also be their customers; in a
future without geography, where everyone is shopping everywhere, that is far less likely. And it is
not obvious how you can injure someone’s reputation without knowing his name.

Both of these problems are soluble; in each case, online commerce provides not merely substitutes
for the reputational mechanisms with which we are already familiar but superior substitutes.

Consider first the problem of getting information from one customer to another. Considered as a
mechanism for spreading information, local gossip is very much inferior to a well designed search
engine. If, today, I am considering dealing with an online merchant and want to know whether other
customers have had problems with him, I do not bother to ask either friends or the Better Business
Bureau. A one minute search with Deja News will tell me whether anyone on Usenet News has
mentioned that firm any time in the past year, and show me what was said.

Online commerce is already institutionalizing such mechanisms. Consider eBay, a very successful
online auction site. Their software permits anyone who has won an auction to post comments on
the seller--whether the goods lived up to their description, were delivered promptly, or whatever
else he wants to say. The comments are available, both in summary form and in text, to anyone
bidding in an auction with that seller.

Advertising on the Web

Online advertising, also known as online marketing, Internet advertising, digital advertising or web
advertising, is a form of marketing and advertising which uses the Internet to deliver promotional
marketing messages to consumers. Many consumers find online advertising disruptive and have
increasingly turned to ad blocking for a variety of reasons. When software is used to do the
purchasing, it is known as programmatic advertising.

Online advertising includes email marketing, search engine marketing (SEM), social media marketing,
many types of display advertising (including web banner advertising), and mobile advertising. Like
other advertising media, online advertising frequently involves a publisher, who integrates
advertisements into its online content, and an advertiser, who provides the advertisements to be
displayed on the publisher's content. Other potential participants include advertising agencies who
help generate and place the ad copy, an ad server which technologically delivers the ad and tracks
statistics, and advertising affiliates who do independent promotional work for the advertiser.

In 2016, Internet advertising revenues in the United States surpassed those of cable television and
broadcast television. In 2017, Internet advertising revenues in the United States totaled $83.0
billion, a 14% increase over the $72.50 billion in revenues in 2016.

Many common online advertising practices are controversial and, as a result, have been increasingly
subject to regulation. Online ad revenues also may not adequately replace other publishers' revenue
streams. Declining ad revenue has led some publishers to place their content behind paywalls

Delivery methods
Display advertising conveys its advertising message visually using text, logos, animations, videos,
photographs, or other graphics. Display advertisers frequently target users with particular traits to
increase the ads' effect. Online advertisers (typically through their ad servers) often use cookies,
which are unique identifiers of specific computers, to decide which ads to serve to a particular
consumer. Cookies can track whether a user left a page without buying anything, so the advertiser
can later retarget the user with ads from the site the user visited.

As advertisers collect data across multiple external websites about a user's online activity, they can
create a detailed profile of the user's interests to deliver even more targeted advertising. This
aggregation of data is called behavioral targeting. Advertisers can also target their audience by using
contextual to deliver display ads related to the content of the web page where the ads appear.
Retargeting, behavioral targeting, and contextual advertising all are designed to increase an
advertiser's return on investment, or ROI, over untargeted ads.

Advertisers may also deliver ads based on a user's suspected geography through geotargeting. A
user's IP address communicates some geographic information (at minimum, the user's country or
general region). The geographic information from an IP can be supplemented and refined with other
proxies or information to narrow the range of possible locations. For example, with mobile devices,
advertisers can sometimes use a phone's GPS receiver or the location of nearby mobile towers.
Cookies and other persistent data on a user's machine may provide help narrowing a user's location
further.

Web banner advertising

Web banners or banner ads typically are graphical ads displayed within a web page. Many banner
ads are delivered by a central ad server.

Banner ads can use rich media to incorporate video, audio, animations, buttons, forms, or other
interactive elements using Java applets, HTML5, Adobe Flash, and other programs.

Frame ad (traditional banner)

Frame ads were the first form of web banners. The colloquial usage of "banner ads" often refers to
traditional frame ads. Website publishers incorporate frame ads by setting aside a particular space
on the web page. The Interactive Advertising Bureau's Ad Unit Guidelines proposes standardized
pixel dimensions for ad units.

