Gerrit Vandendriessche en Sven Van Damme updated the chapter on Belgian Law in the 2010 edition of 'Getting The Deal Through: e-Commerce'. This updated edition examines the regulation of e-commerce in 25 jurisdictions worldwide.
Gerrit Vandendriessche analyses here how viral marketing techniques are as such legitimate, provided that they comply with the applicable laws. In this article he also examines how a viral marketing technique, allowing a website to collect and use for marketing purposes the e-mail address from friends of a registered user of such website without the registered user's or the friend's consent, breaches section 5 of the Belgian Data Protection Act and section 14§ 1of the Belgian E-Commerce Act.
The Internet contains a lot of information. In 2002, the total number of web pages was estimated at 2,024 million; by 2005 this estimate had risen to 11.5 billion. The ever-increasing amount of information found on the Internet also has disadvantages. In this jungle of information, it is getting harder and harder to see the wood for the trees.
