International legal characterization of e-commerce regulation in the US and the EU

This article reveals the main trends in the regulation of international trade in modern international law. The aim of the article is to analyze the current sources of international trade law aimed at regulating online commerce in cyberspace, which has become the object of regulation in many regional international agreements, as well as to compare the approaches of the US and the EU to the regulation of commercial activities in cyberspace, in particular on the issue of personal data protection. The authors explore the problem of online commerce regulation by using comparative and critical methods of analysis, i.e. comparing the legal regulation in the United States and the EU and their critical evaluation. The authors also analyze the problem of personal data protection in cyberspace in this kind of commercial activity, taking into account the existing risks. The material for the study is based on the international legal regulation of trade, the so-called "soft law" norms adopted in the framework of UNSTIRAL, the US legislation (for example, the provisions of the Uniform Commercial Code (UCC), the Uniform Electronic Transactions Act (UETA), the Electronic Signatures in International and Internal Commerce Act) and the EU law, especially the EU Regulation 2016/679 of 27 April 2016 on the protection of individuals with regard to the processing of personal data and its free circulation. The article examines online commerce as an object of international law, types of online commerce and existing contracts of sale in cyberspace, then examines in detail the sources of regulation of online commerce in the US and EU, taking into account the legal development, then analyzes the problems of personal data protection and the difference between the US approach, expressed in minimal interference in the activities of entities involved in trade (the so-called "laissez-faire" approach), and the EU "paternalistic" approach, consisting in detailed regulation of rules of commercial activity To conclude, the authors have examined the issue related to the prospects of legal regulation of online commerce, taking into account the differences between the EU and its member states and the United States. A possible way out of this problem could be consistent cooperation based on bilateral agreements on specialized issues, adherence to the principles of international online trade set out in a New EU-U.S. Agenda for Global Change and the creation of a free trade area (FTA) between the EU and the U.S.