Pop-ups/pop-unders
A pop-up ad is displayed in a new web browser window that opens above a website visitor's initial
browser window. A pop-under ad opens a new browser window under a website visitor's initial
browser window. Pop-under ads and similar technologies are now advised against by online
authorities such as Google, who state that they "do not condone this practice".

Floating ad
A floating ad, or overlay ad, is a type of rich media advertisement that appears superimposed over
the requested website's content. Floating ads may disappear or become less obtrusive after a pre-
set time period.

Expanding ad
An expanding ad is a rich media frame ad that changes dimensions upon a predefined condition,
such as a preset amount of time a visitor spends on a webpage, the user's click on the ad, or the
user's mouse movement over the ad. Expanding ads allow advertisers to fit more information into a
restricted ad space.

Trick banners
A trick banner is a banner ad where the ad copy imitates some screen element users commonly
encounter, such as an operating system message or popular application message, to induce ad clicks.
Trick banners typically do not mention the advertiser in the initial ad, and thus they are a form of
bait-and-switch. Trick banners commonly attract a higher-than-average click-through rate, but
tricked users may resent the advertiser for deceiving them.

News Feed Ads

"News Feed Ads", also called "Sponsored Stories", "Boosted Posts", typically exist on social media
platforms that offer a steady stream of information updates in regulated formats (i.e. in similar sized
small boxes with a uniform style). Those advertisements are intertwined with non-promoted news
that the users are reading through. Those advertisements can be of any content, such as promoting
a website, a fan page, an app, or a product.

This display ads format falls into its own category because unlike banner ads which are quite
distinguishable, News Feed Ads' format blends well into non-paid news updates. This format of
online advertisement yields much higher click-through rates than traditional display ads.

Display advertising process overview

The process by which online advertising is displayed can involve many parties. In the simplest case,
the website publisher selects and serves the ads. Publishers which operate their own advertising
departments may use this method.

Online advertising serving process - simple publisher case

The ads may be outsourced to an advertising agency under contract with the publisher, and served
from the advertising agency's servers.

Online advertising serving process using online bidding

Alternatively, ad space may be offered for sale in a bidding market using an ad exchange and real-
time bidding. This involves many parties interacting automatically in real time. In response to a
request from the user's browser, the publisher content server sends the web page content to the
user's browser over the Internet. The page does not yet contain ads, but contains links which cause
the user's browser to connect to the publisher ad server to request that the spaces left for ads be
filled in with ads. Information identifying the user, such as cookies and the page being viewed, is
transmitted to the publisher ad server.

The publisher ad server then communicates with a supply-side platform server. The publisher is
offering ad space for sale, so they are considered the supplier. The supply side platform also receives
the user's identifying information, which it sends to a data management platform. At the data
management platform, the user's identifying information is used to look up demographic
information, previous purchases, and other information of interest to advertisers.

Broadly speaking, there are three types of data obtained through such a data management platform:
First party data refers to the data retrieved from customer relationship management (CRM)
platforms, in addition to website and paid media content or cross-platform data. This can include
data from customer behaviors, actions or interests.
Second party data refers to an amalgamation of statistics related to cookie pools on external
publications and platforms. The data is provided directly from the source (adservers, hosted
solutions for social or an analytics platform). It is also possible to negotiate a deal with a particular
publisher to secure specific data points or audiences.
Third party data is sourced from external providers and often aggregated from numerous websites.
Businesses sell third-party data and are able to share this via an array of distribution avenues.
This customer information is combined and returned to the supply side platform, which can now
package up the offer of ad space along with information about the user who will view it. The supply
side platform sends that offer to an ad exchange.

The ad exchange puts the offer out for bid to demand-side platforms. Demand side platforms act on
behalf of ad agencies, who sell ads which advertise brands. Demand side platforms thus have ads
ready to display, and are searching for users to view them. Bidders get the information about the
user ready to view the ad, and decide, based on that information, how much to offer to buy the ad
space. According to the Internet Advertising Bureau, a demand side platform has 10 milliseconds to
respond to an offer. The ad exchange picks the winning bid and informs both parties.

The ad exchange then passes the link to the ad back through the supply side platform and the
publisher's ad server to the user's browser, which then requests the ad content from the agency's ad
server. The ad agency can thus confirm that the ad was delivered to the browser.

This is simplified, according to the IAB. Exchanges may try to unload unsold ("remnant") space at low
prices through other exchanges. Some agencies maintain semi-permanent pre-cached bids with ad
exchanges, and those may be examined before going out to additional demand side platforms for
bids. The process for mobile advertising is different and may involve mobile carriers and handset
software manufacturers.

Interstitial
An interstitial ad displays before a user can access requested content, sometimes while the user is
waiting for the content to load. Interstitial ads are a form of interruption marketing.

Text ads
A text ad displays text-based hyperlinks. Text-based ads may display separately from a web page's
primary content, or they can be embedded by hyperlinking individual words or phrases to the
advertiser's websites. Text ads may also be delivered through email marketing or text message
marketing. Text-based ads often render faster than graphical ads and can be harder for ad-blocking
software to block.

Search engine marketing (SEM)

Search engine marketing, or SEM, is designed to increase a website's visibility in search engine
results pages (SERPs). Search engines provide sponsored results and organic (non-sponsored) results
based on a web searcher's query. Search engines often employ visual cues to differentiate
sponsored results from organic results. Search engine marketing includes all of an advertiser's
actions to make a website's listing more prominent for topical keywords. The primary reason behind
the rising popularity of Search Engine Marketing has been Google. There were a few companies that
had its own PPC and Analytics tools. However, this concept was popularized by Google. Google Ad
words was convenient for advertisers to use and create campaigns. And, they realized that the tool
did a fair job, by charging only for someone's click on the ad, which reported as the cost-per-click for
which a penny was charged. This resulted in the advertisers monitoring the campaign by the number
of clicks and were satisfied that the ads could be tracked.

Search engine optimization (SEO)

Search engine optimization, or SEO, attempts to improve a website's organic search rankings in
SERPs by increasing the website content's relevance to search terms. Search engines regularly
update their algorithms to penalize poor quality sites that try to game their rankings, making
optimization a moving target for advertisers. Many vendors offer SEO services.

Sponsored search
Sponsored search (also called sponsored links, search ads, or paid search) allows advertisers to be
included in the sponsored results of a search for selected keywords. Search ads are often sold via
real-time auctions, where advertisers bid on keywords. In addition to setting a maximum price per
keyword, bids may include time, language, geographical, and other constraints. Search engines
originally sold listings in order of highest bids. Modern search engines rank sponsored listings based
on a combination of bid price, expected click-through rate, keyword relevancy and site quality.

Social media marketing

Social media marketing is commercial promotion conducted through social media websites. Many
companies promote their products by posting frequent updates and providing special offers through
their social media profiles.Videos, interactive quizzes, and sponsored posts are all a part of this
operation. Usually these ads are found on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Snapchat.

Mobile advertising
Mobile advertising is ad copy delivered through wireless mobile devices such as smartphones,
feature phones, or tablet computers. Mobile advertising may take the form of static or rich media
display ads, SMS (Short Message Service) or MMS (Multimedia Messaging Service) ads, mobile
search ads, advertising within mobile websites, or ads within mobile applications or games (such as
interstitial ads, "advergaming," or application sponsorship).Industry groups such as the Mobile
Marketing Association have attempted to standardize mobile ad unit specifications, similar to the
IAB's efforts for general online advertising.

Mobile advertising is growing rapidly for several reasons. There are more mobile devices in the field,
connectivity speeds have improved (which, among other things, allows for richer media ads to be
served quickly), screen resolutions have advanced, mobile publishers are becoming more
sophisticated about incorporating ads, and consumers are using mobile devices more extensively.
The Interactive Advertising Bureau predicts continued growth in mobile advertising with the
adoption of location-based targeting and other technological features not available or relevant on
personal computers. In July 2014 Facebook reported advertising revenue for the June 2014 quarter
of $2.68 billion, an increase of 67 percent over the second quarter of 2013. Of that, mobile
advertising revenue accounted for around 62 percent, an increase of 41 percent on the previous
year.
Email advertising
Email advertising is ad copy comprising an entire email or a portion of an email message. Email
marketing may be unsolicited, in which case the sender may give the recipient an option to opt out
of future emails, or it may be sent with the recipient's prior consent (opt-in). Businesses may ask for
your email and send updates on new products or sales.

Chat advertising
As opposed to static messaging, chat advertising refers to real-time messages dropped to users on
certain sites. This is done using live chat software or tracking applications installed within certain
websites with the operating personnel behind the site often dropping adverts on the traffic surfing
around the sites. In reality, this is a subset of the email advertising but different because of its time
window.

Online classified advertising

Online classified advertising is advertising posted online in a categorical listing of specific products or
services. Examples include online job boards, online real estate listings, automotive listings, online
yellow pages, and online auction-based listings. Craigslist and eBay are two prominent providers of
online classified listings.

Adware
Adware is software that, once installed, automatically displays advertisements on a user's computer.
The ads may appear in the software itself, integrated into web pages visited by the user, or in pop-
ups/pop-unders. Adware installed without the user's permission is a type of malware.

Affiliate marketing
Affiliate marketing occurs when advertisers organize third parties to generate potential customers
for them. Third-party affiliates receive payment based on sales generated through their promotion.
Affiliate marketers generate traffic to offers from affiliate networks, and when the desired action is
taken by the visitor, the affiliate earns a commission. These desired actions can be an email
submission, a phone call, filling out an online form, or an online order being completed.

Content marketing
Content marketing is any marketing that involves the creation and sharing of media and publishing
content in order to acquire and retain customers. This information can be presented in a variety of
formats, including blogs, news, video, white papers, e-books, infographics, case studies, how-to
guides and more. Considering that most marketing involves some form of published media, it is
almost (though not entirely) redundant to call 'content marketing' anything other than simply
'marketing'. There are, of course, other forms of marketing (in-person marketing, telephone-based
marketing, word of mouth marketing, etc.) where the label is more useful for identifying the type of
marketing. However, even these are usually merely presenting content that they are marketing as
information in a way that is different from traditional print, radio, TV, film, email, or web media.

Online marketing platform

Online marketing platform (OMP) is an integrated web-based platform that combines the benefits of
a business directory, local search engine, search engine optimisation (SEO) tool, customer
relationship management (CRM) package and content management system (CMS). eBay and
Amazon are used as online marketing and logistics management platforms. On Facebook, Twitter,
YouTube, Pinterest, LinkedIn, and other Social Media, retail online marketing is also used. Online
business marketing platforms such as Marketo, MarketBright and Pardot have been bought by major
IT companies (Eloqua-Oracle, Neolane-Adobe and Unica-IBM).

'Active' vs. 'Passive' Websites

Characteristics of a "Passive" Website:

Posting Information about a Company: Courts have held that merely posting information about a
company, i.e., using the website as an "advertising tool," does not subject that business to personal
jurisdiction.
Accepting Customers' Names and Addresses: The Ninth Circuit has recognized that a website that is
limited to taking customers' names and addresses is not sufficiently interactive to confer jurisdiction
over the business operating that site.
Limited Use of an Intermediary Seller (Such as on-line Auctions): The Ninth Circuit has held that
sellers of products via on-line auctions do not subject themselves to jurisdiction in the state where
the goods were sold. It has concluded that the limited of use of auction sites does not confer
jurisdiction because sellers do not know where the winning bidder will be located and thus are not
directing their activity at a specific state.

Characteristics of an "Active" Website:

Fully Interactive Sites that Take Frequent Orders from Within the Jurisdiction: The clearest example
of an active site is one that fully incorporates on-line ordering and actively does business in the
forum state. The Ninth Circuit has had no difficulty in determining that websites of major retailers
subject those companies to jurisdiction.
Advertising Website to Potential Customers in the Forum State: A business that advertises its
website within a jurisdiction is considered to be actively marketing its site and thus subjecting itself
to the laws of the jurisdiction where it advertises.
Frequent Use of an Intermediary Seller (Such as on-line Auctions): Without deciding the issue, the
Ninth Circuit noted that frequent use of an intermediary seller might confer jurisdiction because
frequent use is similar to directed sales.

What Is the Active and Passive Distinction?

An interactive or active website is one where business transactions can occur through the website or
information can be exchanged to solicit business. On the other hand, a passive website is one that is
used to post information for potential customers, but it does not allow for interaction. A passive
website is similar to an advertisement. The distinction is crucial because courts will confer personal
jurisdiction over companies that maintain active websites in the state where the consumer is
located. Active websites include sites that foster online sales, sites that take measures to solicit
business in a particular forum, and the use of a third-party site to sell an item. Not every website fits
neatly into these two categories, and issues arise when the website falls between the two.